Adjusting to Miserable Conditions

Eric had two of his sons out with me today in hopes of getting Ernest into a birthday sturgeon. The conditions had taken a turn for the worse with big winds out of the NE blowing up current. I wasn’t sure if we would even be able to fish for these beasts! Holding in the rough water wouldn’t be easy but we headed there to give it a try!

As I neared the area, I was in big 2 to 3 foot rollers from the opposite direction of the current flow. The boat was literally spinning around and I needed to throw a drift sock to even partially straighten out. Once the lines were in, it was next to impossible to see the rods and as usual the junk fish nibbled us to death and I spent more time re baiting hooks than anything! In fact we ended up reeling in one of those pesky perch at one point!

I had made several moves trying to get away from the nibblers and finally found a spot where I was able to hold for more than 5 minutes. It was here that we managed to get an actual bite and when I reared back, I thought it might be a small sturgeon. Ernest reeled in something other than what we were after with a red horse sucker! Not the species I was targeting but a new fish for him!

I realized after much frustration that it wasn’t going to happen and finally decided to pull the plug on sturgeon. If it layed down later, we might try fishing for them again!

I prepped some drop shot rods and told the boys that we were going deep for the bass. They would be fishing for smallmouth and although tough boat control would be happening, I was sure that I could get it done! I explained to Ernest & James what to do and almost immediately they were both locked up! Both fish came off however when they gave the fish some slack line after they set into them. It was going to be a learning curve for sure!

Eventually they were able to keep some of the fish pinned but still continued to lose more than they caught. One of them was giving slack while the other was winching them in like they were reef fishing in 200 feet of water. Finesse was the name of the game and with a little more coaching they were finally able to start landing more than they lost. Both of them landed multiple fish in a couple of hours including some real quality.

Sometime around 2:30 the winds looked like they had diminished some and I thought we would give the sturgeon another try. Instead of prepping all the gear I first wanted to see if I could mark anything. As I idled to the area I noticed a boat fishing exactly where I had been catching them all week. I hoped that he wasn’t right where I wanted to scout but unfortunately he was bang on several of my waypoints. It turned out to be a previous client that had seen me fishing there and I was unable to even search anymore. It sucks when you’re trying to make a living, but what can you do! I pulled the plug before we even got started and went back to deep smallie fishing instead!

The remainder of the time was spent with the boys catching and of course losing more bass. They both added several more smallies to the numbers before we were done. Even their father Eric was able to drop a line in and catch a couple as well. Shortly before 4:00 we packed it up and headed back to take out.

Although I wanted to get the boys into big fish today sometimes Mother Nature has other ideas. At least I had a backup plan with the smallies! They had a great time despite the miserable misty rain we had on & off throughout the day. In the end they all caught plenty of quality bass to make this a memorable end to their vacation. The boys will be heading back home tomorrow but with any luck I may see them again this winter on the hard water as they are interested in ice fishing. Hopefully it will all work out!