After an hour and about 10 fish later we decided to move towards the marina to see if we could entice a few using soft plastics. In our conversation at his shop the previous day, I shared some stories about my success with Senko’s with Bob and he told me he’d heard a lot about them (and sold a lot of them) but he never had any success using them. As I said before Bob is primarily a walleye guy now and his favorite fish doesn’t seem to be prone to the mesmerizing wiggle of the senko. I came clean and told Bob that there really wasn’t much to fishing senkos and I’d show him my favorite techniques when we got out there. As we approached the marina Bob pointed out some good spots where he used to fish from shore and/or a belly boat. I must say, Bob’s anecdotes not only reinforced my faith in his incredible knowledge of this fishery, but in his extensive knowledge of angling in general. Here's a look at the dock surrounding the marina:

As we pulled up to the dock Bob recommended that I toss my senko into the small pools created by the gaps in the tires. I methodically tossed into each hole as the wind blew us into the cove, letting the bait sit for a moment and then bringing it back to the boat for another pitch. As we began to pass the dock itself I figured I’d try to toss down the small channel that runs parallel to the dock and drag that green pumpkin with red flake stickbait back towards the boat.

In order to get the most vertical drop possible I casted onto the top of the dock and slowly crept the senko to the edge until it fell softly into the water. It didn’t take more then a second or two for my line to begin sweeping to the left and I quickly jerked up with my signature eye crossing hook set (which sometimes sends lures zipping towards my head). The sound of my drag screaming immediately alerted me that this was going to be a good one. Only then did I realize that this was going to get REAL interesting. “How the heck am I going to get this fish out of there?”, I said aloud. Bob however knew I only had one choice, “Keep her head up and drag her over the tires” he shouted as animated as ever. There was no playing around with this hawg, I had to get her to the boat as quickly as possible. I reeled her closed to the first set of tires and muscled her over the outer ring and into the first pool stretching my 6lb test to its limits. She hit the first pool and immediately dove to the bottom running back under the tires. With a quick drag adjustment and a subsequent jerk I lifted her back over the next set of tires and into the last pool where she repeated her dive. By this time Bob was reaching into the pool with the net waiting for me to bring her back up. When I muscled her back up Bob swooped underneath her and finished the deal.

To be continued.....