Roscoe, Illinois

Last Monday was a rough day. I only caught one 7" Smallmouth. While of course my wife caught several, including a 16.5" Smallie. And yep there's a story here. And I didn't put my wife's picture first cause I'm still mad 😡. It's cold & extremely windy with 40mph gusts. I was thinking we don't need to be out here. But I find an area kind of out of the wind and tie the bow of the boat to a downed tree and drop the rear anchor. I'm fishing a small jig/minnow while my wife has a larger jig/fathead combo. I'm fishing off the port side, the left side of the boat. She's fishing the starboard side, the right side. This is important. I make a cast up river and start jigging back towards me and BAM, that little 7" Smallie nailed the jig, first cast. I'm thinking this is gonna be a good day. My wife didn't say anything, she just giggled at my dinky catch. So I put on another minnow and cast up to the exact same spot and SLAM! This time it's a bigger fish and it heads directly into the tree I tied to and I lost it in the branches. Now I'm all excited, 2nd cast big hit. So as I'm hurrying to put on another minnow my wife spins in her seat from right to left and lowers her jig into the same branches where I just lost a fish. Ok I'm sure you guessed it... WHAM! She says "honey, I got a fish". I looked up at her in disbelief. She hooked MY FISH! It had to be! Not even 5 seconds after I loose it she catches one in the EXACT spot. After netting a nice 16.5" smallmouth I looked at her and said " I can't believe you did that to me, that was my fish"! She laughed. I says "not fair, you don't do that to your fishing partner, especially when it's your husband ". She's still laughing. I didn't see the humor in it at all, at least not at that time. Sure I was happy she caught a fish, but that was rotten and sneaky how she did it. And that was it for me the whole frickin day, not another bite. In fact my day turned to crap after that. Had mechanical issues with the hydraulic trim/tilt unit. Then hit a rock bar and got the boat stuck in the middle of the river, the water is really low. Now sure she caught more fish, and I kept baiting her hooks and taking off her fish. She said "thank you" for being a good husband. But man, I can't get over her stealing my fish. What do you all think? Did she cross a line in taking my spot while I was rebaiting? Was that ethical behavior on her part? Or am I just over reacting or even being a big baby over one fish? Once again thanks for reading my cheesy stories about our days on the water. I just like sharing and hope y'all enjoy! Keep on Kasting! 🙂

Nice fight

Quality bass on a productive fishing day. Brought in about 15 during our time on the water👍

Little chunk

Chunk

Smallmouth