FISH REPORT 2014
Link to HOME, OLDER FISH REPORTS
September 3, 2014
The Girls went fishing
The first mate's friend Robin came over from Knife River Minnesota for her annual fall vacation. Besides picking blueberries she likes to fish the big water. Her husband John, Captain Coho, couldn't make it this year. Emil came down to help as we figured it might be a little rough this time of year. We headed out and the ride out wasn't too bad as we had SW swells of about 2 footers. Lines were set and it didn't take long for a hit, we lost this one right behind the boat. Then we lost another one on the way up. The next trout was a nice Mackinaw that weighed in at 13 pounds. We worked a drop off with the fish showing up near the bottom in 80 to 120 feet. It was tough to land the trout as the seas were building to 3 to 4 footers. The wind would push the boat one way and the current another. The trout would go where they wanted and you had to hit the throttle and then neutral to keep them behind the boat. We had a great crew and the team was able to land 9 trout. The ride back was neat with the boat plowing into some 4 footers and throwing spray out twenty feet to either side. Another great day on the lake, I just hope that it isn't the last one for this year. Here is a picture of the girls and their trout.
August 30, 2014
Trout to order
Gene needed a few more trout for the annual Surf and Turf dinner over in Eagle Harbor. He came over with his son Trevor. They joined up with Emil and I for a try. He said that they needed four trout for dinner. We started in the middle of the day and set three lines high and one on the bottom. Marks were showing up down near 90 feet. We picked up two in that area and then the seas chased us out of the deep water. The new plan was to fish the shallows at the 30 to 40 foot depths and see if there were some trout or salmon near shore. With the off shore wind things were better and we managed to catch one trout and one salmon. That gave us the four fish that Gene ordered so lines were pulled and we got off the rough lake. Mother Superior sure can have her own way this time of year.
August 25, 2014
The Shallows
I kept thinking about all the marks in the shallows that we saw on the tour of the Eagle nests. It was a nice afternoon so I called Emil and he called Dan Steck. Dan hasn't been out on the boat for a while so he was up for the first fish. We didn't have a clue where to set lines so we went with shallow riggers at 15 feet, deeper riggers at 25 feet, dipsey's, and surface lines for a total of eight lines. There were lots of fish marks in the 30 to 35 foot depths but no takers on our lures. It was turning into a nice boat ride. Just before a drop off where it dropped to 80 feet a downrigger popped and Dan got a nice trout. We had a couple of salmon hits at 15 feet but they didn't hook up and got off. Then a nice coho came in on a surface lure. We tried for trout in 120 feet but the only marks were suspended fish, where did all our lake trout go? After running thru the suspended trout with no hits we did a lure check, our deep lines were tangled, great, you find the fish and your lures aren't working.
The sun was setting so we turned back towards the channel. Two more trout came in, one on a dipsey, what a strange year. When we cleaned the fish their stomachs were packed with small smelt and stickle backs. We quit at dark with one salmon and three trout, all caught in less then 40 feet of water.
August 20, 2014
Eagle viewing with the cousins
Marge's cousins Gale and Karen came up for a visit. We spent one rainy day touring the Keweenaw but couldn't see much because of the heavy fog on the north shore. We were going to go for a boat ride but that was cancelled. Today things looked better. There was a fairly strong north wind but we buttoned up the boat and went out. We toured Lac La Belle and then out onto the big lake. It was a short ride out to view the eagles nests, as luck would have it there were mature eagles at both nesting sites. While we were cruising the shore in 30 feet of water we were marking quite a few fish. I should have listened to the first mate. She said I should fish the shallows where we marked the fish but no, I had to go try for last years fish in 60 feet. We trolled back to the channel working the 65 to 50 feet depths and didn't get any hits or mark fish. When we reached the shallows near the channel a nice trout came up on a 35 foot line. That saved the skunk and the cousins went home with a nice fresh trout.
