Alain & Cindy joined me this morning in hopes of fighting a few salmon on the fly. I too was looking foreword to hearing the reels go again as they had been pretty silent lately! We hit the water after 9:00 and immediately began to troll. The weather was almost perfect with light winds from the W at 5 knots, under sunny skies. The air temps were in the 60’s and expected to climb even higher throughout the day. The only thing that worried me was the storm that we experienced yesterday and the cooler water temps that I was reading this morning. Where I had 51 degrees now read 47 and a drop in temperature usually isn’t a good thing. For almost 2 hours we trolled without a touch, although fish & bait were present all over the place. When I had just about enough, I called it quits on this area and decided to try somewhere else, hoping for better results. My wife Christiane was to join us around noon, seeing as how she was up for our anniversary weekend. I picked her up at the docks on our way by and off we went to the next location. Instead of trolling, I thought we would try casting jigs and minnow baits along the sandy drops in hopes of a hook up. The water was really cold on the main lake points and this definitely played a role in the outcome for today. Well, it finally happened on the next spot! Cindy locked up and the emotions were high until we saw what she had hooked into. Instead of a trout or salmon, she had a smallie attached to the lure and I was not pleased. The 40 plus feet of water should have put out a laker, but not a bass! Apparently, that was all there was in the area as both Alain & Cindy hooked several more on the stick baits. I couldn’t buy a hit from anything other than a perch in these depths and opted for another location change almost immediately. The next area wasn’t any better as the bass just kept coming. Eventually, I switched to the fly rods and trolling once again in hopes of a cruising salmon. Oh we were in the right area as a couple of fish were busting smelt on the surface all around us and I could see by their backs that they weren’t bass. We tried this for quite a while before we ended the day and all we had for our efforts were a few more bass when I swung in too tight and landed over water less than 10 feet deep. Although there weren’t any trout or salmon once again, it was still a better day that yesterday with beautiful weather, and great company. I’ll be back tomorrow with my wife and plan on getting even if “Mother Nature” allows me!!

Norm & Alison were joining me today for another round of salmon fishing and this was to be Alison’s initiation into the fly rod technique. She had heard and seen all about Norm’s previous trips and wanted to experience it for herself. We met at around 7:00 A.M. and were on the water 30 minutes later. I really had high expectations when we hit the water and thought we were going to just crush them once again. Oh, how wrong I was! The weather looked great with sunshine and a forecasted high of almost 70 degrees, but there wasn’t any wind expected and that worried me a bit. There had been a lot of floating vegetation lately and this technique required no debris in the way to be effective. Even the water temps looked good, hovering around 49 degrees in the bays. Unfortunately in the first hour or so, we had only one reel fire and Alison landed a scrawny looking bass instead of a beautiful salmon. After another hour or so of washing flies, I decided that this area wasn’t going to produce and started venturing offshore and elsewhere. We trolled for what seemed like forever without any trout or salmon but did land plenty of active smallies while searching. Eventually, we switched up techniques and began casting jigs to the sandy drop offs as well as an occasional jerk bait, but no salmon came to the offerings. We had a few follows from squirrely lakers, but no salmon again. The smallies were even coming up from the deep water in a few places and just looking at the lures. I really didn’t know what to make of this, but continued perusing these silver bullets nonetheless. Eventually after landing only bass, perch and a couple of big pickerel, I thought we would go back to trolling with the flies and see if things had changed. Wouldn’t you know it, as I fired up the big engine and began to idle out to deeper water, a 5 pound niche busted a smelt right beside the boat and pissed me right off in the process. We couldn’t catch a break! The last hour or so of the day saw lots of bait up high and several nice hooks above them, but the gods weren’t on our side. Oh we did have a reel scream off in under 10 minutes, but the salmon came off when Norm transferred the rod to Alison. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be today and we left feeling wounded ourselves. This was the first day of the year that I wasn’t able to get into them and I wasn’t pleased. Between the previous cold front and heavy rains we had recently, I think the fish were just off. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! All in all, a nice relaxing day with plenty of fish, just not the ones we were after. The second day saw just Norm as Alison had to work and left last night after dinner. This was going to be equally as productive as the previous day, as the winds were gusting at over 20 knots when we woke up. They were also predicting heavier gusts later in the day with winds up to 40 & even 50 knots with some heavy rain thrown in just for good measure. I knew we would have to jump lakes and take our chances elsewhere if we were going to have any chance at all. I drove by one of the possible lakes and when I saw that it looked pretty calm, I opted for the other one in hopes of getting into some browns and salmon as well. What I wasn’t expecting was all the dirty water that we were faced with when we arrived. The water temps were between 47 degrees and in some places as high as 51, but visibility was only inches. Apparently, all the heavy rain they had a few days earlier muddied up the water and it just hadn’t cleared up yet. We trolled one high line and the other deep just to see what was happening and neither seemed to be working. We did however manage to catch 2 perch and a half dozen bass up to about 3.5 pounds before we decided to leave this place and jump to another lake instead. Imagine our surprise to arrive back at the first lake that was calm only to find a big howl going on now. Even the boat ramp had 3 footers crashing onto the shore! We tried one more lake only to find it even worse before we decided to abort this day and play safe. No fish is worth putting your life on the line for! This was another one of “Mother Nature’s” cruel tricks, but we will get even!!

