The 50 Year Storm

Have you ever seen the movie “Point Break”? It’s a classic movie about a bunch of surfers who are bank robbers. The Reeves (Keanu) goes undercover to stop these dudes and needs to learn how to live the surfer life to try to catch these guys. In a nut shell, he finally catches the bad guy, a bad ass dude named Bodie (Patrick Swayze) but has to let him go. He caught him where he knew he’d find him, where the 50 year storm would hit. This 50 year storm would produce waves as big as sky scrapers. Every big wave surfer’s dream. Only once every 50 years would this event show it’s face on the planet. While Bodie is looking at the waves, handcuffed and going to prison, in true ripper fashion, the Reeves then decides to let him go so he can surf the waves that came only once every 50 years…

I had a similar story, not like I was handcuffed or anything and going to prison, but I surfed a 50 year storm….with my fishing pole.

All my life I wanted to catch a big 10 plus pound bass. Not just catch a 10 pound bass bass, but a 10 pound bass on a 8 inch trout swimbait. Knowing that bass fishing can produce a 50 year storm once or maybe twice in your life (but if you know what’s up, it happens frequently, I give those guys mad respect. Except those who take it to their heads.), I had heard from a close, short, hairy friend that an epic bite was on at a specific lake. I don’t need to disclose any names because if you know, you know.

I would like to point out that this friend had only been fishing for 1 year and caught a 45 pound bag during this epic swell. A 45 pound bag on jigs! Jigs! This feat will probably never be repeated for the rest of his life, but who knows, maybe it will….scum bag. (just kidding).

Well, I decided to go out with him 2 days following the amazing day that he had on the water. On this day, I brought my Crucial 7’11” Heavy swimbait rod with a Cardiff 301 rigged with 25 pound P-Line maxima and a 12 ROF Huddie tied on the end.

We hit the spot where he hooked his fish with minimal luck (nothing, except he unbuttoned a toad earlier in the day) and decided to move on. Once we hit the next main lake point, I was determined to keep hucking that Huddie for one of these hungry pre-spawn Florida strain largemouth bass. Low and behold, I got bit. I could not believe it. A bite on a HUD! That was enough to get my heart pumping faster than I have ever experienced while fishing. I love adrenaline, and this was the perfect fix. I kept repeating in awe, “I got bit on my Hud, I got bit on my Hud!”
The next cast was the start of my 50 year storm. Slowly rolling my Huddie on the lake bottom, the Hud was nailed by a 7.5 pounder. Best fight ever. I even was lucky enough to catch it on film.

Blissssssssss.

Immediately after I let this fish go, I thought to myself, ”Wait, I read once where there is one big bass, there is usually another…” Two casts later, I caught my new PB and my first 10 pound plus, a beautiful ten and a half pound, trophy sized bass.

Following that day was one month filled with the best fishing of my life. Multiple 9 pounders each day I went out, a humongous bag over one weekend, landed another ten plus fish that may have been my new PB(forgot my scale), watched two other Turdz get their PB’s and I experienced it all with some of my favorite people to go fishing with. Was it for the taking, I will never know…we were always the only ones on the water!

After thinking about the why this occurred, I came up with a list of things that helped align the stars…

• Lake closed to boats (Except when you launch them by hand. This allowed us to bring a 14 ft. Aluminum with a 15 hp 4 stroke)
• Pre-spawn
• Trout hungry bass
• Weekly trout plants for one month straight
• No trolling motor so we were constantly anchoring our boats making no noise what so ever
• Many types of Huddlestons available at the local shop
• Proper gear investment before the storm
• Moon was just right

Without all of those elements being perfectly aligned, I would have never experience the bite that I had. I actually do not know if it will happen again. Of course I hope it does, but I swear, I feel like if I were to die now and look back upon my life, I would be proud to have accomplished the goal that I set for myself in Largemouth Bass fishing; to catch trophy bass on trout swimbaits.

Be prepared for your storm. Have the right gear, go to the right spots, research, ask questions, and most of all, HAVE FUN! Thank you, BassTurdz.