A Young Boy’s Dream

Today I had a family booked for an afternoon trip, so I decided to head out a little earlier and do some scouting. They would be calling around noon and I would meet them at the dock. Christiane & I fished for about 3 hours and managed to land several walleye while drop shotting that we would have for dinner tonight. Once the call came in before noon, I dropped her off and picked up the group of three. By now the winds had picked up considerably and were blowing from the NW at about 15 knots with gusts to 25. I wasn’t sure what I was going to be able to do but I knew I would get it done! Emilia & Sorin had brought their son Josh, who was interested in fishing and I wanted to make sure he had a great time. As we were 4 people in the boat, I thought I would give trolling a try and see if we could hook up on a few walleye for them to take home. The conditions were terrible with big waves from a cross direction but I managed to get one reel to fire and he landed his very first eye. It went into the livewell with the others from this morning and I reset the line to try for more. It didn’t seem like it was happening and the rough conditions made it even more difficult, so I decided to pull the rods and go for bass instead. I would have had to cover lots of water and it just didn’t seem worth it in these conditions. The next area should have been good but with wind against current, we had 3 footers everywhere. Again I ended this quickly and hoped for calmer water further away. The run wasn’t easy with the ship & cruiser waves but once we arrived, I realized that we could at least fish here. I had to instruct everyone on what to do from the basics and eventually they caught on. As this day was geared towards Josh, I focused my attention on him and it paid off. He eventually got a better understanding on how to cast and feel the take and in no time he was landing smallies on his own. Although Sorin did manage to land a nice bass, both he and his wife Emilia were watching more than they were fishing. Between videos and pictures, they were occupied most of the time! Josh on the other hand was so into this that he just kept casting and catching for the remainder of the day. He boated several really nice ones with one of them over 4 pounds too! We decided to call it quits before 5:00 after Josh landed one last fish. Although he missed many, he definitely landed his share today. Hopefully this will inspire him to continue to fish and he will learn even more. The run back was what I thought it would be with three & four footers from the NW the entire way. Once again we were back to big winds after three days of almost flat calm. Maybe one of these days we can compromise with « Mother Nature » and settle somewhere in the middle! Either way, today was a great day for Josh & his parents as he finally got his wish and landed a bunch of quality fish. They even had a good one going home with them for dinner tonight!!