Crazy and fun morning. I had plans to take Hannah out fishing in the bay this morning, but she wanted to go in the boat and my wife wanted us to stay close. I had leftover crawlers, so Jennings it was.
Not a sole their. Their was seriously less than half a dozen boats out on the lake and less than a half a dozen from shore. This was not trout fishing weather as it was sunny from the start!
It didn't take lone before Hannah got her first trout in.
She quickly got another when I hooked up also. The buoy line was going to cut her fish off, but she worked it like a pro and got it on the right side. My fish busted my line and was a nicer grade, but it was a little hectic there for a few minutes and all I cared about was her landing hers on the pink rod! lol
When we didn't get another bite in 15 minutes, she wanted to troll, or just move in general to see some different scenery. I realized it wasn't going to be a real fishing day (at least the way I like to fish) so off we went a trolling. I figured at least I could see what was going on around the rest of the lake.
There were few if any puddlers around, so the troll was pretty much obsolete without a down-rigger. I then metered a TON of trout! I dropped down a mini jig and BAM! Bigger fish on!
I wasn't wuite sure what I hooked as my drag was as tight as I could get it without breaking the line but I was running out of line really quick... This may have been a catfish, I'm not really sure, but my 4# and noodle stick was not up to the task as it busted my off and away went my favorite mini jig. I retied and tried a few more times for nothing so we moved on.
We were being watched...
We found a spot with people drifting for trout and watched a guy reel up a 3-4 pound model. there wasn't a lot of room there, so I just left him to his fish and moved on (while taking a mental note of his rig and depth).
We moved to a spot that I have not caught many trout at, but wanted to just try a new area. This was Hannah's favorite part of the morning.
We saw 3 BIG BASS swimming around the shoreline. One was probably 8 pounds or so and I only had my trout gear. I pinned a whole crawler on a size 4 hook and fly lined it in the vicinity of the big girl. She swam up real fast and literally swam around it while looking at it slowy sink all the way to the bottom. She made an inhale and bolted! Problem was the worm never got sucked into her mouth and I lost sight of her. The other two bass showed zero interest in my offering.
While I was doing this, Hannah yells "Coyote!" and sure as hell only 20 feet away in broad daylight, a coyote was walking the shoreline. All of a sudden it looked in the water (about 40 feet from us) and JUMPED IN! It dog paddled out with a 5 pound trout in it's jaws! What the HELL! I definitely have never seen or heard that happening before.
Well, that made Hannah's day and it made my day. We fired up the boat and made our way back to the ramp, happy to not have the skunk and to spend a beautiful morning with my daughter.
I'll have to get out there again soon as I saw a few new techniques I need to try in a few spots that I didn't pay much attention too before.
Happy Holidays Everyone! Hope you get out to do a little fishing this week!
