Fish To The End

On a recent trip with friends, my son and Jackson team mate Ethan Funk learned a valuable lesson; don’t stop casting till you are back to the truck! We had fished for the morning and it had gotten very hot on the Chattahoochee River. We had paddled up river and thoroughly fished every rock pile and tree along the way.
We had already had a good morning catching largemouth, spotted and shoal bass. After reaching our upriver destination it would have been very easy to turn around and just paddle out through all the “used” water we had just fished. We turned to head back and Ethan paddled our Kilroy over to a pile of trees I had just worked over.
I heard his buzzbait clattering along and then a tremendous splash from a good fish. I whipped my kayak around and grabbed the camera about the time he yelled “it’s a shoalie!!!” We love bass, all species of them, but the shoal bass is by far our favorite. When those brown tiger striped critters hit you have your hands full and this one was giving Ethan a run for his money.
It pulled the Kilroy in a circle and gave several drag pulling runs before he brought it to boat side. When he lipped the bass and held it up I could see his excitement. This was a solid shoal bass, just shy of 19” and it was his personal best. Had we just paddled back he would have missed the chance at this beautiful fish. He knows full and well we always fish to the end!