A Strange Grand Slam
June 25, 2016
After a client postponed, I figured I’d get Christiane out for the day. She hadn’t been fishing once this season and was definitely due! We didn’t get an early start and that may have been our demise as the boat traffic started earlier than anticipated. Although we were on the water shortly after 10:00, the boats were all over the place when we arrived. I wanted to try for sturgeon & catfish and headed somewhere that I hoped they would be. Once I arrived, I started marking them immediately and wasted no time getting the anchor down. About two minutes after I had the lines in, Christiane set into our very first fish. A quick battle by a small sturgeon but it did show us that they were here & eating! Another bite immediately after and this time it was a really good catfish. I now had confirmation that the two species were both here and they were active. So much so that the sturgeon were jumping all around us. We stayed as long as we could until the boat traffic just got out of hand, causing us to leave. It’s always hard to anchor when boats are blowing by you all the time! Christiane still managed to land a few sturgeon, one great catfish and an ugly American Eel. Could have done without that last one! We headed to another area and I began marking what looked like sturgeon once again but after 20 minutes, left when we couldn’t get bit. I opted for trolling after this and had to put the top up when it just became too damn hot! This was rather slow but I never went to any areas that I knew had fish. I was just covering water searching for other areas to keep for clients. We managed to land one walleye slightly below the high end of the legal limit and into the livewell it went. The cat would be eating well tonight as we were having burgers on the bar b. She definitely eats better than most animals when it comes to fresh fish! With the heat getting almost unbearable and the boat traffic already there, we both decided to call it a day. Four hours on the lake was about all we could take with the lake packed with every type of boat. I was glad to see when we got back to the ramp that nobody else was there and pulled out immediately. Although a short day for me, it was still a very productive one. I had found the sturgeon and catfish that I wanted and could now add it to the other species I already had. My customers will definitely have their choice of fish to choose from the next time out. Hopefully many more grand slams will be coming their way soon!!