I fished with my wife, Christiane on our annual anniversary weekend today and began around noon. We fished on a smaller lake, trolling with fly rods for browns and lakers. Sunshine and no wind with air temps in the 70’s made this picture perfect. Water temps were 57 to 60 degrees depending where we fished and the reels were screaming! Unfortunately, the smallies were crushing our flies again and we weren’t able to keep them in the water long enough to get bit by the trout. Trolling over baitfish and large hooks in 20 to 40 feet of water with both lines down 8 to 12 feet, we still only managed to catch bass. All in all it was still a great day to be on the water! We got an earlier start on the second day and were fishing by just after 8:00 AM, trolling flies once again. Clear skies & sun with no wind once again made for an easy troll. Water temps were 55 to 59 degrees and the air temps reached 70 degrees by days end. Our first 2 hits were short strikes and came unpinned immediately, but the third strike locked up hard. The reel screamed and I knew it was a trout! When we got the fish close to the net I realized it would be short and just reached down with the boga grip and unhooked it for release. With the Quebec slot size of 35 to 50 centimetres having to be released, it fell just short at about 19 inches. It was a good fight, but still a disappointment! We had a few more rips on the reels, but they were striking short and never got hooked on the flies. I trolled this deep shoal for several passes but only managed to hook smallies before I relocated to another nearby. We were having the same thing happen here with short strikes and misses and then another short lake trout had to be released again. With the sun high & warm and a slight breeze I decided to troll a shoreline with deep water nearby and hooked up almost immediately on the high line. As luck would have it, this too was a short laker once again & had to be released. The rest of the afternoon we had hits, misses, hook ups and only smallies to show for our efforts. The most productive lines were down 12 to 18 feet over 20 to 30 feet of water today, but I’ll go deeper tomorrow! Day 3 saw us on the water about 9:00 AM and we ran to our first spot with great anticipation. The weather was better than expected with sunshine and light west winds. Air temps reached into the upper 60’s and the water temps were 53 to 59 degrees where we trolled. We trolled plenty of water marking baitfish and big fish but only hooked up with a few smaller bass over the water we fished. We trolled miles of great looking water with nay a touch! Sometime after lunch we crossed over to the other side of the lake and found cooler water at 53 degrees when the deep line fired. Way back behind the boat this silver bullet went airborne and I thought we finally had a salmon. After a lengthy battle and many more jumps I finally slipped the net under a rainbow trout and not a niche. We would be dining on this trout tonight seeing as how it was our anniversary and into the livewell it went. The rest of the afternoon only saw bass hitting and no other trout could be found. We eventually left the lake sometime around 4:00 PM when the onsite of storms approached in the distance. This was definitely the way to spend a relaxing day & end another anniversary weekend!

This was definitely the warmest day of the year so far as temps reached almost 80 degrees. Bobby had changed his date from the 15th to today when he saw the weather forecast & wasn’t disappointed. This year he was joined by Frank & his intro to trolling with fly rods was very productive. We began working over 20 to 30 feet of water & it didn’t take long before the reels began to go off. Unfortunately, they turned out to be bass on the smaller side and not the fish we were marking. I had seen several big hooks on the sonar and was sure they were the trout we were searching for. We worked all over the lake marking schools of baitfish & some really big arches, but couldn’t seem to get them to hit. The only rods going off were the deep lines and the shallow rod never fired until late in the day. Just when I thought we got lucky, Frank landed a 5-pound smallie & disappointment set in once again. It was a beautiful fish but not what we were after! This fish hit a fly down 12 feet over 38 feet of water. A little later over the same water, Bobby had a reel scream & I knew this was the real deal. By the time he got it out of the holder, it was gone! Unlike the bass, when trout take the fly, they take it with incredible speed and it’s usually unmistakable. This was to be our last shot at a trout today, but not for lack of trying. We switched up to casting jigs & jerkbaits on steep breaks and deeper structures and had a couple of lakers follow the jigs right to the boat. Plenty more fish were hooked but not what we were after and we moved on. We hit all the best areas & came up empty today. Flat water and high sunshine with water temps exceeding 60 degrees surely had a part in the outcome today. Although we weren’t able to land any trout, it was still a great day on the water!

