The Right of Way

This morning saw Sam & Garret back with me again but not for sturgeon like the previous outing. Instead, they were going to fish for bass & walleye, if the winds weren’t too bad!

I began on an open water flat and the waves were pretty big early in the day. The drifts were also fast and after only one walleye in several passes, I decided to make a long run to another area. I knew it would be much more sheltered there!

We ran in some nasty rollers but eventually made our way to a calmer spot to fish. Here both Sam & Garret managed to get loads of keeper sized walleye and some really nice smallies in just a couple of hours. It even felt like the winds layed down a few times while they fished! When the action slowed, I made another short move and realized that the winds hadn’t gone, we were just concealed from their fury. This place gave up a couple more smallies before we had to run back. Another group was waiting for the afternoon trip!

I made my way to the dock, running in two & three foot waves and wasn’t looking forward to the afternoon. Hopefully the winds wouldn’t get any worse!

Frank & his son Nick joined me as we ventured back out on the windy waters. The waves were much bigger than they thought but seemingly smaller than this morning. I decided to try the area I had started in to see if we could have a slower drift and was pleasantly surprised. It was doable! Or so I thought!

We had done a couple of passes and Nick had landed one good smallie when things took a turn for the worse. There was a sail boat race going on and all was good with where they had placed their float markers. I was able to drift exactly the line I needed and was nowhere near them. Then the marshal boat decided to move the floats to the area I was fishing. This tends to be a common occurrence at this time of the year for me and confrontations always happen with them! I decided to find out why and headed over to the boat to talk to him. He said that they wanted to change up the course and this was where he planned on doing it. Right where I had been fishing for an hour! I don’t know why they feel that they control the waters and can do anything they want, anywhere they feel like! Well our next drift turned out to be our last one and I never even finished it. There were boats charging us from all directions and even a few yelling matches between us! It’s not worth the agony of having to deal with all of this shit so I pulled out and let the blow boat babies have their way! Regardless that I had the right of way as I was not under any power and they were! Very nice etiquette!

I decided to go to the area I had done well this morning and made one demonstration cast and locked up. A big smallie fell victim to my offering and I hoped it wasn’t going to be the last!

We stayed on this spot for the remainder of the time and plenty more walleye & bass came aboard . Although Nick was having a tough time, his father was putting a beating on the fish. They both had many missed opportunities and could have fended much better but that’s fishing!

The winds had built up even bigger when it was time to leave and even switched from a west to a SW. This made for a lovely run back to the ramp! As we got closer I was forced to tack again in the three & four footers we were running in. Fortunately we made it back safely and with very little splashing!

Today was an interesting one to say the least. Both parties had good fishing and except for the run in with the sailboat racers it was actually a great day! Hopefully I won’t have to contend with them again this year but something tells me that it’s not over! Either way, I will be back out and clients will be catching plenty more fish before the season is done!!