Fathers & Daughters Day

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June 25th 2018

 

I had a full boat again today but this time it wasn’t all adults. Sam had brought his daughter Mia, who was celebrating her 7th birthday. Steph was also accompanied by his daughter Tiffany and it was going to be interesting! They would be having a little competition between fathers and daughters and would each be taking a side of the boat.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse this morning with another cold front & strong north winds and the ride was a rough one! The waves were crossways to the current and creating 2 to 3 footers in the open lake. It’s times like these when I really appreciate the boat I run!

We arrived at our starting location and I wasted no time setting up the 4 lines. It was game on as they split the sides and chose rods. I had noticed that the water temps had dropped yet once again and I was in between 64 & 65 degrees in most of the area I was trolling. I hoped this wasn’t going to be an issue and after a couple of minutes, we were hit. As luck would have it, the girls side went off and Mia began to reel in the first fish of the day. I saw that it was a nice walleye and readied the net when another reel fired and Tiffany had one of her own as well. We landed the two fish and shot a few pics before releasing them. The walleye was an over anyway and had to be returned!

I trolled all over the areas that had put so many fish in the boat a couple of days ago, but only picked a fish here and there. Fortunately the girls side of the boat were the only reels firing and they were up on their dads, six to zero. It was really becoming a competition and the girls prize was said to be a trip to Toys R Us if the won. I was going to make sure of that! Eventually one of the rods on the dads side fired and Stephane reeled in a pretty good pike. They were officially on the board!

I kept at the troll over all kinds of areas, catching more pike & walleye. The girls numbers were climbing and were over ten with the fathers less than half, when I decided to switch up a couple of the baits. I had ventured into slightly deeper water and ran the lines a little deeper as well. Almost instantly the girls long line fired and another big walleye was brought to net. While we had slowed down to land the fish a second rod on the other side went off and Sam landed a northern. I quickly reset the lines after returning both fish to the water and refined the area a little more. It was here that the numbers started to climb for both sides with many more walleye and pike being caught. The girls were still leading by quite a bit but I don’t think it mattered to their fathers. Everyone was just having a great time!

I knew they wanted to end the day early so I focussed my efforts on some of the key areas to try & increase their catch. For a while, every reel that fired seemed like it was coming from the girls side and they really increased their numbers. Sometime after 2:00 they decided that they wanted to end the day and I slowly brought the lines in and packed everything up. Wouldn’t you know it, the last rod to be removed from the holder was heavy and Mia got to reel in one more fish. This was definitely the icing on the cake! They had finished with a bang and by over double to their dads! Toys R Us, here they come!

I wasn’t sure how the waves would be running back but was pleasantly surprised to see that they had changed direction slightly, blowing out of the NW. The waves were still pretty good but at least they weren’t as bad as this morning. We never even took a splash on our way back to the dock!

Mia & Tiffany enjoyed their father daughter day on the water but were really looking forward to their trip to the store afterwards. They also stopped for ice cream after fishing, making this day even more enjoyable. I also loved having their two daughters in the boat and getting some really great pics of the girls holding their fish. This was one of the most relaxing days I’ve spent guiding this season. I wish more dads would take their kids fishing at such a young age. Mine did and look what happened to me!!