More Fishing & Fun

Well, another postponement had me open again, so Keith & his daughter Lindsay joined me for a day on the lake. Lindsay brought along her two children, Avery & Annabelle for a great day of fishing & fun! I knew it was going to be a hot one so I informed them to bring some swim suits as I had a great place for them to cool off. We met up around 7:00 and headed out in almost flat calm conditions, with just a slight breeze out of the south. Perfect day for the kids! It had been a couple of years since Avery or Annabelle fished with me and I wanted to get them into some action. We dropped the lines in the water and began with a troll, searching for some walleye for them to take back for dinner tonight. The first reel to fire was a smallie and Annabelle was up. It fought like all smallies do and she muscled it back to the boat with a couple of other lines attached. A few pics were shot and the release had us right back in the game! Another smallie began jumping behind the boat and I knew it was attached to one of the lines. Avery was up next and struggled to bring this one to net. With a little help from me, he managed to reel it in for some pics of his own. His sister gave him a hand holding the boga as it weighed more than he could handle! Big fish, little guy! Lindsay took the next fish and fortunately it was a walleye and a legal one at that. She had managed to catch the first fish in a series of fish that they would be having for dinner tonight. I was having a hard time locating an area that the fish were active and covered plenty of water searching for them. With the lake completely flat, it didn’t help either! Dog pecker knats were upon us and it was becoming a real scorcher! We had one more reel fire a little later and despite the fact that it was a walleye, it was way over the slot and had to be released. Annabelle posed for another pic and back it went unharmed. It was at this time that I decided to move away from this area and change up completely. I was going deep and we would switch to a drop shot. I set up a bunch of rods and changed locations. The heat was really upon us now so I raised the top hoping to get some reprieve from the sun. Once I hit the deeper water, The kids wanted to swim so out they went. They cooled off in the lake for about 30 minutes before returning to the boat to resume our fishing. I got everyone set up and instructed them on how to fish this presentation and let them lose. Although I was marking fish, they just didn’t seem to be cooperating. Lindsay did manage to get a taker though and she brought to net another dinner walleye. While we were fishing this way, the wind started to pick up and each drift was different than the previous one. Not only was the speed changing but the direction was as well. It got so bad that I had to take the cover down when we couldn’t control the drifts. The top was acting like a kite and moving us along way too fast! With the cover down and wind up, we had a flurry of activity that had everyone hooking up. They managed to put a limit of walleye in the livewell and things were looking up. This brief feeding period only lasted about 45 minutes but we took advantage of it and boated a bunch of fish. Many more drifts proved almost useless as not many fish were hooked afterwards. I offered a swim again and this time everyone agreed! I ran to a mid lake sand bar and got on the electric motor so they could stand up. It was about 2.5 feet at best and a great place to get cooled. Keith joined the kids in the water for a swim and the three of them stayed in the water for quite a while. As I knew there were smallies close by, I decided to slide away a bit and make a few casts with a jig. One took and threw the hooks on a jump but showed me where the others were too. Several casts later I hooked up again and this fish had weight. I knew what had happened and showed the kids what a big fish looked like. Annabelle was still in the water with Keith and wasn’t impressed with this shark like image swimming near her. Lindsay was fighting the sturgeon as I grabbed the tail and lifted it into the boat. It was this fish’s lucky day because I removed a big lamprey from its gill area. A couple of pics from Lindsay and I released the fish, free of the parasite. Shortly afterwards, they returned to the boat and we decided to call it a day. They had a few things to do this afternoon and it was a real scorcher on the water. Everyone had a blast today catching fish and playing in a huge open water park again. I was happy to get them out for another day of F & F. Sort of like R & R but better!