August 10, 2014
Take the Grandkids Fishing
Lee, Ed Jenisons grandson and his girlfriend Cait had spent a day trolling on Lake Superior in Ed's boat. They did not even have a strike. We figured they needed a little training so Bruce and I decided to take them out. We set up in 130 feet and tried to catch last weeks fish, that didn't work. There were very few fish showing up on the fish finder and the ones we did see didn't hit. We managed to get one off the bottom and two suspended at 65 feet. One was a coho, our first one for this year. We trolled over a few humps and no fish there either. Lines were pulled and we moved to another set of rock piles. That turned up to be a dry hole. Bruce had a plan, he had caught 15 the day before on a reef way off shore, we were half way there so lines came up and the twin 350's started drinking fuel. It didn't take long and we were in his fishing hole. Marks on the bottom and suspended at 60 feet showed up on the finder. The first hit was a salmon at 60 feet, then a boat stopper trout. Action was fast and furious with Lee, Cait, and Ed having a good time hauling trout. Our catch for the day was 18 trout and 4 salmon, plenty of fish for smoking, making gravlax and grilling.
August 7, 2014
Big ones still there
The Ladies of the Lake were hosting a rummage sale at the fire hall so Tommy T and I had to move the fire trucks early in the day. We met at the fire hall at 8:00 and moved out the trucks. Then we had to set out the tables, that was hard work so we had to go fishing to recuperate. Emil came down to meet us and Tom's boat was the boat of choice today. Lake Superior was like glass when we cleared the channel. We talked about catching last years fish and off we went to the off shore reef that had produced fish in the past. Wrong move, we fished that area for a couple of hours and only had four fish. One more move and we found some fish. It seemed like the bigger fish were in 85 to 100 feet of water. It didn't take long and soon we had a "boat stopper" on. A "boat stopper" is a large trout that takes line and you can't gain line till you stop trolling. In the next couple of hours we had one of the best trips that I have had in years. The large trout were in the shallows and also they were hitting. We quit with our limit of 15 trout. The cooler was so heavy that we had to slide it up towards the bow to get the boat to plane on the way in. This is a picture of Emil with one of the large trout.
August 4, 2014
Every day different
Just when you figure out you know where the fish are, things change. I took out Helltown Hanah and her boy friend Josh out. Helltown Willy was the deckhand. The fish have been really hitting out in 95 to 155 feet. Today was nice weather except for the East wind. You know the old saying, "Wind from the East, fish bite the least". Well it held true today. We set lines at 90 feet and lost the first five fish, they just were not sticking, they would trip the line but would not get hooked. A couple of the hits were from suspended fish at 55 feet, that was different too. Finally we got a fish to stick and Josh got his first lake trout. The next fish went to my cousin Hanah, she has done this before and she had no trouble landing another nice trout. Things slowed down and both the Roamer and our boat started searching. Finally we started marking fish and catching a few. On one downwind troll we caught five trout. We quit at noon with 10 fish in the box. From left to right Helltown Hanah, Josh, and Helltown Willie.
August 2, 2014
Mike is a convert
Mike Francis has a walleye boat and he is an expert at catching walleyes, (green slime), in fact we called his boat Green Slime. Well he has been doing some trolling in Lake Superior and has been successful at catching Splake in the shallows. Now that the waters have warmed up and the fish have gone deeper he was out of luck. Jim Nicolas has helped him out by giving him a couple of manual Cannon downriggers. Today was the day to try them so he picked me up off my dock at 8:00. We ran out into Bete Grise Bay and set lines in 80 feet. After a few minor changes we got the riggers working good. Soon we had a trout on and managed to land it. When we got deeper we found out that the riggers were set up for salmon trolling and we were out of cable and could not fish deeper then 140 feet. That didn't stop us, we just fished shallower. There must have been a number of trout there as we ended up with our limit of 10 trout in just over an hour and a half. I think Mike is now a convert to the big clear waters of Lake Superior.
