The tale of three bass

The bass action on area lakes has been excellent, to say the least. If it hasn't been excellent, then you're probably not fishing for lunkers anyhow.

I've caught my fair share of largemouths already this year, but three of the bass I've caught, from three different lakes, have boggled my mind, slightly.

The first bass, caught the Sunday of opening weekend in the rain while fishing at Buckmaster Bridge, came in at roughly 19 inches, and hoisting it up I thought that it'd catch 3 1/2 pounds on the scale — or 2 pounds, dead on. I was surprised by this, but I surmised it must have been a postspawn bass, fresh out of eggs and finally ready to feed again.

This past Saturday, while fishing the shoreline to the east of the fishing pier at West Jefferson, I pulled in another whopper of a fish. When I hoisted it out of my net, I started thinking that very few fish bass I've caught had the length of this baby (using the pliers in these pictures, I was able to give some scale; the pliers is 6 1/2 inches long). But when I threw this bucketmouth on the scale, it came in just over 3 pounds.

Seriously?

Well, Monday I took to the shores of Lura Lake, and I pulled in the best of them yet, and this one measured shorter but weighed in at 4 pounds, 1 ounce. A good fight, too. Later I caught about a 15 incher that weight just over 2 pounds. Go figure.

Everyone asks me why I'm seeing such a difference in the fish, and honestly, I don't have a good answer to that. The postspawn, empty belly scenario seems most likely, but the two bigger bass on Lura definitely had full bellies, and the 2-pounder looked as though it might still have had eggs in its belly.

Whatever the case, I'm just glad to be able to pull in quality fish from our area lakes.