A Day to Remember

With a half day charter scheduled for today, I decided to head out early and scout a few new areas. Brian & Shad were to hook up with me around 11 o’clock so I fished for an hour before they arrived. Several nice smallies and a few walleye were boated before I got the call. They were here and I picked them up for a day to remember! Never having caught a walleye before, I thought I would get that off their “Bucket List”. Although it took a little longer than expected, they accomplished this task in spades. I believe Shad had one over 5 pounds as he landed a 25 inch beauty. Not to be outdone, Brian also picked up a few slightly shorter as well. It seemed more difficult to catch anything in the slot but I was determined to succeed. They would be joining me for dinner and I needed a couple of fish as an appetizer. After many more overs, we finally landed the second keeper and pulled the plug on the troll. They had caught plenty of walleye and a few bonus smallies and now it was time to cast. I immediately headed to an area that had been holding some nice bass and instructed them where to throw. Soft plastics were used to entice these footballs into eating and Brian drew first blood. He wasted no time raising the bar with one in the high four pound range. It was game on and about to get ugly! The ball bounced back & forth in the next couple of hours as they both managed to land several quality smallies. I don’t know if any made it over 5 pounds, but at least four of them were close. The bass were big and they were eating! Eventually it slowed down and I knew it was time to relocate. We made our way to another area quite a distance from this one and hoped for similar results. There were a few smaller bass landed on senkos and then it happened. They doubled up on a couple of dinosaurs at the same time and landed both. What a pic this would be! Although we had seen several already, none would come to be landed before now. They continued casting over weeds and edges picking a bass here & there as we moved along. With time not on our side, I decided to hit one other area before we called it quits. Once in position, Shad locked up almost immediately on a three pounder. He brought it to the boat along with a few other friends by its side. Brian tried to pick up one of the others but they soon scattered, never to be seen again. With this action going on, another boat decided to slide in where we were and fish. Obviously he had never seen this area and thought he’d do what many others think is the way to find fish. It’s always easier to find fishermen rather than look for fish! Both Brian and Shad couldn’t believe someone would do this on such a big body of water, but for me, it’s almost a daily occurrence. I just kept fishing through and hooked up on a couple more decent fish on tubes before another boat decided to join the party. By now I had seen enough and pulled the plug completely. In only a 5 hour period they had landed a load of nice fish, both slamming for the day. The bonus for them was dining on their catch as they thoroughly enjoyed eating the walleye. What a perfect ending to a great day of fishing!!