July 25, 2014
The Bay is Still Full of Trout
Rick Olson and Emil were the crew today. Helltown Willy was shipped over to Bruce's boat as he had no fishing partner. We headed out just ahead of Bruce and powered out to the middle of the bay. Lines went in at 90 feet and there were fish marks right away on the finder. It didn't take long and a line tripped off the downrigger. While that fish was coming up a second rigger had a fish on. After a fish was landed we would dump it out of the net and clear the line. While one person was taking care of the fish the line was sent back to the bottom. It was almost constant action and we had our limit of 15 trout by 10:30. We caught a couple more that we released while picking lines so our total was 18 trout. This is too easy and we all know that it won't last long. The trout will be here today and gone tomorrow and then the search will start again. Most trout came from 125 to 145 feet this day.
Bruce had the same kind of luck and was headed in with their limit before we got to the channel. He would have been back earlier but he and Helltown Willy were doing some "water releasing" of trout. Sharpen those hooks Bruce.
July 24, 2014
A New Experience
Us power boaters don't know it but the world is different when viewed from the deck of a sail boat. Things slow down and it is a lot quieter. I joined Gene, Bruce and Wendell for a day of fishing off of Wendell's sail boat Dawn Treader. Wendell has his boat equipped with two electric downriggers and a very long handled net. There are rod holders everywhere. It is equipped for fishing.
We met at Wendell's at 8:00 and headed for Manitou Channel. There was a quarter stern sea running so the boat had quite a roll as we motored the 14 miles to the point. There was plenty of time to talk about everything from fishing to fish catching. The lines were dropped in 90 feet of water, just past the trap nets that are set near the green bell buoy. It wasn't long and the first trout came aboard, not the big one we were looking for but a nice eater. We picked up a few more eaters and then went up into the channel. The larger trout were there but not in big numbers. I lost a big one that was taking line, Gene caught a 9 pound Mackinaw, what a beautiful trout, long, lean, and dark. I had a meeting that evening so we had to cut the trip a little short, just when we located the area holding fish.
Our original plan was to sail back but the wind was on the nose so we put the main sheet up and motor sailed back. Having the main sheet up really steadied the boat. (I hope i am using the proper sail boaters jargon to describe all the stuff on the sailboat.) If I am wrong I am sure that Gene and Wendell will let me know. I got in a good nap on the way back as I crawled up into the V berth and was our for an hour. It sure is a relaxing way to go. Oh, we ended up with 7 trout.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Bob and Marge Squared plus Paul
If you want to catch you should invite my aunt Marge and uncle Bob up to camp. Last year they came up and we did a troll down the lake and a troll back and I had to cut them off because I didn't want to clean any more fish. Well this year we headed out with a friend Paul Mohar at the crack of 9:30. It always makes we wonder why the gals have to put their makeup on to go fishing in the middle of the lake, do the fish care? You sure are not going to run into another person out three miles in Lake Superior. Anyway we got under way around 9:30 and after a short ride out to where we got the fish yesterday we set lines. The fish did not come too fast at first as we trolled our old track, Marge was captaining the boat and I was deck hand. We landed three in the first half hour. We turned and trolled back and found the fish. I was a busy deck hand as we were hooking doubles and triples. Most fish were on the bottom but we also started to hit trout down 95 feet. One of the large suspended fish was full of bugs and other debris off the surface. He had definitely been up feeding on surface. One salmon hit but threw the hook behind the boat. You know when you are having a good day when everyone is so tired out they won't take a rod that has a fish on it. We ended up with 20 trout in the box, that was enough to clean.
