Another Family Outing

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I had the pleasure of fishing with Danial, his wife Sonia and their two girls, Gabriel & Ashly today. Their fishing experiences up until now had not been so good, but I planned on changing that to great. We hit the water shortly after 7 on a cold morning and in a pretty good east wind. As we headed out I realized most of the areas I planned to fish this morning were a wash and opted for plan B. We were going to make a long run to a location and do a little trolling instead. Although the winds weren’t all that strong, the waves in some areas were 3 foot or better. Wind against current is never good! With only a little splashing we arrived and I prepped everything to begin the troll. A quick orientation on rod removal and we were fishing. It didn’t take long for a reel to fire and Gabby was into her first northern, ever. It may have been her first but it definitely wouldn’t be her last as I expected plenty more. I had began trolling slightly deeper than usual due to the overnight cold front but soon ventured shallower and realized that the fish just weren’t very active. We had a few more rips and unfortunately they were short lived as they either weren’t there or got off shortly after hookup. The winds weren’t helping either as it was almost impossible to do an upstream troll. I covered plenty of water until I located more fish and from that point on, we had action. By mid morning, the winds had finally started to lay down and the sunshine was feeling a whole lot better than the heavy overcast we had been fishing in. Apparently the fish felt the same as they were really starting to bite much better! Reels were firing more often and the number of fish being landed was much better. Sonia even managed to get a couple of nice walleye with one over and the other a keeper. I had hoped that they would be able to bring a few of them home today and livewelled the slot fish. We trolled throughout the morning and caught plenty of fish for everyone to enjoy before switching it up.

The afternoon began with some casting over shoals for what I thought would be smallmouth bass. Amazingly enough, the first fish to come to net was another northern. Although not usual here, I wasn’t surprised! We covered the area thoroughly before moving to other shallower rocks nearby. Here too it was generally a bass spot but the first fish to arrive in the net was a walleye. It fell in the slot and immediately became livewelled for their dinner tonight. Eventually after several missed hooksets, the family began catching some bass and there were also more eyes mixed in. I remained here for a while but eventually left to fish another place I had wanted at the start of the day. The winds had dropped to almost nothing and I knew we would finally be able to dropshot the deeper rocks. It didn’t take long and Danial was boating the first fish. It was a nice keeper walleye and now they had enough fish for their dinner tonight. Shortly after, they hooked into a triple as both his daughters along with himself were with bent rods. Two walleye and a smallie were their prizes! For the next hour or so we made several drifts over different sections and someone was always hooked up. By 4:00 we ended the day and headed back to pull out. They had gone from almost always terrible fishing before to an unbelievable day of catching today. Many different techniques were used and adjustments were made throughout the day to ensure they were on fish. I’m sure they never imagined the day would turn out like this! The numbers were high and so was the quality of their catch! This may have been the first time out with me but I know it won’t be the last. Another great day of fishing!