More Wind Nightmares

Well I was back on local waters this morning, hoping that the weather forecast was going to be right. Fat chance as the waves were 2 footers at the start and they got even stronger the longer we stayed out! Although there wasn’t any sign of movement on land, the lake was rolling pretty good. Terry & his son Josh were joining me with great anticipation of catching some fish. They really hadn’t done too much fishing before and hoped to change their results today. The weather had us in an overcast sky with cooler air temps in the 60’s and winds from the SW blowing 10 to 15 knots at the start. To my amazement, the water temps had dropped considerably and were now barely 68 degrees. This was down over 5 degrees from two days earlier and had me a little worried. I knew the fish were still there but would they bite? I set the lines and began trolling over areas that usually produced multiple catches and waited. There were several drive byes and short rips before one finally locked up and sounded the reel. I quickly passed the rod to Josh and he began reeling in our first fish of the day. It was definitely the right species as a 3 pound walleye came aboard for their dinner that night. Skunk out! Several more short strikes and a relocation change later, another reeled fired and this time Terry was landing a decent walleye, slightly larger. Although it wasn’t fast & furious, I had the confidence to continue hoping the sunshine would change their attitudes. Well, more short strikes and a few good rips after the last fish, another reel fired and this one stayed pinned. Unfortunately it turned out to be a northern pike and was immediately released. It seemed that the fish were only nipping the baits as even the two landed, fell off in the net. They just weren’t eating and I wasn’t happy! I decided to change up completely and went to casting for smallies elsewhere. It was here that I taught both Terry & Josh how to handle a spinning rod and it didn’t take long before they were looking pretty good. Josh had the first bass hooked on a jig and for a while he was just nailing them on every other cast. Terry had several on but was having a hard time keeping them pinned but I’m sure it was just the attitude of these fish today. I even tried a few casts with a jerk-bait and had more followers than takers and that showed me that they were really not interested. By now we were feeling the winds increase and a slight drizzle was starting making the fishing even more difficult. Waves were building causing me more problems with boat control and they were having a hard time feeling the hits too. After a few more fish I decided to try another area hoping for better results. I really had a hard time here as we were getting waves from both a SW & W direction. It felt like being in a washing machine as we were twisting all over. I finally had to start the small motor and put it in gear to be able to hold where we needed to be. It obviously worked as Terry was locked up tight on what I thought was a good bass. To my surprise, it came to the boat as a 5 pound walleye! Wow, a bonus fish in this bass infested area! Several more casts later, Terry had another fish and this time it was a decent smallie. They caught a few more of different sizes before I decided to try trolling again. By now the winds had increased to 20 or more knots from the west and still had a south west blow as well causing a real difficult time trolling. This didn’t last long and after several rollers came over the bow, I called it a day. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth it! Although we had to battle many elements today they still came out catching some fish and that’s all that counts. Both Terry and his son Josh had learned many things with this day’s outing and hopefully it will aid them in their next father & son outing, wherever it may be. Tough conditions with pretty good results overall!!