Summer’s Arrival

Frank & John accompanied me the first day on the lake for another shot at some trout. We hit the water around 8:00 and began our troll from the deep, in hopes of some action. Unfortunately after a couple of hours of washing lures all we had to show for our efforts was one small salmon from the cheater and another missed fish from the same rig. Fortunately, the weather was nice with cloud & mostly sun all day. Winds were out of the N/W at 5 to 10 knots with some gusts in the afternoon. Air temps were around 70 degrees and the water temps were up to a max of 55 degrees in certain areas with 51 to 53 on the open lake. We switched up in the afternoon and casted some jigs and minnow baits along the breaks and drop offs in hopes of a laker or two, but only had follows. They did hook all kinds of other things though as perch, rock bass, pickerel and an occasional bass fell victim to the offerings. By 4:30 we had seen enough and decided to call it a day. Tomorrow is another day and I think I will be trying another lake in hopes of better fishing! Well, day two on the other lake proved to be the right choice. This was only the second nice day of the season so far with sunshine, no wind and highs in the 70’s. It was picture perfect! Water temps were between 56 & 58 degrees, based on where we were but the fish were on. We began throwing jigs and minnow baits for the trout but only managed follows and an occasional bass. There were a couple of huge northern pike that were interested in our offerings as well, but they too just followed. In one area, we saw a bunch of big brown trout mixed in with suckers and that got our adrenaline going. We casted to them but never got their attention and decided we would try a troll with the boards. I decided this when I actually got a look at one that definitely went over ten pounds! We ran a tiny minnow bait on the closest shore board and a fly on the next lead core board on the inside. On the outside lead, we ran a spoon and made one pass through the shallows. The inside board went back as the reel began that lovely sound and caught a two headed perch on the minnow. It turned out that John reeled in a perch on each treble making it look like two heads and one fish. We tried another pass and caught one more perch sending us out to deeper water in hopes of finding some trout there. I switched up the lures and sent a rigger down as well when we hit open water and the deep board went off soon after. Frank reeled in a decent laker of over 22 inches and we were pumped! We spent several more hours trolling this area and managed to get into another 5 lake trout before we called it quits. We also lost 3 or 4 others with a couple of them seeming quite heavy before the hooks pulled free. I think I know where I will be tomorrow and I know there won’t be any argument from the others after a day like this!! Day three and oh what a day it was! We began by casting jigs and lures along the breaks where we had seen the large brown trout yesterday but only came up with perch, rock bass & smallies. Although we did see several trout along our travels, we were unable to lock up on any of them. The weather was a carbon copy of the last two days with high sun and 70 plus degrees. Light winds from the south aided in not frying as we fished and it actually felt good. Frank & John’s arrival was definitely the start of this warm trend & I hope when they leave today that they don’t take it home with them! They wanted to take home a fish or two & I knew our best chances would be trolling so I set the riggers and began. I don’t think we had gone 5 minutes when a rod popped & Frank was into a big fish. He fought it almost all the way to the boat before it came unpinned. I hate the unknown! Shortly after he grabbed another rod that popped and we thought it was also a big fish only to see that it was two lakers with one on each spoon. We managed to get into fish for the next 3 or 4 hours and several of them were 22 to 24 inches in length making them above the legal size for keeping. I had one planer out that had accounted for a couple of earlier lake trout and the reel began to scream. I mean it really went out and I was sure it was a big fish too! John grabbed this one and after a couple of minutes we realized that it wasn’t a laker. I was eventually able to slip the net under a beautiful rainbow that went about 4.5 pounds. What a bonus fish that was and John was surely going to bring this one back with him! The total for today was at least 12 or more lakers and a rainbow with several others lost or false released. This was the perfect end to a perfect three days for them and I’m sure they are going to miss the action when they head home tomorrow morning. The fishing has finally gotten good and I can’t wait to get back on the water again!!