Well with the economic downfall in full swing, Fridays have become an extension of the weekend for me, many of my co-workers and friends.  While this has provided extra time to spend with a brand new baby and my wife, it has also provided extra time to do a little fishing.

Today my friend Maston and I met up early in the morning to try and give Lake Varner a shot.  We figured that even though we have suffered enough skunking and lowsy fishing at this lake, maybe the combination of both of us will spark something magical.  Well, after trolling to the far reaches of this trolling motor only lake, we reached a location that we felt would produce.  It was a 10+ deep whole with a shallow flat nearby.  We were hoping to catch some fish in the early stages of bedding, in hopes that they would be moving out of some deeper water up on to shallow flats to prepare their bedding area and feasting on pearl crank baits and rattle traps.  The rattle trap was inspired by KVD's recent victory at the Bassmaster Classic.  I mean come on, every walmart across the country is sold out of rattle traps after he threw his signature bait for 3 days to beat the rest of the field.

 Anyways, I started out with a decent hook up that came unbuttoned, but it was one of those that you could just tell it was no dink.  The very next cast I landed a solid 2.5lber.  Maston then connected with a nice 2lber and I followed up with a 1lber. 

We were pretty happy after the excitement of getting rid of the skunk and decided we had pounded this location pretty hard and we should move around and see if we can find another location with similar characteristics.  No quicker than we could say "hey, this spot looks good" a fish hit my crank bait right at the boat and immediatly began pulling drag.  Well after a tough fight the fish finally surfaced and we could tell it was a monster.  Maston grabbed the net and thank goodness he did, because this fish straightened the treble hook as he lifted him into the boat.  This one weighed in at 7lbs (6lbs 14oz) and was worthy of breaking out the camera phone.  The 7lber got put back, but we kept the others for the frying pan.