First Outing of The Season

First booking of the year had its ups & downs as Scott, Mike & Russell would experience. We met at 7:30 and hit the water soon after. I had been out scouting the lake yesterday with Jean and had hooked up in under one minute. I hoped to repeat the luck this morning! With water temps around 48 degrees I slow trolled around searching for warmer water and hopefully northerns. I covered plenty of area and finally managed to get into some warmer temps around 50 degrees and the first pike was found. Unfortunately the 2nd one was long after and quite a distance from the first. I even resorted to a planer board to see if this gin clear water might have them spooked a bit and they hooked into the largest northern of the day. I was sure the warmest part of the day would be the best and was convinced that it could only get better. I moved around plenty and covered a lot of good water from shallow to slightly deeper with limited success. Sometime after 11:00 we really felt the heat and water temps were on the rise too. With another move we were into a fish almost immediately and it was heavy. As luck would turn out it was a walleye and it didn’t matter that the season wasn’t open for them as it was definitely an over. We quickly shot a few pics and returned the post spawn fish back to the water unharmed. We were back in the same area from earlier that had produced a couple of northerns and had another reel fire soon after. This too turned out to be a walleye and even bigger than the first! I was determined to locate the pre spawn pike and stayed on the deeper water in search of them. Too bad we only found eyes as they seemed like the only fish biting. Eventually we trolled back to the shallower water and unfortunately it too was void. I fired up the big engine and made a long run to another place in hopes of better success. I had found 55 degree water the day before and hoped for even warmer temps today. To my surprise it had cleaned up considerably and was now down to 48 degrees. Winds had pushed the warm, stained stuff completely out of this area and I was forced to go on the hunt once again. I finally hit an area of dirtier water and the temps began to climb. At over 52 degrees, one of the reels fired and amazingly it too was a walleye. Not what we were after and a little bit of a disappointment, we headed out completely. One last attempt at pike in another section put out a couple more fish but not the targeted species again. We ended the day with a bunch of nice fish and they had some good pics and memories for their efforts. Tough day but still a good one! It will only continue to get better with all the warm weather in the weeks to come. Can’t wait to get back out!!!!