Light Winds at Last

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Well I guess others are also upset with the ramp closures as it was open when I arrived this morning. Someone had launched before me and removed everything, making it much easier to drive to the water and launch.

Darren & I hit the lake just after 7:00 and raced to what we thought would be our first spot. Unfortunately someone was already there and I headed to another close by. Too bad it was also occupied! I never like fishing near others as it cues them in on what to do, so I ran much further to get away from these two boats. The smallies are completely done with their spawning pretty much everywhere on this lake and feeding is now on their minds. Faster moving baits are becoming the norm and covering water isn’t a problem to find fish. I had a couple of areas that were holding decent bass and it didn’t take long after we arrived for Darren to hook up. Although not a giant, he thought he was! A number of fish came to the boat on soft plastics before I decided to hit another place hoping for bigger. Once we arrived, it was insane! Almost every cast was yielding a fish and they were schooling where we were. Darren was locked up every time I turned around and we had this place to ourselves. Unfortunately, there was one other boat much further out just drifting in open water and he was watching us pound on the fish. I don’t know how many fish were hooked and either landed or lost but the numbers were high. We eventually moved to another point a distance away and while we were catching there, the boat went directly to where we were before. This is a regular occurrence that happens almost daily and is even worse on the weekends! We stayed on the point for a while and after catching plenty more fish, moved much further away to try another shoal. This place unfortunately wasn’t what I had expected it to be and we didn’t stay too long. I opted to hit another place hidden from most and when I stopped on it, I saw the same boat fishing where we were not long ago. This was all I needed and now I just got completely out of the area and ran to where we wouldn’t be seen. Unbelievable! I realized that if we were going to escape being seen on places, we were going to have to change it up completely. Time to troll. I set everything up and started covering water looking for some eyes for Darren to take home tonight. It had been a few days since I had dropped the lines in and I wasn’t sure where to begin. These fish are constantly on the move and so was I. With the high water, they are everywhere nowadays and running deeper baits was the way to go, or so I thought. We had covered plenty of open water without a touch despite marking bait & fish when I noticed a good mark on the bottom. I immediately grabbed one of the rods and started a slow free spool getting the lure to go deeper. Bingo, we were locked up! I love it when you can call the shots like that! Darren reeled in a really nice walleye but unfortunately it was an over and had to be released. I continued the troll for a while longer without any success and decided to go back to casting for bass & walleye in an area not too far away. Go figure, we never saw another boat by doing what we just did!

The next spot produced a bunch of fish both bass & walleye and Darren was able to finally put one in the boat. He was hoping for a few walleye to take home but it wasn’t looking good. There was only one and time was nearing the end. We had spent most of the day on bass but that was alright as he had landed plenty of decent ones today. I figured that if we had any chance of getting into more, we were going to have to drop shot a few other areas in deeper water to get it done. I ran to a place that was producing and we made a drift along a rock spine. We both noticed a boat pretty far from where we were and didn’t think anything about it until they started their motor and came much closer to do the same thing. They were now about 50 yards from us hoping to cash in on a new spot I guess. I immediately pulled out of the area and headed much further away. No need to educate them as well. We dropped the lines and made several drifts over a series of rocks and added a couple more eyes to the well for Darren to take home. We also landed several smallies as well. We had bent rods so often that we hadn’t noticed another boat move in below us and start to troll. This day was never going to end! It’s unbelievable how many people have to find fish by finding other fishermen catching. I’ll never understand how they think! We called it a day and headed off the lake. This had been a great day filled with plenty of decent fish and we were officially done. Back at the ramp a couple of other boats were putting in and I was glad to be leaving because you never know what was going to happen next if we had of stayed out any longer. The way our day had gone, we might have had a party around us again! At least the weather was cooperative for us today!