Old Friends

Today was quite an interesting one to say the least! I had an appointment to fix a broken brake line on the trailer and needed to off load the boat before driving to the garage. As luck would have it, an old friend/co worker from many moons ago had called me the day before wanting to fish. Perfect timing, as I required a boat baby sitter! I dropped the boat at a local ramp and headed to the trailer place to get what I thought was a quick fix. Unfortunately things usually don’t work out that way and a 30 minute job turned into a 2 hour one with what they found. Fortunately however, they did fix all the problems and I made it back to fish for the remainder of the day. We set out as soon as I arrived and headed to an area to drop shot. On Vern’s first cast, he was locked up on a fish and it was exactly what we were after. I also hooked into a fish but decided to boat flip the smallie and net his walleye immediately after my release. After a couple more bass we moved to another place not far away and boated 3 more eyes and several more bass before switching it up completely. I knew he wanted to try for sturgeon and moved to the area that had produced pretty much every time out. We had a terrible wind out of the NW today that was going to make boat positioning complicated but I thought I’d give it a try nonetheless. After what seemed like forever, he finally got a shot at one and battled it for quite some time before we caught a glimpse. Although not a real giant, it was still a good one and I was able to slide the net under it for him to admire. Several shots were taken and an immediate release afterwards. Back to fishing and once again it took a while but we eventually hooked up on what seemed like a much bigger fish. Unfortunately it was short lived and came unpinned after about a minute or so. We reset the lines and hit another one pretty quickly and this time it stayed on. This battle was a lengthy one and when he finally brought it up and saw its size, I thought he was going to die. He had one of those five footers on the line and really wanted a picture. A few more minutes of fight time and I managed to net the beast. My job was complete but his was about to begin! After the long fight he would have to lift this monster for the pictures and he didn’t have much strength left. He somehow managed to dig deep and was able to wrap his arms around the fish for a couple of quick pics. He could barely lean over the boat though for the release and I had to help. Totally exhausted, we pulled the plug and called it a day. The winds had the boat sideways and it was really difficult to set up, but we somehow found a way. He had landed two of the biggest fish of his life and was elated. On top of that, he was coming back to my place for a walleye dinner and looking forward to just chilling. This day could not have gone better and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last time I hear from him again! Great day for fishing!!