Celebrating July 4th

July 4th 2018

 

What a great way to spend your July 4th holiday, fishing in Canada! Jim and his son decided to try their luck at a half day, on the local waters of Montreal. He came all the way from Texas to hook up with his son who is schooling in the city. I planned on making it worth their while with variety of fish!

We headed out shortly after 7:00 and I decided to try a little trolling in an area that I hadn’t fished this season. The changes in the last few days from the extreme heat had me thinking that this spot might already be holding some good fish. Unfortunately after 30 or so minutes of washing lures, I pulled the plug and made a long run to somewhere I knew they would catch.

We arrived to flat calm waters and extreme heat, but I was sure the fish would bite! Within 10 minutes, the first reel fired and Kayden reeled in his first ever northern. It may not have been the biggest, but it was his first! We continued the troll and not long after his dad also brought to net, another pike slightly larger. We were definitely on the fish here and I was hoping to get them as many as possible. In a couple of hours they boated many fish each but they were all northerns. I wanted to see if we could get into some walleye and it wasn’t working out here! Time to move to another area and change up tactics.

I ran to some open water that produced yesterday and hoped it was still working. We didn’t have a stitch of wind and I knew the drifts would be slower than I preferred. Jim lost a fish almost immediately when a smallie ate his bait and instantly took to the air. He rebounded with a small walleye that was unfortunately under and had to be released. It was next to impossible to get a good presentation here and after a couple of passes with nothing to show in the well, I relocated.

I moved over to another area with more current and now we were drifting much better. Almost instantly Kayden hooked up and brought a keeper walleye aboard. I knew they needed more than one fish for their dinner and made several passes, looking for another. They did manage to catch some others, but they were all too small. Jim even landed a nice smallmouth and although fun, not what we were after. Eventually however he did hook into a keeper and it soon was in the livewell with the other one.

I stayed out about an hour longer than I was scheduled to in hopes of a third one, but it never happened. We eventually called the day by 12:30 and made our way back to the launch.

Although Jim & his son Kayden had 2 keeper walleye, but they definitely boated plenty of other fish today. They both enjoyed their July 4th holiday together doing something they love, fishing! To top the day off, they’ll be dining on fresh fish of the day. Who could ask for anything more!!