A sweet largemouth bass at Riverbend Ponds

July 17, 2012 will go down as one of the best times I've ever had while fishing.

I took off for Riverbend Ponds in eastern Fort Collins at around 1 p.m., when Weather.com said would be the best weather patterns for fishing all day.

It turns out, they were right.

Right when I found a suitable spot on the biggest of all the ponds, free of downed trees where I could see the bottom well, there was a massive bass swimming just feet from the shore.

It got my blood pumpin', that's for sure.

Some 20 minutes later I felt an enormous tug on the line--one of those big largemouth bass hit my yellow Rooster Tail!

He swam hard, then after fighting the fish, it went airborne in an attempt to throw the hook!

What excitement.

I finally pulled it into shore and it turns out it was the biggest bass of my life.

At just over 14", it must have weighed in at over five pounds, though I don't have a scale.

(Note to self next time I'm shopping for fishing gear, buy a scale.)

The fish was big and beautiful, and even as I had it laying in some very shallow water, it fought and got back into the pond, trying its hardest to pull away. Luckily it didn't pull my rod and reel into the pond and I got it back onto shore for a few pictures.

Just holding that massive bass by its mouth was amazing and my adrenaline surged for minutes beyond the catch.

Around a half an hour later, it was a very nice sized bluegill--a much different color scheme than the ones from North Shields Ponds too I might add.

After a few hours passed, I moved over to the smaller pond near Prospect, but caught up in someone else's old line for 10 minutes before rescuing my favorite yellow Rooster Tail, and took off to look at the other ponds.

But when I saw an inlet area, I discovered some 20-30 very big largemouth bass lounging around.

I had to get to that area, but couldn't fish it from the side I was on due to very steep walls and lots of overgrown trees.

So I went all the way around the pond's edge--it could be some 20 feet higher at maximum, though I doubt it ever gets that high--and had to hike for 20 minutes to get to my spot.

It was a sweet adventure though, and well worth the effort in the end.

I fought through thick cattails just by the shore, and cleared a spot to fish from.

The sun beat down in my face and was still blazing, even at 5 p.m.

Seeing the silhouettes of the big bass in the water made me forget--at least for a second--how hot and humid it was and on the fish.

Of course, for whatever reason, I couldn't get another great big one to bit my lures.

The big floating Rapalas I have scared the bass away, and they didn't care about the spinners.

But two smaller bass did, one around 8", the other only a mere 3", bringing my total up to four fish caught on the day.

What an amazing day of fishing it was.

One I'll certainly never forget.