A Reel Quick Bite

Round two with David & Jeff had us hitting another lake this morning in search of more trout. It definitely was nicer than yesterday with sunshine & temps expected to reach into the 60’s today. The only thing was that the winds were going to be blowing at 15 to 25 knots and they were coming from the north. This would make the boat control a little tough at low speeds. Water temps were 48 degrees where we began and the fly lines were in. I don’t think we were trolling for 5 minutes when a long line started screaming and David was tight to the first fish. We weren’t quite sure which trout it would be but it was definitely a trout and that’s all that mattered. I soon was able to slip the net under a beautiful little brown trout of almost two pounds and the skunk was once again gone for this day. We really thought hat that after such a quick start that it was going to be one of those banner days and immediately released the fish back to the lake for some more action. Several hours later while trolling boards & riggers we had a fiasco when the board line to the lead core broke. When we were finally able to clear the riggers and reach the planer board, I was reattaching the line with a blood knot when Jeff said he had a fish on. I didn’t want to lose the lead core so I worked fast with the knot but I guess it wasn’t fast enough as we lost the fish along the way. I did recover the board and line but it would have been nice to get the fish as well. I decided that with all the wind and difficulty working the area, I would only run the down riggers and was soon rewarded. This time it was on the rod over 40 feet of water. I had been having some success trolling open water humps and this fish also came from one of those rock piles. Strangely enough the rod hadn’t released and it was pinned as soon as I came over the ledge. Jeff got to battle a laker of just over 20 inches after the rod was popped and we found the line rather tight. A quick couple of pics and right back to the lake she went before we reset the lines and started all over again. This time through I barely saw the rod act funny and immediately popped the line from the release to find another fish attached. David was up and he was landing his first laker from here of slightly smaller length, also from the same area as the first one. Another quick release but this time we decided that it was too much trouble to try and troll the area with the 2 & 3 footers blowing and decided to move along. We casted jigs & jerk baits through a spot that I had browns following earlier in the week, but nothing more than schools of perch showed any interest. With not much time left before they had to leave I tried one more area before we called it a day and was rewarded when Jeff landed another brownie on a small X Rap. All David could do was catch a couple of northern pike and stir up tons of baitfish with his jerk bait before we had to go. Although we didn’t catch a bunch of fish today it was definitely a much better day all around compared to yesterday’s rainy one. Tough bite but still great!!