Tennesseeeeeeeeee!!!

We just came back from our week at my FIL lakehouse. Man, that was the best fishing I've seen so far in this small patch of the Watts Barr Reservoir! My son caught his first fish on this trip, then he was like, "OK, been there, done that..." after he saw the 2nd one wasn't immediately forth coming. As for me, I was catching bass left and right mostly on this little gem from the orient, the Yamasenko! I was using other rigs like, the shakeyhead worm, frogs, etc. I caught a 17" on the shakeyhead, and I kept missing with the frog. It seems they'd strike next to it all the time, I'd count 2 seconds, then yank hard, only to launch the frog at 2000 mph towards me. I finally lost this frog. You know the loop that you tie the frog to your line? The loop wasn't totally closed on the frog that I was using. Well, there was a strike, waited 2 seconds, pulled back to set the hook, but no frog rocketing towards me. In fact, the frog was totally gone! That MF'ing bass made off with my frog! That frog is probably still sitting in that bass' belly.
Anyway, back to the Senkos. I was just about catching bass every half hour. Most were in the 7" to 12" range. On 2 separate occasions I had a big fish on the end of my line, but each time they broke my line. The first one I hooked I didn't really see, but he felt pretty heavy. When I got him within a few yards from me, he made a dash to the side and he stayed there. He felt he was making a run for it so I just stayed put until he calmed down a bit, then all the sudden the line went slack. I learned later on that he ran my line across a downed branch and that weakened the line enough for him to break free. I was pissed!!!
Number 2 came the next day. This time I made sure I stood free of any submerged structure. I had this bass within 3' of me and had plenty of fight left. This bass looked huge. His mouth was wide open the whole time he was in sight and I swear it must have been at least 5" in diameter! It was probably in the 20" range. I was letting him tire himself out, then "SNAP!!!" The 8 pound test line broke in the middle of my rod. I was really pissed! This taught me how important it is to have a landing net close to your side.
The whole time I was at the lakehouse, I was sick. Not just a little sick. It was cough up yer guts, infected phlegm, sore nose sick. But as soon as I got into the van to go home I felt much better. We're thinking the house is infested with mold since TN also had a long bout of rain like we did, and it wasn't occupied most of the time. The AC could've been left off and that made a perfect setting for mold to grow. It's going to be a hard sell for my FIL to fix the problem since they're not allergic to mold.