The birthday present...

I usually try to catch a good fish on my birthday. A birthday gift to myself I guess. Well today wasn't going very well... It had been a crappy day at work, seemingly everything going wrong and now it was time to go fishing and it was blazing hot. The sign at the bank said 93 and it felt at least that. I knew a spot that fished well normally in the heat so I went there. Very first cast as soon as the lure hit the water a smallie grabbed it. If as the saying goes a fish on the first cast is bad luck what is a fish on the very first inch of the first cast??? Very bad luck indeed it seemed. I caught one more small fish in the next two hours as my brains fried inside my skull. In the distance you could hear thunder rumbling but that only seemed to up the humidity. Okay time for a break. I walked back to the truck and drove down the road to buy a pop. I drove back to my spot and sat in the ac drinking the pop debating if I should just call it a day. Just then the sky opened up and it poured. I mean rained cats and dogs for about thirty minutes before the storm blew over. I got out of the truck and it felt considerably cooler than when I'd gotten in. And evening was starting to come on. Time to go fishing. The lure is a brand new one I've been testing for Vic that I've fallen in love with but that's not ready for market he tells me. As soon as it hit the water a dandy smallmouth nailed it. But no bad luck followed this time. What followed was magical and simply the best hour of fishing for the entire year. Seemingly each fish was a bit bigger than the last and I'm sure four were Fish Ohio fish with a couple well past that! I remember thinking that back in the day when I first started river fishing hard that I probably didn't catch as many big smallies in a year as I just did in the last hour. What a birthday it ended up being after all....