Friday, July 18, 2014
A Deck Hand Returns
Dave who was a deck hand for me when I was chartering wanted to go fishing before he heads back to North Carolina. I called up Ed Jenison to go along. We headed out at 9:00 and went out to the same hole that I fished two days earlier with Helltown Willy. Doug had cleaned up in that spot the day before. It should be a piece of cake to get our limit there, right? Wrong, in two hours fishing we marked two fish and never had a strike. It makes you king of wonder if you are doing something wrong like having a banana on the boat. We inspected our lunch buckets and there were no bananas aboard, now what are we going to blame for the bad luck. It was time to start searching but Lake Superior can be an awful big lake to go looking around in. Are the fish deeper, shallower, on Keweenaw Point? On a hunch we headed shallower and to another rock pile. We started marking fish before we got to the rock pile. Soon they started to hit. We fished till 1:30 and ended up with 7 trout to show for our efforts.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Fishing With Helltown Willy
The red boat, Namaycush, hadn't been out for a while and the prediction was for the winds to lay down so I called Bill Stocker, alias Helltown Willy, and asked if he wanted to do some ultralight fishing. Ultralight fishing is where you use 4 pound cannon balls and hook leaders directly to the down rigger cable, no rods required. The manual downriggers have flexible tips so you can detect a bite either by watching the rod tip or you can touch the cable. When a fish is detected you just slowly crank up the fish and cannonball, when the leader reaches the surface you carefully hand over hand the fish into the boat. If the fish is small enough you just slip the fish into the transom and do not need a net. It is a real efficient way to catch trout from deep water. Today we were fishing in 160 to 200 feet.
We tried the shallows in 80 feet for an hour and a half without a hit. Up came the lines and we moved out to 150. It didn't take long and we had the first trout up to the back of the boat. I tried the transom flip and it didn't work, off came the fish and down it went, Oh well. We had made the right move and soon we were both busy hauling up trout. Helltown Willy hadn't been worked this hard for a while and I had to listen to him whine about having to haul another fish up from 200 feet. I told him to "shut up and fish" and quit the whining. We had our limit in two hours with a small one released and a couple of throwbacks as we were quitting. Our total for the day was 13 trout. A good day for the Namaycush and two tired fishermen.
The suckers in the sink are to be cut up for cut bait.
Friday, July 11, 2014
The Family
The annual family Fish Camp was this weekend. On Thursday we had 12 people at the camp. Friday was the fishing day so Kris, Kam, and Austin were the crew. It was looking a little rough so Jim and Marcsha decided to sit this trip out on shore. It was slick calm with two foot swells from the SE, so much for the prediction of 10 - 20 from the SW. Trolling was pretty easy without the wind to push us around. Fish were showing up on the finder while we were setting up, Kris is an old time deck hand so after a short breifing on what to do the lines wend down to the bottom. The fish were showing up down on the bottom in 175 feet. We bounced bottom with our 10 pound weights and soon a downrigger tripped. A short time later a nice 4 pound trout came into the net. This was a good crew and soon there was a nice pile of trout in the fish box. The most exciting thing was hooking into another abandoned Indian gill net. We managed to get the boat stopped with 6 wraps of line left on the downrigger. Bad things happen when you run out of line on the rigger. I have lost all the cable from a rigger and one time had the down rigger ripped right off the boat. This time we were more sucessfull and managed to recover our cannon ball, cable and lures from the abandoned net. The coordinates for this abandoned net is 47 19.785, 087 52.805.
We finished fishing with 12 trout in the net. There will be a good fish fry in the next few days. Pictures will be posted when received from Kris.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
They Moved
Grandpa Bob, Wendell, Troy, and former deckhand Zach were going to board at 8:30 but a quick check of the weather showed some more rain coming in. It looked like it was going to stop raining at 9:30 so we decided to leave then. It wasn't too bad when we headed out but that soon changed. We put lines out in the rain and started trolling. A quick check of the ships radar showed a patch of rain to our South West. It didn't take long and we were in it. We got to see one lightning strike to the water about a 1/2 mile away, too close, but it was on the side of the storm moving away from us. The fish were not biting too good and Bruce called on the marine band to tell us, "fish don't bite in the rain". He was right, they were not biting very good. We were picking up a few here and there. Once the rain stopped and the lake layed down they started to hit better. We had a couple of doubles and were picking fish up steady. We quit with 15 in the box ranging from 16 inches to 8 pounds. Everyone had a big smile on their face as we headed in to port. Can you have a bad day out on the lake?
