Fishing with an old friend for the first time

Today I met up with Randy Ellison at Hawthorn Lake, a pretty typical weekend really, I have no tournaments the rest of the year and it is time to start thinking about ice fishing.  However when I get a chance the boat comes out and I try to get another trip out.  Today was neat because I met up with Randy, for the first time ever to fish with him.  I have known Randy for about decade via different Internet forums and Facebook.  Countless emails, PM's, and text messages have taken place the last decade as well as reading each others fishing reports.  Our paths have crossed a couple times at tournaments but that has been it.  Today we shared the boat on a lake and it is like we have been close friends for years.  I guess the Internet is good for some things...like starting great friendships!  I always enjoy fishing with new people and today was no different, it was a great day on the water.

Lake Hawthorn was a little stingy, by its measures anyway, only giving up 20-25 bass.  However, we slowly learned that the bass were only interested in slow moving baits and they were definitely hanging in summer areas.  Almost all our fish today came in water depths greater than 8 feet deep.  I caught most of my fish on Hot Rod Baits Big Craw, while Randy did his damage with a Wig's Jig and Chunk trailer.  It was great fishing with Randy, he has the same work ethic for finding bass as I do and we worked well together to score a lot of keepers today.  I would share my boat with Randy anytime in the future, whether it be another fun trip or a big tournament.  

Although the calendar says September 27th, the water temperature gauge was saying 72 degrees, which is probably the reason we had to move to deeper water to catch fish.  The ones we did catch were nice fish, including 8 keeper sized bass (over 16-inches) came into the boat today.  October is almost here, perhaps that month with begin the fall "feed-up"!