Grinding Out The day

Maxime & Jacques were my guests today on this breezy fall outing. We were going to start with sturgeon and once again move on to the smaller fish afterwards. Hopefully the predicted winds would be wrong and we would be able to get to all the areas I wanted to fish!

As I set up for sturgeon, I was surprised not to find any other boats in the area. We were alone and I loved it! With lines in, we waited for our first bite and finally got it after one move. Maxime brought to the boat a juvenile fish, but it was his very first one ever! I released it after a couple of pics and we waited for more. The next bite turned into a double and they both landed small fish once again. In fact, there were several more baby sturgeon and a couple of fat, Redhorse suckers brought to the boat afterwards, as well. Wanting to find something bigger for them to fight, I relocated after a couple of other small ones and hoped for a bigger bite!

I had been waiting only for a short time when I set into some heavy weight. I passed the rod to Maxime and he finally got to feel the power of a big fish. This thing stayed on the bottom for almost the entire battle and only ran a few times. I’m not sure why but it really didn’t fight like it was supposed to! What should have been a gruelling 15 minute battle ended in about 10, when I slid the net under his fish. It was long and thick and should have fought a whole lot harder in my opinion, but we finally had one!

Maxime held his fish for several pics and released it back soon after. We tried fishing for a while longer but only managed a few smaller ones before the winds began to blow. We were forced to leave the area and change up to a different species!

I spent the remainder of the day moving from one spot to the next and trying to fish effectively. The W/NW winds were howling and not easy to fish in, but we did manage to grind out the day. Maxime lost a goof fish in one spot and followed it up with a high end keeper walleye. I was marking plenty of fish on the first drift but the winds were blowing me at a 90 degree angle to the current. It wasn’t easy to drift the area properly and we almost always missed our target. Jacques managed to get one small bass from here before we moved on to another spot to fish.

Our next area turned out to be our last but at least it produced a few good smallies for Jacques. The winds were blowing even harder now and we were ready to leave. The waves were easily 3 to 4 footers with a few monsters in between. Fortunately we were going into them but I still had to tack a few times in order to get back to the ramp, safe & dry!

Despite the difficult afternoon conditions, both Max & Jacques managed to catch a few more fish. I know that if I had of been able to get to all the places I wanted that they would have caught even more. The highlight of the day would have been the spectacular rainbow that appeared in the sky after a light rain! Mother Nature is starting early this fall with her idea of a joke and I expect plenty more days of pain & suffering! Hopefully there will be a few easy days coming up as well for all to enjoy!