For a five day trip, my buddy Jackson and I took off to southern Florida to search for really any type of fish that swam. Fishing both the salt and freshwater for five days, we caught several barracudas, snapper, flounder, and countless other species. However, it was on the last day of the trip in the canal behind his house that the fish of the trip hit my fly.

It was early in the morning (probably 8AM) when Jax and I began blind casting into this freshwater canal. After catching a monster grass carp on a bonefish fly of all things, I decided to tie on a big, ugly, wooly bugger and begin searching for the monster bass that I had yet to catch.

At about 9:30, I began walking down the bank and saw a cove with plenty of structure, and a very deep bank that caught my eye. First cast right along the bank – smack – set – fish on. The largemouth immediately jumped and fought me all over the canal (almost breaking my 8 pound tippet around a log). After a great fight and a “lay down grab” to land the fish, my 6 pound largemouth was in, and Jackson had the camera ready.