Thursday, July 3, 2014
To Jig, Troll or Go Home
We took the Kala Moiakka out with a crack crew of Bruce and Emil. We started trolling at 150 feet and started to mark fish at 160. Soon Emils rigger tripped and we landed the first fish. Then we had a double and landed both. Then Bruces line that had the bent lure on it started to out produce Emils. Emil had some comments on what kind of lure the captain gave him. We were marking some clusters of fish so we thought that jigging might work. I wouldn't let Bruce bring his geppu ( Finnish Jigging Stick) so he had to fish with a rod. There were fish under us when we dropped the lines but of course we drifted away from them by the time they got to the bottom. That drift went in the wrong direction, (it always does). We pulled lines and did a second drift. This one went in the right direction but I had the only bite and of course the fish fell off on the way to the surface. Back to trolling we went, by now the fish had kind of quit bitting.. We were hooking fish and bringing them to the surface just to have them fall off right behind the boat. Slowing the boat or putting the boat in neutral didn't help, as soon as they saw our ugly faces they would start thrashing and fall off. We quit with 11 trout in the box, one throwback, and about 10 water releases.
Thursday June 26
First Mate Brings the Boat Home
It was a beautiful day and Marge and I were busy doing STUFF around the yard. A couple of fishermen friends stopped by the dock on their way off the lake and said that they had 10 fish from one of the bobbing holes. They said that the big pond was calm, that did it. I asked Marge "want to go for a boat ride"? She said "sure". She got suspicious when I went on line and got her a fishing license. We took a slow drive through Lac La Belle and checked out any new construction along the lake but the big lake was calling and out the channel we went. It was calm with some small swells from the SE. Out came the warmer jackets as we set a course out past the green can to 135 feet of water. Lines went down and we started trolling. The first fish came in 170 feet. It looks like they are still deep. We made one pass along the drop to the south and called it quits with three trout in the box. The First Mate is becoming quite the captain as she took the Kala Moiakka all the way back to the dock and did a better job of docking then I do.
Sunday June 22, 2014
Still Winter out there
It was foggy when Bruce, Emil and I met at Bruce's boat. By the time we got the boat loaded and headed down Lac La Belle you could see the shores. Lake Superior was another story, the fog was thick out there. Bruce has a new radar on his boat so we had a good chance to try it in the fog, it worked fine. We made our way the 200 foot bobbing hole and started there. It has dried up and we only caught two out of it. We moved to a 180 foot flats where I had caught some trout on while trolling. It was better but still not good. It turned into a long but nice day on the lake and we stayed out till 4:00 waiting for Bruce to catch his last fish. We ended up with 11 trout when we came off the lake.
Dress warm out there, 40 degree water temp made winter clothes are needed.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
The Red Boat is Launched
I got the 7 1/2 horse power motor fixed and launched the Namacush, the 16 footer. The plan was to go bobbing where the fish have been hitting. I motored out to the 200 foot hole and started bobbing near Tom and Joe. They had 8 in the box by the time I got there, this was going to be easy, ya right. I drifted by them and had a hit right away. The anchor went down and of course when it caught I was in the wrong spot. Another hour went by and no bites. I went back to drifting and no hits there. Tom and Joe caught there last two fish and pulled anchor using an anchor retriever, I need one of them. After a few more fruitless drifts I moved out to another spot. It didn't take long and a fish hit and was hooked. The reel was on upside down so you had to reel backwards, in the heat of the action I tried to reel forward and the fish got slack and of course fell off. Some of us are slow learners and the same mistake was made two more times. I gave up in disgust and headed in with my tail between my legs. At least the red boat is ready to go.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
A Little Rough
Wendell's friend Vergil was here visiting from Saint Louis. He had never been out on the big pond and has never caught a Lake Trout. The wind was from the East and there were some swells coming in. We took a slow ride out about 3 miles and started fishing. Downwind trolling was about all we could do with the rollers coming at us. It would have been really rocky if we went sideways to the troughs. It didn't take long and a rod tripped and soon Vergil had his first lake trout. We trolled for a couple of hours until the white caps started to appear. That signaled the time to quit and we headed in with five nice trout in the box.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Drifting and Jigging
Bruce was the captain today as Wendell joined us on the Roamer. It was sun shine when the Roamer slid through the channel. We saw two deer, one in the slough and one near the lighthouse. They look like they survived the winter well but we did not see any fawns. I hope there are some born somewhere in the Keweenaw or the deer herd will be in trouble.
