Fulfilling A Dream

Hugues was back with me today, along with his son Oliver & his friend Daniela. Over the years, he had experienced many days with bad weather in the form of thunder storms that had us running for cover. Some of them even cut our day short! Today would not be one of them though as high heat & humidity would have us in the sunshine all day. We did have that hateful wind again though that blew 20 knots out of the SW. Some areas had huge waves, but not where we were to begin. I was taking them straight to a smallie area and it was loaded! Daniela was pretty new to this style of fishing so I brought her up front with me and let Hugues & his son fend from the back of the boat. Needless to say, she managed to hook up and brought the first bass in for a pic. She even landed a couple of walleye that kick started our livewell early in the day! Both Oliver and Daniela hooked into several and landed a few, but Hugues kept missing his for some reason. I decided to slide in a little giving Hugues a better angle to cast to and unfortunately had another bass boat move in to the area I had been fishing. It was like being back in a tournament again! This guy who I knew, should have had the courtesy to just pass the area by as he was also out with clients. I guess he was still in tournament mode and didn’t see anything wrong with what he was doing. All I know is that If I saw someone fishing an area I wanted to fish, I wouldn’t even think of stopping, let alone fishing on top of someone else. After seeing this, I moved away completely and went another hundred yards to fish somewhere else. It didn’t take long before I had company again and this time he came in from below and tried to fish from the down current side. Absolutely unbelievable! Despite these inconveniences, I was able to position all three of my guests so that they could cast & catch plenty of quality bass. Although it took a while, I guess he finally realized that he wasn’t going to be able to get any closer and slowly moved out of the area completely. This allowed me to cover the water slowly with the presentations they were using and refine the area completely. Needless to say, they pounded on all kinds of real quality smallies! After doing this for several hours we were now late in the morning and a change of location was in order. I knew it was blowing pretty good but wanted to see if we could fish another place further away. As I neared the spot, I realized it wasn’t doable and turned around. The water was a terrible color and the wind was blowing big waves directly on it. Change of plans! We would be going trolling for a bit but first I would have to pick up the rods that I was having dropped off at the ramp by my wife. I didn’t realize just how big the waves were until I neared the ramp. We finished the run in 4 footers as I got closer & closer! This year is just unbelievable! There was also a bathroom break in order for Daniela so it worked out great. We headed back out after the pickup and I set the lines for the troll. Just like usual, the first fish to come aboard didn’t fire the rod, it just loaded. The second walleye did exactly the same and we now had a couple more joining the others in the livewell. Hugues had let them take the first rods and was up next. He had fished this lake for many years and had always wanted to land a musky but never thought it would happen. Well when the next rod bent, the reel howled! I couldn’t say for sure but had an idea that he was about to get his wish. We cleared all the rods and I started backing up on his fish. When I got a glimpse of it in the distance, a confirmation was made. Several minutes later I was able to get the boga grip locked on and he was elated. Bucket list checked off today! With everything in order, I lifted the fish aboard and laid it across his lap. In about 30 seconds I had all the pics I needed and it was released back to the water unharmed. Although we went back to trolling afterwards, I knew anything caught wouldn’t top this. Hugues was reliving the fish in his mind while chilling up front as we trolled. A few more fish were taken but all northerns so we decided to finish the day with more smallies. In the last hour or so, several more good fish were landed and a few more were missed as usual. By 4:00 we called it a day and headed back to the ramp. It was nice to finally have a good weather day with Hugues but even better to have an excellent fishing day with them as well. I’m sure this will be etched in his mind for quite a while as he relives it over & over. Thankfully he has many pics as a reminder too!