My Dad took this photo of me with a 21 inch smallmouth bass.



..and a 20-incher caught a few minutes later.



The first fish was coughing up alewives when I was landing him, and the second one had an alewife tail sticking out of his throat.

Wow nice big healthy smallies! I'll bet they put up a fight!

I love smallie fights! The first one jumped just once, but the second one jumped at least five times!!! My Dad was teasing me about taking my sweet time landing it, but the 4-lb test was extremely frayed.

Bruce, your shoulders have shrunk since I was there! From looking at those pics, what are they, 10" wide now?

Dude, those are amazing fish. Big Mac seems to be raising some huge SMB - that's incredible news. Now if we could just target them with regularity! Sure seems like the water is way up - I think I recognize exactly where you're fishing too.

Is that like an all rock bottom where you just rip a crank bait across the bottom, bumping all the rocks?

Crazy fish!!!

Yes, it's all rock for at least twenty feet vertical. Very exciting fishing!

Thanks! I love smallies. When can I pay my dues?

What exactly was the inscription on the other side of the bass that you were reading so intently?

"Handle with Care"

I think the inscription was "TJ says to look at the fish, not the camera!"

Did you get any weights ? Beautiful fish - great condition. Bruce you have morphed - , half man / half seal - no wonder you catch nice fish.

No weights, unfortunately.

We were expecting to catch striped bass hybrids and walleye...the latter for the table. In previous years of this type of fishing we've caught a few smallies up to about 2.5 pounds, but these two were by far my personal bests.

Wow, great fish! Wonderful to see that lake thriving. Keep hearing great reports. Nicely done!

Those are some fat Brown Bass...Beautiful.

4 lb test in rocks, with SMB that size? You are crazier than I am. I love the fight and challenge on light spinning tackle, especially in hostile environments, but you push the envelope.

I fish 6lb mono in weed beds all the time, but it really take some skills to impose your will.

This is me being lazy, as you may have already told us, but what were you using to imitate alewifes?

Im guessing big old swimbaits or one of those erratic X-Raps...Please indulge.

Bruce do you do anything besides travel the country and fish ridiculous BOW's???

I think it has been previously established that while traveling the country and fishing these ridiculous BOW's, Bruce occasionally stays at a Holiday Inn Express, and the next morning he wakes up and thinks he is a dentist.