Birthday Beast

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Doug & his sons, Ben & Nick joined me today for a birthday fishing trip. Ben had celebrated his 23^rd just last week and this was his gift. Hopefully it would be a good one!

The winds had been just insane lately, with the cyclone or hurricane in the states and although they had diminished slightly, they were still hell today! I had to make a long run to our starting area and decided that less of a beating was the best choice. I took the long way around!

Trolling wasn’t going to be easy as I could see by the big waves and dirty water color, but I prepped everything and hoped for the best!

We trolled for several hours through all kinds of areas and managed only one keeper walleye. All the other bites we had may have made the reels fire but they didn’t remain pinned for more than a few seconds at best. I think the fish were hitting the baits with their mouths closed! We were done for trolling!

I decided to try a little drop shotting for bass & walleye in open water and headed to an area that had been good to me lately. Unfortunately after a few passes and adding the heaviest weights I had in the boat, I determined that it just wasn’t fishable. We were drifting at too fast a speed for them to be able to feel the bottom and I needed to change something up. After testing out a heavier jig and landing a really good smallie, I switched everyone up with the same thing.

For about an hour or so, I had them dragging jigs over this same areas and a few more bass were landed. It still wasn’t easy to feel any bites and they were also snagging up more than I liked. In fact, Doug thought he was caught on the bottom only to find out that he was actually into a big fish. Game on!

With help from me on the electric motor, we were able to bring the fish aboard, after the long battle. It was his first sturgeon ever and needed a few pics before the release.

After we had released the beast, I decided to try another area and hopefully be able to slow the drifts down enough to drop shot again. Once we arrived I saw that although fast, it was totally doable and set everyone up to fish. Moments later, Nick was into a walleye but unfortunately wasn’t able to land the fish. Several minutes after that, same thing! His fish just seemed to be coming off and I didn’t like it a bit! I knew that they hadn’t fished before but tough conditions were making it even more difficult today.

After missing just about everything, I tried one final area for the day. Everyone had shots at fish and eventually landed some bass from this final spot before we were done. Tough day for all!

Our trip today could have been somewhat better as far as the results go but the conditions definitely weren’t in our favor. This was the third day of big winds from the storm down south and the water was messed up terribly. This also made my job more difficult too! I had to switch areas and presentations multiple times to get the bites we did. In the end though, several fish were landed including a real beast and everyone had a great time. Hopefully the coming days will have the fish a little more active and Mother Nature will take a break from the wrath she likes to inflict on us. For a change, I’m looking for a calm day of fishing!