The Right Wind
August 14, 2017
A half day booking was made for this morning through a hotel concierge, for a party of two. Turns out it became three and the third person was someone I had taken out just this week. Honas (aka John) from Czech was accompanying Tomas and his son Sebastien and conditions looked great. The winds were light from the SW and this would make for a great drift to start their day. I headed directly to a deeper area to drop shot and instructed the others on what to do. Honas had fished this technique before, so he had a good understanding. His last time out saw us in 3 footers or better and having to use two drift socks just to slow down. Today would be much easier!
A triple header was how they began their fishing day, as we managed to stumble upon a small school of walleye on the first drift. Right after the lines were back in, Honas locked up on a nice smallie and the others weren’t too far behind. Fish after fish were being hooked and some of them even managed to make it to the net while others were either lost or missed completely. This place was loaded this morning and our drift speed was perfect! I just continued to make multiple passes over different sections and they just kept hooking up. Tomas finally got his shot at fighting a nice smallie and the battle was aerial. It must have jumped 3 or 4 times, but the fish stayed pinned and finally came to the net. Everyone was having a great time and the fish were cooperating. There’s no better way to initiate someone than to constantly have them locked up!
After a couple of hours of catching all kinds of fish, they wanted to try for something bigger. Pike would be what we would be going for and trolling would be the technique used. They would love this easy method of fishing and hopefully these fish would cooperate too!
Lines were set and almost on cue the first reel fired with a good northern. Then a second one and we had our first double header! Tomas & his son Sebastien reeled in a couple of big northerns and several pics were taken before they were returned. Back at it, reels continued to fire for a while but with slightly smaller fish. Each time Honas was up, it was really small. Although bigger fish were being caught, it seemed like it was from everyone else. The bite went on for a while with good numbers of fish being caught but we were running out of time. I really wanted to get him a larger fish but it wasn’t going to happen today.
With less than an hour remaining in their morning trip, we headed back to deeper water again to drop shot. This last 45 minutes saw about ten more fish being landed and a pile more lost. A mix of bass & walleye once again and some nice ones too! All three of them had landed good numbers of fish in just a few hours of fishing and with very little down time before we were done. Tomas had a tee off time scheduled for 12:30 and we had to leave.
These last couple of weeks had seen many Czech fishermen in my boat and all from one common denominator. Peter Svoboda had brought me several new clients and I don’t think it will slow down anytime soon! All these people are connected to the hockey world and training here in Montreal during the summer. In fact, Honas will be here in Canada for an entire year training while attending school at the same time. Who knows, maybe we be seeing him in the NHL soon! All I know is that these guys love to fish and I love having them on the water catching. In the next couple of weeks I will hopefully have some of them battling giant sturgeon that will keep them coming back for more. Big fish days ahead!
