For me it was the day that ended my "traditional" bass fishing. I had seen where Troy Folkstad had been wrecking fish at the Lagoon on Optimum swimbaits. He had multiple 40 - 50 pound limits so I thought that I would give it a try. I picked up (2) 8" Optimums and loaded up my flippin stick set up with 15 pound. Ended up going to the lagoon with a buddy that bought the same bait as I did. I have a pretty bad memory but I do remember the first cast that I made. As my bait hit the water... I chuckled and said something to the effect of "I think I just scared every bass in the lake and made the water rise 2 feet". As we walked down the shore I had a massive explosion right at the bank about three feet in front of me but the fish missed the bait. My buddy was about 10 feet from me and immediately made a cast in front of me. I cast the other dorection about 15 feet out. The fish ended up eating my bait again right at my feet. It ended up going 15.1 on his scale (glad he had one because I didn't even own one). I also had one about 3 pounds that morning. at that point I said to myself that if I could catch giants as well as 3 pounders, why would I use worms anymore. That day truly changed my life as a bass fisherman to a swimbait fisherman. Rob has the picture of what I think was the 15 pounder (although when I sent it to him I said it was 13)(Can you post it Rob???). I'm not 100% sure as most of my pictures disappeared years ago. Being an ex-baseball player, I was very supersticious. I wore the same clothes, hat, shoes, ect... so that one may be a 13 but I think it was the 15. I ended up going 4 or 5 times in the next 2 weeks and caught an absolute ton of big ones. Most of the time was by myself so I didn't get any pictures but occasionally I would go with my buddy. Not sure how many fish I caught in those trips but I caught a bunch of 7 - 13 pound fish on the same baits. I ended up getting a scale the next Christmas (a year later).

Everyone has a story about the "one" that got away. A few days after I caught my first, I ended up hooking one that got the best of me. There were three people that saw me hook the fish that were close by. After 2 or 3 attempts at jumping, the fish spit the bait about 10 feet in front of me. I was heartbroken to say the least. 2 out of the 3 people had fish over 17 pounds before out of the lagoon. One of them said it was at least 18 and the other said it was pushing 20. I have no idea how big but it was definitely bigger than the 15 I caught a few days prior. I'm still looking for a fish that size. If I only would have known then what I know now about rigging, rods, reels, line, how to fight the fish... I know that I would have landed that fish.

Anyways, Rob... can't find the picture, can you post it?

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/user_files/7146-lagoon.jpg