More Hell from Mother Nature

Just another day in paradise, not! It began with strong west winds blowing 10 to 20 knots and intensified throughout the day. I had a single person today, unlike the boat load yesterday and was looking forward to fishing. Too bad Mother Nature had other ideas as she tortured us all day long! Christy was hoping to get a possible musky as she had never landed one before, but it just wasn’t meant to be. We hit a few areas early and trolled them hard, only to come up empty. By about 10:30 or so we pulled the plug and targeted the smallies instead. It seemed that the winds were stronger now making the fishing even tougher. The light bait approach for bass was difficult as the big blow was causing giant bows in her line, making it almost impossible to detect the strikes. I was on a bunch of good smallmouth and had to reposition the boat in order for Christy to feel any pickups at all. She eventually overcame these problems and began hooking many fish, but landing them was a different story. More than half of them managed to jump the hooks, leaving her in disappointment. She did catch plenty but it could have been a whole lot more! I moved around a few areas and in every one, had a rough time positioning the boat for her to cast. We held out here for a few hours until neither of us could take it any longer. I thought I would be able to run around a point and fish shoreline further away but soon realized that this idea was impossible. The waves were three & four footers and blowing right on the area I wanted to fish. Plan B was to troll another spot but the water clarity looked more like coffee and after 20 minutes there, I moved again. By now the waves were rolling pretty good and despite an attempt at trolling into the wind, I was forced to go in one direction. Downwind was the only way to go and I hate settling! We managed to get several pike but no walleye. I would have loved to make turns and cover entire areas but unfortunately, I had to keep going with the wind. To make matters worse, the floating weeds were in the entire water column. It didn’t matter if I got the lures in clean because there was so much more below the surface and likely all the way to the bottom. A constant rotation from each rod was needed and even at that, they kept coming in dirty. By 3:00 we had just about enough of this crap and headed to the ramp to pull out. I know that even with the hurricane like winds, I would have been able to catch if it wasn’t for the weeds in the water. Despite all the obstacles we encountered, we endured most of them and even managed to catch some fish. I only hope the winds lighten up soon as the fish are getting away with murder. So many places to fish and very few areas doable! It’s just got to lighten up soon!!