Another First

I was back on a local lake once more today with Jeff & his son Dave from Calgary for another mixed bag kind of day. The winds were going to be our worst nemesis as we were faced with strong ones from the west gusting to over 25 knots at times. Waves were 2 to 3 footers with an occasional rogue thrown in for fun. Water temps were hovering around 74 degrees where we were fishing and the air temps were in the 80’s with bluebird skies & sunshine all day long. We began with soft plastics and spinnerbaits trying to entice both the active and lethargic bass at the same time. Dave managed to get into a largemouth bass of a little over 2 pounds almost immediately on a spinnerbait. This was rather strange as it was a smallie holding area and I had never seen a largie on it before. We saw several huge smallies roaming all around without showing any interest in what we were throwing and decided to relocate. Jeff hooked up on a 3 pounder while working a senko and I really thought we were going to get them good when I saw others all around. Too bad, as that was to be it for this location. We relocated once again and it was here that Jeff hooked into a real giant of a smallmouth. Unfortunately after the third jump, she threw the jig and went the other way. Many fish in the same size class were swimming in the area and I held us there just trying to get something going. There was only a couple more bass landed with several other hits before we changed it up again. This time we were going to try trolling for pike & walleye and I set the lines in hopes of at least hitting a few. After close to an hour a rod finally fired and Dave was into what I thought was a good pike only to be amazed to see that it was actually a small Muskie. You just never know! Lots of floating vegetation and high rollers made this a little more difficult than I was hoping for and we opted for another change into shallower water for some largemouth bass instead. Although it was still real windy at least we didn’t have the waves to contend with. It wasn’t long before Dave was reeling in the first bass along a weed line and his dad soon followed up with one considerably smaller. There were definitely bass here and we were going to spend the rest of the afternoon just combing this section, looking for others. Our day was about to be brought to an abrupt end as thunder started rolling in the background and I knew lightening wasn’t far behind. Safety first when it comes to electrical storms! With the boat on the trailer and us ready to go, the skies let loose and heavy rains began to fall. Timing is definitely everything! Several more rumbles and a few bolts of lightening had us realizing just how right that move actually was. Overall it was a rather slow day on the water but they had caught fish and tried many different options doing so. The Muskie was the icing on the cake and despite its size, David’s first. Hopefully we’ll get back out sometime soon and they’ll see just how good this fishery can really be!!