11/21/08 The day that ends my season in back started out with an unprecedented surprise. No, it wasn't the 12 degree wind chill, or the sheet of ice covering the deck of the boat or even the predicted 1" of snow forecasted, it was the water temperature and the dramatic plunge. I thought I was having a gauge malfunction when the chart plotter read 38 degree water temps but after an entire day of fishing it was true, our temps never got above 41 degrees all day which is stunning considering the day prior was 55 degrees. When we arrived at our first stop of the day I said to my client, today is a big fish day, we won’t have big numbers but we will have weight and our 2nd stop and 2nd cast proved that to be true. The magical "Fortune Fly" once again delivers the biggest bass of the season on the fly. We hooked up with this bruiser and it was immediately game on as he dug deep and rode the current with a long steady run putting us into the back in quick order. After a lengthy battle on the 8wt. rod we had a beautiful 19lb. 38" Striped specimen boatside for some photos before releasing him to fight another day. A real trophy Bass for the SJ shallows. We got back into position to repeat the process and a few minutes later we were tight again with another Bass, only this one was in the 27" 10 lb range. We fished several other areas hard but only managed to have a few lethargic strikes until the last area of the day when we picked up 1 more schoolie in the 24" class to end the trip. I will spend the next 2 weeks running out front in the big boat so my reports will continue to be updated until the 1st week in December.