Sometimes these reports can cause grief to the person inputting them, with pictures and HITTING the delete key at the inappropriate time.
One more time.
We (Superdad/Superdave{son}/Albert{grandson} & William {grandson} left the dock at approx 0730 Saturday. What a difference 6 hours makes from the NASTY storm on Friday evening. I have never seen the winds blow the waves the way they did - it was WILD.
Back to the fishing... Got to the fishing grounds at 0800 and began trolling, marking all kinds of fish in the 29 to 35 foot depths. We trolled downwind and the wind was strong enough to let us run the kicker in neutral and maintain a decent speed.
We fished for almost 4 hours and the flag went down, grandson Willilam was on the rod and slowly brought the fish towards the net and in the last 8 feet, the fish did a 180 degs and the hook pulled out.
He was upset, but quickly understood you can't land them all - Called Fishing Not Catching.
That was total action on Saturday, back to the dock and with the winds continuing any hopes for an evening fish were dashed as the winds would push the boat to 4MPH.
So we watched the Kentucky Derby, drank some green bottles and had the steaks.
Sunday, everyone was still excited as we were watching the leader board on the Kiwanis Derby.
Off again and got the rods in a 0745 and within 7 minutes, the flag was down. William was on the rod and working hard.
This time the Fish Gods smiled and he brought a nice fish to the net. Not big enough for the Junior Leaderboard but it's a fish.
The rod was hardly back out and another flag went down. Great - Albert on the rod exerting lots of energy fighting the fish.
The fish slowly came to the net and it was ours. Once again not big enpough for leader board or the hourly prize, but a real nice one.
Trolled around for quite a while, when the flag dropped and Superdave was on the rod. He brought the fish to the net and as I scooped, the line on the worm harness parted.
It only took about ten minutes and the flag was down, this time Superdave brought the fish to net, another one too small for derby, but at 19 inches, the proper table size.
We must have hit a school as I saw the flag drop about three inches and figured that it had to checked for weeds, well the weed pulled back. I guided the fish to the net and it was ours. Once again too small for derby prizes.
Things were perfect, everyone had a fish and it was lunch time and packing up time.
Back to the dock, and a friend graciously lent us his fish picture pole and then took the picture, Thanks Glen.
The fish were cleaned, the bags were packed and lunch was eaten. They packed the car and hit the road.
What a great weekend with son and grandsons, there aren't the words to describe the feelings of the joy and heartbreak of fishing, but it is the BEST Feeling.
On Monday, Laker John and his Calgary buddy, Walter came to fish. We had seen them fishing on Saturday and they had landed three eyes about 3lbs each.
We got out and set the rods and Holy Cow, the flag dropped and Walter was into a fish, not a big one but at 23" it's a nice fish.
Pardon for the size of the pictures but I can't get the size down from a phone picture
We had good luck as we were able to land four more before we called it quits. Lucky for me the one I landed was about 6.7lbs and it went back.
We fished til 1430 and headed for the dock, things to do back at camp. Always time for a picture to celebrate the day on the water.
It was a good Opener, with our boat and Laker's boat, we landed 12 fish, nothing under 19.5" and the biggest just under 7lbs.
We used Worm Rigs with 1 and 2 oz sinkers fishing from 27' to 35' of water and the indispensable In-line Planer Boards.
The water temperature rose every day by one degree F, starting in Hay Bay on Friday at 54 Degs and on Monday it was 58 degs. Hayward Long Reach rose to a high of just over 57 degs on Sunday on the County shore where the wind had pushed the warm water.
Some of the reports from our campground were very positive also, a group of nine had days of 20 plus fish. The fish are there.
Stay Tuned - off the water til the Long Weekend.