After a short ride and some adjustments to the new radar we reached jigging depth of around 200 feet. The first drift was in pretty calm water as the hair jigs made it to the bottom. We each caught one fish on the first drift. The next drift was in a little different direction and the jigs were having some trouble holding bottom. Out came the heavier jigs and they held the bottom with no trouble. They are an experiment in progress and they work, everyone was putting fish in the box. After a nice triple we stopped to count the fish, we had 12 and needed three more for our limit. I wanted to try a new spot and both Wendell and Bruce said, "you don't leave fish to find fish". We went anyway and sure enough, there were not any fish there. After a bunch of kidding about who always says, "don't leave fish to find fish" we moved back. By now you could see a gust front moving in and we decided to head in. It is cold on the lake and We were frozen and didn't want to fish in the rain. Note: don't forget your winter jacket when going on Mother Superior, she is cold this time of year. Our catch was stuck at 12 due to the captain listening to a deckhand when we headed back into port.
Wednesday JUNE 11, 2014
The old timers go fishing
We left the dock at 8:30. I was the young guy on board and I am closing in on 70. The crew was Ed, Ed and Wendell. The plan was to go jigging in 200 feet. We cleared the channel and the lake was a sheet of glass, the boat just glided across the lake. It was almost sacrilegious to disturb it.
It took a little while to figure out the drift. Every time we figured it out the wind would shift. The fish were biting lite but soon we had one flopping in the box. We kept changing jigs and trying new drifts but the fishing was slow but the lake was beautiful so we stuck it out till four bells. Our catch for the day was 10 nice lake trout.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
A Successful Experiment
Dave's 6 ounce lure worked so well at catching the first fish I thought I would make up a few. The lures consisted of a 6 ounce metal jig with a trailing flash fly. The heavy jig will take the lure down in a hurry and will hold it on the bottom even if the boat is drifting. The experimental jigs worked but were out fished by Emil's 4 ounce jig. Gene was using a hair jig. The hair jig worked as long as the boat wasn't drifting. I decided to change my rig and was going to put on one of the test jigs. The hooks were dull so they had to be sharpened. After all the hooks of the treble were carefully sharpened I put some bait on the treble and dropped the jig into the water, the only problem was that it was not connected to the line and I watched as my new creation sank out of sight. The other guys on the boat said that I was getting senile but I put it down to battle fatigue from having to net all of their trout.
It couldn't have been a better day. We had our limit of 15 and threw a couple of bonus trout back. We took a couple of pictures of the ice bergs on the way in. Another super day on Bete Grise Bay.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
To Bait or Not to Bait
Bruce and Emil joined Willy, Fred, Dave and I for this expedition out to the bergs. The lake was calm and it was a little brisk when we departed at 9:30. I had repaired the radar and the GPS so we were not blind in case we would find some fog. Of course our destination was the same as Fridays hot spot. The results were much the same as the day before as Dave got his bait to the bottom first and was fast to a fish before the boat stopped drifting. The fish were still there but not in the same numbers as the day before, we actually had to fish for them. We did have a few doubles but no triples this day.
