Finally Scoring

After taking a few days off due to heavy rains, I was back on the water with Peter & Scott today. I wasn’t sure what to expect as the water levels had risen & gotten a little dirtier when we set the lines to troll. As with every day, anticipation for some salmon was high and it didn’t take too long before the first reel fired and Scott was tight to a silver bullet. Based on the amount of line it took out, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t make the cut. It fell short at 15 inches and was returned to the water immediately. The next fish hit shortly after while we were setting the line back out and it too fell a little short. I tried several more passes, only to find that these two were all we were to get here & relocated. Although the water temps were in the mid to upper 50’s, there didn’t seem to be many active fish in that area. I was hoping our next spot would prove a little different, but found that the only activity was to be from migrating bass. By trolling some of the deeper break lines, we encountered a few smallies and shifted locations once again. By now, the rain had started and I thought we would try something a little different over deeper water. I set two lead core lines on planer boards and another mono up high with a board as well. By doing this, I was able to cover depths all the way to about 15 feet below the surface. We were marking plenty of schools of baitfish and several fish marks, but nothing seemed to want to feed. By now I was ready to make a long run further down the lake and try a few offshore areas that historically held fish. First pass, all three reels go off simultaneously and a little chaos occurs! To my amazement, they are all smallies again and over 20 plus feet of water on the edge of the shoal. I worked the entire area thoroughly and never touched a trout in the process. We jumped around plenty in the afternoon and tried several other areas of the lake, all with the same results until one deep point. It was here that Scott managed to hook into a laker while ripping a jerkbait over 40 plus feet of water. I had seen a few boils from feeding trout and thought we might be able to entice one into eating. This fish was several inches over the legal size and made it into the livewell for Scott to enjoy at home. We even tried trolling this area again and although I marked plenty of decent fish in the area, none of them would eat. Most of these fish seemed to be on the hunt based on the way they appeared on the sonar and were pretty high up in the water column. I was sure we would hook into a few more but after 30 or so minutes of washing flies, we pulled the plug and moved once more. We went to another deep edged point and tossed jerkbaits in all directions, hooking several jumbo perch, a couple of bass, but no more lakers. Throughout the day we had seen many a dead smelt on the surface along with lots of them swimming just below the surface. I knew the fish were well fed and that just getting a few hits was a bonus. We left the lake somewhere around 5:30 in sunshine, no wind and air temps close to 80 degrees. The rain we had encountered earlier in the day hadn’t lasted for more than an hour or so and cloud & sunshine was what we were to have throughout the afternoon. This was truly the nicest day by far this season and we were all glad to have spent it on the lake. Although Peter & Scott didn’t hit the mother load, they still had a great day loaded with a variety of species and Scott got to take home a nice laker for dinner. Mother Nature didn’t win this time!!