Danial, Antoine & Dmitri

Danial, Antoine & Dmitri accompanied me today for another fishing adventure. Practically every time on the water something happens and today would be no different! We headed to our first location to try & troll up a few walleye for them to take home. Winds were out of the W/NW blowing two footers while we ran & despite the direction, it looked good. This time however, it took quite a bit longer for the first fish to hit. In fact with the drop in water temps again overnight, the reel never even fired. While checking the lines, I noticed a larger than usual bend and informed Antoine of the fish. Both Dmitri and he hadn’t fished in quite some time and he was first up. Unfortunately we never got to see it but she had  walleye written all over her by the way it acted. A little too much pressure and the hooks pulled out! His next attempt ended better and we finally had our first Walter swimming in the livewell. Dmitri wasn’t so lucky on his first go around as a small northern pike made its way to the boat. Still a nice fish but not what we were after! Danial was up next and he managed to reel in a decent eye that was added to the tank. It was funny how things went this morning because Dmitri was the only one not to land a walleye. He seemed to be cursed with the pike and oh yeah, one perch! A couple more golden fish joined their buddies in the livewell, compliments of Antoine and then they opted for something different. They had wanted to cast and possibly get into a few smallmouth, so I motored to another area further away. With blades and tiny cranks set up, they began covering water. Both Dmitri & Danial managed to catch a few smallies but Antoine wasn’t so lucky. He did land one fish from these shallows, but it wasn’t what we were after. He brought to net a good walleye that was unfortunately the second over of the day and released after a quick pic. We covered the area thoroughly and once done, decided to go back to the troll in the shade of the roof. I had noticed that the winds had really increased and were probably blowing 15 to 25 knots now. This also added a much bigger roll on the water and plenty of weeds on the rods. We trolled for about a half hour or so and everything looked like crap. Time to pull the plug on the eyes and give another species a go. I had located a good concentration of sturgeon & channel cats yesterday and saved the best for last. Unfortunately anchoring up was a little tricky and even with a second anchor, I had to take the top down in order to hold. We were bouncing up & down so much that using the rod holders was useless. I had to have the guys hold the rods and try to maintain a tight line. We made it work though and fish were coming aboard hand over fist in the short time we were here. It was all I could do to keep the hooks baited because as soon as they hit the water, they were bit. Even with these hateful rolling conditions, I may have stayed longer because the fish were on fire. Unfortunately some “A” hole had to ruin it for us when he thought he’d just join in. We were literally in the middle of nowhere! A boat running by on plane saw one of the guys hooked up and slowed down to watch the show. I asked him if he had gotten a good enough look and he just started fishing. I really hate the etiquette of people on the water and have zero patience for these leeches! Plenty of words were exchanged between us as I packed everything up and just left. I spend hours, days and even weeks searching out new water and refining presentations only to have jerks figure it’s alright to fish on top of you. This was the second time already this year that I’ve had it happen and I’m sure there will be more! Having fished tournaments for so many years, this is one of the reasons why I no longer compete. Being old school, I like to find my own fish! Now most people prefer to find fishermen that have found fish for them. It’s really a shame that it has come to this! Karma has a way of working things out and I just hope that he gets what he deserves! I guess there goes another great spot! This was just another example of an average day on the water and another adventure in the books! I can hardly wait to see what’s next!!