Day Care Day
July 31, 2020
I had a busy one today with two groups. The morning consisted of Martin, JP, Yves & Francois and in the afternoon I had Val & his wife, Julie. I hoped for good fishing for everyone as I made my way out onto the water.
With the conditions looking great for just about everything, I decided to drop shot right away in these perfect SW winds. After a quick orientation, lines were all in!
It was on the first drift that both JP & Yves hooked up and one small walleye & a bass were boated. Both were returned as they were really small!
With each drift, fish were being caught by some & lost or missed by others and a couple of walleye even made the cut. JP & Francois were doing the best, both with multiple fish landed. Pretty much every pass yielded something and there were many, many drifts made!
As the morning went by, I focused my attention on hitting as many spots as I could, monopolizing on all the active fish in the area. Every drift was in a slightly different section of the flats and it definitely paid off. Each time we hit a new area, someone got bit. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and we were nearing that time. The morning was just about over and we made our final pass before returning to the ramp.
The action wasn’t fast & furious but they definitely had their chances at plenty of fish. I only hoped that the afternoon would be equally as productive as I exchanged one group for the other.
Val & Julie weren’t as lucky this afternoon, but they still landed a bunch of fish. Too bad they were mostly on the small side and not worth taking pics.
We hit several areas and casted all over looking for some bigger bites but were always in the “Day Care”! Julie went on a run of little guys, boating a couple of bass and several walleye from one spot. Thoughts of going trolling were crossing my mind, but that would only be a last resort!
The winds had changed direction and intensified during the afternoon, making several spots unfishable. They were now blowing W/NW and at a pretty good clip! After attempting to fish a big fish spot unsuccessfully, I made a long run to try some drop shotting. We would be ending our day there!
The last hour or so saw only a handful of fish brought into the boat with a few others completely missed. I’m not sure if they were hitting lightly or if the timing was just off on their hook sets, but the results weren’t great. After several disappointing drifts, we were officially done!
This may not have been a banner day, but at least everyone had caught fish. Both groups had experienced rather slow fishing and I wondered if the area I was concentrating on had something to do with it. There had been a major hatch of mayflies earlier and empty shucks were everywhere. Quite possibly the fish had gorged themselves and just weren’t hungry. Either way, it was still a great day for fishing with absolutely perfect weather. Even the boat traffic was light!
