After six solid months of trying in vain to catch a Largemouth Bass (LMB) at Lumot Lake, Cavinti, Laguna, I finally caught my very first LMBs!
I am an advocate of "catch and release" to push for sustainable fishing practices, but we're talking about a milestone here! My first LMBs! Though, as a side note, I did try to release the fish after each photo op but they were turning upside down already when I tried to release them. So there's no sense of releasing just for the fish to die and lay in waste. I think they got so beaten up when I landed them on my boat due to my excitement whenever I reeled in the catch. The third fish I caught, got unhooked when it hit the side of my speedboat and it got away. I should be feeling bad about losing it, but I caught two LMBs already and I have pictures to brag about my catch!
So what's the secret!?
Now thinking about it, I am really going to be selfish on this one <LOL>! What?! Do you expect me, after spending 6-months trying to figure out how to catch LMBs at Lumot Lake, to just blurt out my secret just like that and make it easy for you?! As my sweet loving wife would fondly say, "No way highway"! HAHAHAHA but kidding aside, I need to do another trip to confirm my findings before I start sharing my learnings. Just keep reading and you'll find out my secrets eventually.
So, if you've read my previous blog "Decoding Lumot Lake 2019.06.18", I finally reached a point of frustration of not being able to catch LMBs while my other angler buddies always get lucky whenever they go fishing at the lake. My favorite line in "The Martian", uttered by Matt Damon, is “I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.” So that's exactly what I did! This trip was the tipping point! Either I finally catch one or forget Lumot Lake and head up North to Pantabangan Dam where I think I'll have a better luck catching really big LMBs.
My favorite line in "The Martian", uttered by Matt Damon, is “I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.” So that's exactly what I did!
This was a solo trip, I intentionally did not invite other anglers to join me since I needed to focus on fishing and testing my assumptions. Assisting me in this trip is our house helper Julius to help me with the launch and retrieval of the speedboat at the boat ramp in Barangay Lumot. Even though rainy season officially started already, the water level at the lake was still very low making it a bit difficult to get the speedboat back onto the trailer.
The speedboat was on the water around 7:45AM... We went around to scan for spots but could not seem to find areas where fishes abound. We went as far as Holon, Cyrus Capuno's favorite spot... still nothing registered on the fish finder... So we went back to the areas near the boat ramp and that's where we found groups of fishes hovering on the lake bed. It was breezy, overcast and would seem like it's about to rain any minute. Wind was blowing Northwestern direction. I found a spot that was blocking the current and the wind so that's where we anchored first. Even though there were a lot of beeps and fishes showing on the fish finder, there were no bites, not even an inquiry. Then it started to rain hard... I ended up spending the rest of the morning waiting for the rain to stop and then when it did, I started receiving calls from clients and answering email inquiries on my laptop. Yes, it's a Thursday, I brought work with me. We had Andok's chicken and 2 sticks of BBQ for lunch. I almost resigned to the feeling of not being able to catch any fish that day and almost gave up trying.
Around 2PM, we went around the lake to look for other areas where fishes might be lurking.. I am really puzzled why we still could not find any substantial spots full of fish. It's like every fish in Lumot Lake went on a vacation somewhere... so at around 3PM, I decided to start heading back to the boat ramp and call it a day... then there's this one last spot that I have not checked on yet... so I headed to that area, one of those coves near the boat ramp and then suddenly, as we reached the area, my fish finder lit up like a Christmas tree, started beeping and showed lots of fish icons! I told Julius to drop anchor immediately, and then I stood at the bow and started fishing. It was a good cast. As I tugged on the line and reeled it in inch by inch, the line felt like it got snagged. ARRGGGh, not again! But wait! It's moving and I felt it pulling back! Boom! And that's when I realized that I finally caught a Large Mouth Bass! Finally!!! YABADABADOOOOOO!
I tried fishing for more, thinking baka chamba lang... and then just a few minutes later, another catch! At around 5PM, after reeling in my 3rd catch of the day, the fish jumped out of the water, hit the side of the boat, got unhooked and got away, ---I then called it a day. Mission accomplished! I was so ecstatic! What a day!
I will be posting the fishing equipment I used, the rig setup that proved so effective, the bait I used and my learnings on when the LMBs are active and biting on my next blog.