Mount Pleasant’s Camden Randall and Peyton Davidson are looking to improve on the seventh-place limit of 8 pounds, 4 ounces they turned in for Day 1. A lot has to go right today, but another jolt of adrenalin like they experienced Friday morning would go a long way.
A 4-pound, 14-ounce largemouth is always noteworthy on the Carroll County 1000 Acre Recreational Lake, but the real story was how it went down.
“We started off in the morning knowing we were going to catch fish,” Randall said. “We started throwing topwater and we got a couple bites and they were short striking. That big one came up two times — I mean 5 yards from the boat — and missed (my walking bait).
“I saw her roll on the bait and I threw over there a third time and I was about to lift my bait out of the water and she came up and just smoked it.”
Pretty cool, huh?
Well, the drama didn’t end there. This crafty fish pulled a little boatside razzle dazzle that surely elevated the young lads’ blood pressure.
“We had the net ready, but she jumped over the net,” Randall explained. “We (eventually) got her in, put her in the bottom of the boat and just started yelling!
“It was a fun time. We’re going to try to get another one (on Day 2).”
The anglers caught their kicker in about 8 feet of water. Davidson said the fish were attracted to the deeper, cooler water, while Randall surmised that the lower barometric pressure of a morning thunderstorm opened a feeding window.
Notably, Randall said a key change pushed the noncommittal fish over the edge.
“She rolled on a Heddon Zara Spook first and then I picked up a Rebel Pop-R and tried to make a different presentation,” he said. “The Pop-R was a bluegill color. We’ve been fishing it for 15 years. It’s one of those old ones they don’t make anymore.”