Bruce had his geppu out (Finnish fishing stick) and had enough sucker bait on the jig to choke the fish. Willy on the other hand said, "you don't need any bait". It was almost neck and neck between Bruce with bait and Willy with a bare jig. Bruce did catch more fish in the end but Willy did prove that you could catch fish without bait. Does that mean that our crew will leave the bait off next time? No way, bait does make your lures more effective this time of year. Even trolling this time of year is better with a slow presentation and cut bait. Willy will not agree so hence the Great Bait de-bate. Oh, our catch was 26 trout, not to shabby for a bunch of old fishermen, at least we smell that way.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
A Successful Experiment
Dave's 6 ounce lure worked so well at catching the first fish I thought I would make up a few. The lures consisted of a 6 ounce metal jig with a trailing flash fly. The heavy jig will take the lure down in a hurry and will hold it on the bottom even if the boat is drifting. The experimental jigs worked but were out fished by Emil's 4 ounce jig. Gene was using a hair jig. The hair jig worked as long as the boat wasn't drifting. I decided to change my rig and was going to put on one of the test jigs. The hooks were dull so they had to be sharpened. After all the hooks of the treble were carefully sharpened I put some bait on the treble and dropped the jig into the water, the only problem was that it was not connected to the line and I watched as my new creation sank out of sight. The other guys on the boat said that I was getting senile but I put it down to battle fatigue from having to net all of their trout.
It couldn't have been a better day. We had our limit of 15 and threw a couple of bonus trout back. We took a couple of pictures of the ice bergs on the way in. Another super day on Bete Grise Bay.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
To Bait or Not to Bait
Bruce and Emil joined Willy, Fred, Dave and I for this expedition out to the bergs. The lake was calm and it was a little brisk when we departed at 9:30. I had repaired the radar and the GPS so we were not blind in case we would find some fog. Of course our destination was the same as Fridays hot spot. The results were much the same as the day before as Dave got his bait to the bottom first and was fast to a fish before the boat stopped drifting. The fish were still there but not in the same numbers as the day before, we actually had to fish for them. We did have a few doubles but no triples this day.
Bruce had his geppu out (Finnish fishing stick) and had enough sucker bait on the jig to choke the fish. Willy on the other hand said, "you don't need any bait". It was almost neck and neck between Bruce with bait and Willy with a bare jig. Bruce did catch more fish in the end but Willy did prove that you could catch fish without bait. Does that mean that our crew will leave the bait off next time? No way, bait does make your lures more effective this time of year. Even trolling this time of year is better with a slow presentation and cut bait. Willy will not agree so hence the Great Bait de-bate. Oh, our catch was 26 trout, not too shabby for a bunch of old fishermen; at least we smell that way.
Dave and the ice bergs.
Friday, May 23, 2014
First Day Out
Dave, Willy and Fred made it up on Thursday night. We sampled the salad bar and found it to be adequately stocked with Asparagus Spears, Dill Pickles, Olives, Tomato Juice, Clamato Juice, and Vodka. It passed the test so we were moving a little slow on Friday Morning. The boat was ready to go so we hooked it up to Dave's new Ford truck. A lot of maneuvering was required to get the Kala Moiakka out from its winter quarters. Dave's new truck towed it easily, kudos to the engineers at Ford.
The launch was empty and the splashdown went without incident. She was a little dry and we added about 150 gallons to the fuel tank. It always helps to have fresh fuel in the tank for the first trip of the year. The auto pilot and fish finder fired right up, the radar and GPS units did not come to life. I had tried some semi-conductive paste on the terminals and that was not the thing to do. I have a navigation program on my iPad and it works as good or better then the Raymarine GPS so that didn't stop us from hitting the big pond. Emil came down to join us and the five fearless fishermen headed out to the big pond in the hopes of catching a trout for supper. We cleared the breakwall at 12:30 and saw 12 boats on the horizon, no 17 boats. Who could be out there this time of year? When we got closer we could see that they were not boats but ice bergs.
I had some waypoints on the iPad for a bobbing hole in 200 feet of water. Emil, Gene and I had hit this spot last year. That was our starting point. Dave has a new lure that is very heavy and he was able to get to the bottom first. He had the first fish on before I had a lure on my line. We chose our spot well and even had three triples. (three fish on at one time) The fishing was fantastic and we decided to quit after looking at how full our box was. The Kala Moiakka was back at the dock by 4:30 with 22 trout aboard. Is it cocktail time?
