Me and the wife were fishing for perch and I hooked into something that surprised me. It was a smallmouth bass, about 10 -12 inches long. Gave a good fight on my ultra-light perch rig. Anyway, I have plenty of perch for bait tonight and it was fun to fight him.

By the way, I let that trash fish go. It's just nice to add to the "species I've now caught" list.

Did you get a picture ? If so, please post it!!

Man I was kicking myself in the a__ for not bringing the camera. It was a great time of day and would have made a great pic, but I didn't have the darn camera. I almost never take it but I think I will now, especially fishing from the bank (or floating dock in this case).

Still it was great fun and there were some kids that had been fishing with their mother on the bank nearby but had just come over to see how we were doing. We caught a couple perch and then that smallmouth. My wife and those kids were all saying "what is that?" because it was obviously a bass but not the familiar largemouth. I recognized it from photos of the species. There were also a lot of boaters using the dock to load and unload and I got a few looks from them.

It was funny, we were fishing from the loading dock at the boat ramp on a holiday weekend and only got attitude from some jet-skiers. We were only perch fishing so every time a boat came nearby we asked if they wanted more room or we just got out of the way with no issue. But those tiny little watercraft were a different story...

"By the way, I let that trash fish go. It's just nice to add to the "species I've now caught" list."

You catfish, guys, I'm tellin' ya!