Well, the four of us met up at 7:30 A.M. and were soon washing flies on the lake in hot pursuit of the elusive ouananiche salmon. We arrived to find that the conditions were even worse than yesterday afternoon, when we finished our day. Floating weeds & pollen were all over the areas that I needed to be, causing the troll to become almost impossible. Although the weather was nicer that the morning before with air temps in the high 40’s, the winds were non existent. The debris was everywhere and we needed wind to blow it towards the shoreline allowing us to troll the areas that held the fish. The water temps were between 45 & 50 degrees depending on which areas we were and that seemed just perfect for the salmon. We were constantly checking the lines and most times, coming up with some sort of crap on the flies not allowing the fish to eat the baits. Although we did manage to land one shot salmon and had another on for a brief period, I decided after a couple of hours that this just wasn’t going to happen. We picked up and left completely, hoping for a better area to be able to troll. We finally found an area void of debris and hoped that we would be able to find fish and it didn’t take long before we were locked up. Unfortunately, they were bass and although decent in size, not the species we were after. The entire day was pretty much like this with the only fish being caught, either bass or perch. We did manage to have a good rip on one of the reels in the afternoon that I was sure had to be a salmon, only to have it come unpinned when Jim wasn’t able to get the rod out of the holder. We ended the day a little under par on the salmon scene, but way above par on other species while trying. Mother Nature provided us with a rather difficult day today while in search of the elusive ouananiche salmon!!

I was back on the water once again today after a weekend of wetness for another shot at those miserable niche! Andre, Jim & Marcel joined me this morning as we trolled for what seemed like forever, waiting for the reels to fire. The weather was quite cool when we started at 38 degrees and the winds were out of the north at 5 to 10 knots. Water temps had chilled off considerably from Saturday where I had areas at over 51 degrees and now they were closer to 42. Fortunately for us, there was at least some sunshine making the cold morning, warm up quicker. It probably took close to 15 minutes before we had our first rip and Jim was soon fighting a salmon. The skunk was officially out of the boat when I slipped the net under a 16 inch silver bullet and released it into our livewell. In the next few hours it wasn’t fast & furious like I was use to, but we did manage to pick a few here & there. Eventually, we were able to put 3 decent fish in the livewell out of a possible 7 on the line. Unfortunately, 3 of the others landed were on the short side and made their way back to lake to grow up for the next year. Eventually, I had to relocate and try another location further down the lake. We were to troll & cast for several more hours without any more trout or salmon. We did however manage to land several smallmouth bass on flies & jigs in deep water over sand drops and rock piles instead. Some of them were in the 4 pound class and fought pretty well on the fly rods too! After realizing that it just wasn’t going to happen here, I decided to head back to where we began the day and try for a few more salmon for the last hour. With all the floating weeds and debris, it was almost impossible to troll without fouling up the flies as I soon found out. We made several passes over the best areas and all we managed to come up with were pieces of vegetation. It was time to go when the reel finally went off and Andre landed a very nice tree branch! Although it wasn’t what I had expected, we did still manage to boat a few salmon and several larger smallies to make it a worthwhile day to be on the water. Tomorrow morning, we will reconvene and try to put a better beating on the fish than they put on us today!!

I headed to the lake early this morning with David to try our luck at some more salmon. We were expecting a very wet day and were pleasantly surprised t to begin in the clouds instead. After fixing a minor problem with a broken steering bracket connecting the two engines we were ready for battle. The water temps had warmed up a little since I was here on Monday and I wasn’t sure they would still be in the area. It was mostly around 50 degrees with a warm air temp around 60 degrees. Winds were almost non existent being light & variable as well. Fortunately, it didn’t take too long to get a confirmation when a high line began to scream and David was tight to the first salmon. Unfortunately, it fell a quarter inch short of the legal size and was immediately released. Not long after that one, the other reel screamed & we were on once more. This one did make the cut at over 16 inches and would be on the menu at David’s house this evening. Several more hits, misses and a few others landed and before we knew it, there were three nice salmon up to 17 inches swimming in the livewell. We even managed to do battle with a couple of feisty smallies that somehow managed to find their way into salmon country too. It wasn’t fast & furious, but we were picking at them pretty good until the weather took a turn for the worse. It began to rain and real heavy at times shutting the fish completely down. Throw in some thunder just for good measure and we had the next three hours, living hell. With all the heavy rain falling, there was a lot of mud dirtying up the water from the raging streams draining into the lake and visibility was almost nil in the areas we were getting hit earlier. I tried everything including fishing over 100 plus feet of water, but even that didn’t change the outcome. Just when we were about to call it a day, one of the reels fired and David was once again battling another salmon to the net. As with most of the fish today, this one was also short and back it went too. A couple more passes just for good measure proved to be useless and we were on or way back to the ramp, calling it a day. I hope the water settles and cleans up in the next couple of days as I will be back for revenge! Overall a tough day with 8 salmon landed a couple of smallies and a few more drive byes. Not the day I was looking for, but still fun nonetheless!!