A Challenging Day

Well as predicted, the SE winds arrived overnight and greeted me this morning! Although they weren’t too bad at the start, they would increase and make for difficult fishing. I was just going to have to grind it out!

Scott and his family arrived at 7:00 and we headed out in search of some active fish. They were new to fishing so I decided to begin by trolling. With 4 lines in, I started searching for aggressive feeders, but found only a few. We had a bunch either get off before coming to the net or just fire the reel without being on the line. Even when they did make it into the boat, they mostly fell off in the net! This definitely wasn’t going as I had hoped but at least some fish were being caught. They even managed to get one big, over walleye amongst all the northerns they landed!

With today being split into two half day trips, I was once again under the gun to produce. I decided to pull the plug on trolling and try drop shotting instead. This too would prove to be interesting as none of them had fished much before! I wasn’t sure if they would even be able to detect the bites!

The winds had now increased quite a bit and with the direction SE, I was really going to have to control the angle of the boat in order to drift. Between setting lines, making sure they were fishing correctly and working the electric motor, it was almost impossible to remain vertical. It was a real constant struggle for them to have the right amount of line out to present their baits properly!

The first couple of passes saw bites, but no fish were landed! Once they had a bit of a better understanding for this technique, things began to happen. Several fish came to the net on each drift afterwards and even a couple of good walleye were landed.

The time had passed quickly and I now had to get back for the second group. We packed it up and headed to the dock in a terrible SE wind and the waves grew bigger as we got closer. I knew it wouldn’t be pretty when we arrived!

The ramp looked more like the ocean with the rollers as I carefully pulled the boat to the inside, slightly protected from these waves. I quickly made the exchange and we were off!

I knew that backing up to get out would bring water into the boat and I was right. It was next to impossible, not to! As I made the turn to go forward, the pumps took care of what came in and we were on our way.

With the winds as bad as they were, there was no way that I would be able to fish this side of the lake. We took the pounding and ran to the other side to try our luck!

I wasn’t overly confident about trolling, but based on everyone being new to fishing, I thought that it was our best option! I set the lines and trolled for about an hour, covering plenty of water, with only one fish to show for our efforts. I really needed to make a move!

I decided to try the area that I had done well in this morning and made the long, to drop shot. As luck would have it, there was a giant cruiser anchored up directly on my waypoint, in the middle of nowhere! What are the odds of this? I would have still tried to fish it but he was complaining that we were too close to his damn boat and wanted some privacy. After exchanging a few words, I decided that it wasn’t worth the confrontation and headed elsewhere!

I made a long run once again to try and set up on another deep spot but due to the speed & direction of the wind, we didn’t stay long. A quick attempt at fishing here proved to be almost useless and I gave up instantly! Time to try elsewhere!

I was running out of time as well as places to effectively be able to fish. With 4 newbies, I made another long run to an open water spot that I hoped held fish. Once I arrived I realized that it was doable, just difficult! I wouldn’t be able to make the proper drifts but rather smaller, cross drifts instead. We were going to give it a try!

In the remaining 2 hours we had left, there were several quality fish landed, including a couple of good keeper eyes. Plenty of fish were lost and just missed altogether, but that’s to be expected. This was their first time fishing and that always makes it harder.

We eventually ran out of time and were in the process of packing everything up for the ride back when one final fish was hooked. Ironically it turned out to be a pretty good northern and from a bass & walleye spot too! We were officially done after that!

I had made a call earlier in the day and was fortunate to have Don drop my trailer in the water for me to take out. When we arrived, it was waiting and took no time to pull out! Thank god too as the ramp was another shit show, both with waves and people! Weekends are always a zoo, regardless of the weather!

It may have been a big challenge today both with the conditions and novices I had, but in the end it all worked out. Plenty of moving around and adjusting to the wind & waves definitely had its challenges, but I put everyone on fish and that’s what counts. Too bad most of them didn’t want to hold their catch as very few pics were taken today. Oh well, less work for me to do!