I had a couple hours in the morning, so I decided to stop by Island lake and wet a line from the shore for a while. I hadn't had much luck for bass from this lake, but I'd read some reports of some decent fish here, so I thought I'd give it a try. After a few casts with my little green crawdad around the lily pads, I moved over the the right of the public dock to the partially submerged logs. On the second or third cast, I felt a fish pick up my bait and then quickly drop it. I hopped it again and the fish sucked it in. I set the hook and then held on as she started stripping drag. I only had 6lb line on my spinning outfit, so I let her run and slowly started working her back toward me. After a good four or five minute fight, I got her to the water's edge. She was huge, and could've easily eaten all the other fish that I'd caught out of that lake. I didn't have a camera or a scale or anything with me, but a local trout fisherman on the dock offered his scale. So I hauled her up there to his rusty old scale that had probably been sitting in the bottom of his tackle box longer than I'd been alive. Even that old thing registered over eight pounds and the tape said 23 inches long. I wasn't there much longer and I didn't catch anything else, but it was still my best day at Island lake by far.

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