Ed accompanied me today on the lake to see if he could get a few trout for dinner. I thought our best chances would be on the fly so we trolled streamers the entire day. The air temps hit 70 & the water warmed to almost 55 degrees with the sunshine making it just perfect. Little to no wind was present as we trolled smelt patterns both high & low only to have the deep line constantly firing. I was quick to change the high line for another deep line and began getting hit on that one as well. We covered a lot of water, but concentrated on a couple of off shore shoals because of all the action. This was unfortunate though as all of the hits turned out to be bass! Just as I said that this was to be our last pass, both reels screamed within 5 seconds of each other & Ed was into another fish. I just let the second rod stay in the rod holder and concentrated on the fish at hand. This time it turned out to be a lake trout none too soon! We had been trolling a deep edge from 10 to 30 feet and were both happy to see it in finally in the net. I told Ed to grab the other rod while I put the fish in the livewell in case it might be another trout and sure enough, it was. Wow, a double header! We continued to fish this area a little longer after landing the trout but soon left after we continued catching smallies. The next spot proved to be no different as we only caught bass over the deep water and relocated once again. After a couple of missed strikes & a few bass landed, Ed fought what we thought was another bass until both of us caught a glimpse of the fish by the boat. All of a sudden, this salmon came alive and went crazy. Ed wasn’t quick enough to let the fish run & the hook just pulled free. From what I saw, the fish was 4 to 5 pounds and no longer attached to the fly. Oh well, can’t win em all! The rest of the afternoon was spent covering water that apparently was void of trout & salmon because all we caught were the odd bass. Although we only managed to land a couple of lakers, it was still action packed. I wish the bass would start to move shallow and leave the deep water to the trout real soon. All in all it was still a great day on the water!

Frank & his uncle Antonio joined me today on a smaller body of water in pursuit of lakers & browns. I was informed that there were no salmon in this lake and would have to settle for the other trout instead. The air temps were cool in the morning but soon found their way into the 70’s by afternoon. Blue skies & bright sunshine made this a picture perfect kind of day as we trolled fly rods for the trout once again. It didn’t take long before the reels were going off, but they weren’t trout. Instead, they were bass from 20 to 30 feet of water. The surface temps were perfect with 47 degrees, but the trout weren’t what we were getting into. I quickly moved off this area hoping to locate some of the larger trout somewhere else, but kept catching the smallies everywhere we went. We covered a few miles of lake with nothing to show except destroyed, tandem streamers. I hadn’t tied over 100 of these flies for the bass to mangle and was beginning to get frustrated. One of the reels finally screamed hard and I saw a salmon go air born way behind the boat. It was the long line and Frank grabbed the rod giving the fish slack only to have it come unpinned. As quickly as it was on, it was gone! Oh well, there goes the no salmon in the lake theory, I guess. We trolled for the rest of the day looking for another taker, but all we had to show for our efforts were aggressive smallies. It was almost impossible to keep these fish away from the flies even if we were over deep water and baitfish. They were suspended all over the lake and eating everything in sight! We caught them in as little as 7 feet of water to as deep as 50 feet. I did mark plenty of baitfish schools that were most likely smelt as well as some fairly large hooks that resembled trout, but were unable to convince them to eat anything we trolled. It’s too bad about the salmon getting off, but that’s fishing. All in all it was a great day on the water despite the absence of trout & salmon!!

We all met at the ramp this morning at 8:00 and shortly after, were back on the water trolling once again. A light rain quickly disappeared and left us in the clouds for a while but soon gave way to partial sunshine. Unfortunately with the sun, came a strong wind from the west gusting above 25 knots at times. This made trolling flies for the trout & salmon a challenge, but we gave it our all. Without a touch in the first hour or so, we decided to cast jigs & jerkbaits on deep water shoals and hooked a few fish. Unfortunately, they were the wrong species once more and relocated slightly deeper yet again! It was here that Marcel locked up on a big fish with a deep diving jerkbait & I knew that this was finally what we were looking for. I netted the laker after a short battle and realized that it was a decent sized fish of at least 8 pounds. We immediately released her into the livewell, as Marcel would be taking this beauty home for a later B.B.Q. Two other fish were landed out on this shoal, but they were both bass. Ironically one of them was a largemouth that was obviously lost as it was completely out of its element. Back to trolling we went when the wind just made everything almost impossible to be casting. It was actually swirling and seemed like the wind was coming from 2 different directions at the same time. It was a little while later that Marcel managed to grab one of the rods from the holder and land a slightly above legal sized salmon that we also placed into the livewell. I thought we were onto something and really believed that we were finally going to get into them, but was disappointed to find out that this was to be the last one of the day. The next few times the reels were to fire were when smallies ate the smelt streamers. Although we weren’t able to catch any other trout or salmon, it was still lots of fun hearing the reels go. I would have liked to troll the areas I knew held fish, but was unable to get there in the conditions we were faced with. Safety always comes first and when it’s not fun, it’s just not worth it! We would have been trolling in 3 to 4 footers and taking a pounding just trying to overcome “Mother Nature’s” cruel punishment. I can’t wait to get even!!