Dodging The Weather
July 8, 2017
What a start to the day we had this morning! As soon as I had pinned the boat up at my house, the skies just opened up! Along with the downpour of rain, there was also thunder and lightning and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was doing to the fish! Fortunately when I arrived at the lake, it had all but ended and only a light drizzle was left. Another double booking today had me requesting Don’s services once again and the two of us headed out with our guests. We both went our separate ways and I decided to take Andre & Bob to an area that had produced great just the day before. I figured that the electrical storm would have made them go deeper and gave it a try. We made several drifts over the key spots and although I was marking plenty of bait & fish, neither of them ever had a strike. At one point I thought it might have been the way they were fishing but even I couldn’t tempt any fish into biting. I hit a few places and had only one small walleye from Bob to show for our efforts. I tried trolling some of the areas and even this couldn’t fire a reel. I did notice that the water was quite off color here so I ran to another section of the lake in order to find cleaner water. It obviously was the right decision as once I located what I wanted, the reels started to go off consistently. Both pike & walleye were now being caught and the first keeper went into the livewell. Unfortunately it took a while to get the second one as the next 4 or five were all overs and needed to be released. Eventually they did add a couple more to the tank and things were looking up. We stayed in this area until early afternoon catching more fish, but would have to settle for just the three before we left. I wanted to try other trolling areas and hit a few more with very few takes. With only a couple hours left in the day, I returned to drop shotting on some deeper rocks, hoping for better results. It didn’t take long to figure out that it was the right move when they doubled up! Too bad only one walleye was a keeper and the other was an under! The remaining time was spent making many drifts throughout the area and plenty more fish were hooked. About 50% of them were landed with a couple more being added to the tank. They even managed several good smallies making this an overall great day.
What had started out as a dismal start had turned into a beautiful day. Sunshine and light winds with warm temps allowed us to move around freely and put plenty of fish in the boat. Both Andre & Bob had learned a few new tricks and landed lots of fish in the process. Who could ask for a better day!