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!!

Yesterdays outing with Darren had Norm frothing for more salmon, so we headed right back to the lake this morning, just praying for a similar day. The weather conditions were a carbon copy and I was pretty sure with this stable weather pattern that we would have a great day. Little did I know that it was to be a day chock full of surprises and all good ones too! Winds were light & variable with occasional gusts from the west blowing at 5 to 10 knots and the sun was with us all day. Air temps climbed to the upper 60’s and the water temps were anywhere from 43 degrees all the way up to as high as 51 in certain areas of the lake. We didn’t break the 1 minute hook up, but we were able to get into the first salmon in less than 15 minutes and then the games began. We literally had reels firing off about every 5 minutes and sometimes even less! There were at least 4 double headers throughout the day and plenty of action to keep anyone on their toes. It got to a point that we would see them on the sonar and actually call the rod that was going to go. Talk about confidence! After getting into about 10 or so fish, we decided to take a break in the action and refine some of Norms fly casting skills for a bonefish trip just around the corner. I guess this lasted about an hour or so and back we went to trolling flies for the silver bullets once again. If it wasn’t for all the floating debris on the surface, I think we could have caught even more than we actually did. Unfortunately, we spent a lot of the time checking the flies for weeds and debris and never were trolling at 100% by doing this. It did work in our favor several times though as we were hit while lifting the rods out of the holders and that was incredible. In fact, the largest salmon of the day hit while lifting the rod over some floating twigs. It hammered the fly when the direction was changed and immediately went to the air when it felt the sting of metal. Of course it had to hit the 5 weight and give Norm an even stronger battle, making the fight last even longer than usual. I don’t think Norm realized just how big this fish was until it leaped three feet out of the water in front of his face. His jaw dropped in awe and the reel just screamed uncontrollably as the salmon dove to the 80 foot depths we were now hovering over. I knew this was the biggest salmon he had ever battled and hoped he would be able to hold onto the beast long enough for it to come to the net. After several more leaps and runs, I was finally able to scoop it up and we were both delighted to see it come aboard. She was a fat, chrome silver 24 inch beauty. I’m sure if weighed, it would have been a five pounder. I took many pics of the fish and placed her in the live well beside the others. Talk about mutt & Jeff! She dwarfed all the others making them look more like bait. I thought that after this, it would be all downhill but soon found out differently when the reels began screaming once again. This was to carry into the afternoon pretty much the same as the morning and we actually lost track of all the fish being caught somewhere around 3 o’clock. Although we fished till about 5, we really never had any extended periods of dead time to worry about and that made for one of the best trips for salmon this season. I’m not sure what the final count was, but we knew it was at least 25 or more landed and at least 15 that were lost while on the way to the boat. There’s a definite possibility that we had close to 50 or more salmon on the line throughout the entire day and we left them while they were still biting too. It was such a fantastic day on the water that we both decided to release the 24 incher back to where she came from and replaced her with an 18 inch salmon shortly afterwards. All I can say is wow! Norm on the other hand may have to be locked up after today as his head is still spinning. Today was not great, it was insane!!

Back to the lake I went today but this time, Darren was going to be accompanying me for his first fly rod experience. He had never caught a niche before and wanted to experience these incredibly active, psycho fish on a fly. The weather was looking great with sun & cloud cover as well as a decent wind from the S/W at 5 to 10 knots. Air temps were in the 60’s and water temps were between 42.5 and 48 degrees in one area. To say it started out with a bang would be an understatement as it only took one minute for the first reel to fire. Darren was officially locked up with his first landlocked salmon and only one of many more to come. The first 3 fish were all of legal size and things were looking good for us as there was only one more needed for our limits. I knew this wasn’t going to be a problem as we hadn’t even been trolling for 15 minutes! I had decided before the day began to run two high lines instead of one deep and one shallow due to the active nature of these fish just a few days earlier. Obviously it was the right decision as we had several doubles and many, many singles throughout the day. The fish were active and Darren was getting a real treat today fighting niche up to 18 inches. The shear power of these little bullets was incredible to say the least with every one of them just screaming line off of the reels during the fight. Some of them came unpinned during the day, but the majority of these salmon eventually came to the net only to be released after our limits were filled. We had action pretty much all day long and by 4:00 we decided to call it a day. The total for Darren’s first experience today was 18 for 23. As with every other outing with Darren, “Lady Luck” was with him once more. I think I will have to call him “Lucky Darren” from now on!!!

Norm & I hit another lake today to see if we could tackle some more trout & salmon on the fly. We arrived at the ramp with the air temps barely 35 degrees, but the sun was out making it feel much warmer. Winds were out of the N at 10 knots and the air had a chill to it too. By the time we finally got set up and fishing, it was almost 9:30 and we were anxiously awaiting our first rip. I don’t think we had gone 15 minutes when the long line let out our favorite sound & we were locked. It felt like a good fish but just briefly as the line went limp not long after. The fly was all twisted around the shank and the tandem wire was mangled leaving us wondering how those razor sharp hooks never got penetration. The next rod to fire was the other long line and this one stayed pinned right until the net. Once in, the hooks were out and the fish was free. They really weren’t hammering the baits, just nipping at them as we were about to see. The morning bite lasted for a few hours in this area before we opted for another location in hopes of bigger fish. We went 3 for 6 here and didn’t appreciate the odds! Although the water temps were about 43 degrees and bait was everywhere, we could only manage 6 bites and that was too slow for me to stay any longer. Round two was even stranger with the absence of trout all together. Oh we had many hits and landed several fish there, but they really weren’t what we were after as we trolled through what seemed like miles of prime water. I had found water temps in the upper 40’s and marked big schools of bait in several of the areas but was hooking smallmouth bass everywhere I went. I was concentrating in 30 to 40 feet of water and the fish I was marking were suspended, causing me to think they were either trout or salmon. What a surprise to find they were bass and some of them were quite large as we hit a few that were over 4 pounds. After a few hours of covering water without any success, we decided to go back to the location where we began. Apparently, it was a good decision as the first reel screamed in less than 3 minutes and the game was once again on! We were to land the first 5 salmon that attacked our offerings and somehow lose the next 6 that fired the reels. In just a couple of hours, we had shots at 11 fish and that was great. By the end of the day, we had somehow only managed to land 8 out of a possible 17 salmon. Unfortunately, the heaviest fish that we were into didn’t make it to the net as we were barely able to move it before the hooks pulled free. The unknowing is always the worst as we were left in awe! Although we were able to go 8 for 17, the odds still were below 50% and that just sucked! Overall a great day on the water with plenty of action and nobody got hurt!!!