10-27-2013, 12:39 AM
[#0000FF]Oops. I did it again. Went fishing for the 4th time this week. Yeah baby. Was about hammered after trudging my tube cart up the hill at Deer Creek yesterday but couldn't resist the invite from SBennett to hit Starvation with him...in his lovely Lund. Yeah, that's right. Me fishing on Saturday and in a boat.
Shane and I have been personal acquaintances and cyber buddies for a few years but had never fished together. We finally ran out of excuses and "hooked up"...errr fishingwise.
Because of the recent lack of good reports from Starvation we rehearsed our list of excuses if we came back with few or no fish. Shane made it plain that he realllllly wanted some perch and walleyes for fish tacos. But we both agreed that it was more likely we would have to settle for trout slime on our gear rather than the intended targets. Glad we were wrong.
As we left the launch ramp we turned west, toward the bridge. We anticipated that would be our best venue for the day. However, we made a couple of detours to run the sonar over some other potential fishy hangouts. On about our third checkout we did indeed see some likely looking marks on the bottom in about 40 feet of water. We agreed that we could return to fish it if our other spots did not pan out.
Our next checkout area was a sudden inspiration. It has been a good location in the past...both for ice fishing and for late season open water action. As we made a couple of S turns we saw some likely prospects on the sonar screen. Shane set the auto position control and we geared up to sample the fishing. That's when Shane got excited and jumped up from the captain's chair...pulling out the kill switch...and then leaving the battery on so that we couldn't start the big motor later. Enough of that.
Got an inkling that we might be off to a good start when my first cast got chomped...by a teen incher walleye. Then another. Then Shane got one, and then another. We were getting pretty fast action on several different lure and bait rigs...fishing two rods. And it got busy enough that we almost couldn't use two rods each...having doubles at the same time a few times. Yeee Haww.
One of us had bumped the button on the auto control unit and we drifted off the first spot. But we repeated our first approach and found the fish again...reset the controls and started catching fish again. Only this time we started adding some nice perch to the livewell. Oh yeah, baby. Fish tacos were going to be a reality.
That was about the time we met the friendliest boat on Starvation. Another Lund...pulled right up on top of us and dropped the anchor. Shane told them, from only about 20 feet away, that we did not have an anchor down and were moving around. Their response..."We fished here two weeks ago and got 38 walleyes." In other words, we have fished here before so we can anchor here if we want to. The light breeze picked up and their tiny anchor did not hold. They drifted by us within rod distance...pretending we were not even there. I kindly offered..."You guys could get in the boat with us but there are too many of you." (There were at least six or seven in a smaller boat than we had.) Their response: "Yeah right. Probably wouldn't work too well." Shane and I looked at each other and realized that it wouldn't make much difference what we said. I won't lie and tell you guys that Shane shed big tears when they moved off. But he was shaking with emotion.
Bottom line...we pretty much stayed in one small area all day...up until about 1:30. We caught a steady procession of walleyes, perch and silly slimers. We were still getting bites when we agreed that we had over-funned and should probably head down the road so we could get our fish processed before too late at night.
We didn't catch any large walleyes. Lots of underfooters, footlongs and teen inchers...up to about 16 or 17 inches. We estimated we caught more than 30 between us...each keeping a limit of 10 for the table. We also ended up with over a dozen keeper perch. Actually, we caught nothing under 8 inches or over 12 inches. But enough fat tens and some 11s to turn into tacos.
Probably caught about 4 or 5 trout...on accident. We simply didn't have time to play with them.
A purty day on the water with a great guy and an angler of the first order. I think we agreed that we made a good team on the water...even if Shane probably got tired of me whining about how I could do it different and better if I was fishing from my tube. That'll learn him not to invite me on his boat too often.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
Shane and I have been personal acquaintances and cyber buddies for a few years but had never fished together. We finally ran out of excuses and "hooked up"...errr fishingwise.
Because of the recent lack of good reports from Starvation we rehearsed our list of excuses if we came back with few or no fish. Shane made it plain that he realllllly wanted some perch and walleyes for fish tacos. But we both agreed that it was more likely we would have to settle for trout slime on our gear rather than the intended targets. Glad we were wrong.
As we left the launch ramp we turned west, toward the bridge. We anticipated that would be our best venue for the day. However, we made a couple of detours to run the sonar over some other potential fishy hangouts. On about our third checkout we did indeed see some likely looking marks on the bottom in about 40 feet of water. We agreed that we could return to fish it if our other spots did not pan out.
Our next checkout area was a sudden inspiration. It has been a good location in the past...both for ice fishing and for late season open water action. As we made a couple of S turns we saw some likely prospects on the sonar screen. Shane set the auto position control and we geared up to sample the fishing. That's when Shane got excited and jumped up from the captain's chair...pulling out the kill switch...and then leaving the battery on so that we couldn't start the big motor later. Enough of that.
Got an inkling that we might be off to a good start when my first cast got chomped...by a teen incher walleye. Then another. Then Shane got one, and then another. We were getting pretty fast action on several different lure and bait rigs...fishing two rods. And it got busy enough that we almost couldn't use two rods each...having doubles at the same time a few times. Yeee Haww.
One of us had bumped the button on the auto control unit and we drifted off the first spot. But we repeated our first approach and found the fish again...reset the controls and started catching fish again. Only this time we started adding some nice perch to the livewell. Oh yeah, baby. Fish tacos were going to be a reality.
That was about the time we met the friendliest boat on Starvation. Another Lund...pulled right up on top of us and dropped the anchor. Shane told them, from only about 20 feet away, that we did not have an anchor down and were moving around. Their response..."We fished here two weeks ago and got 38 walleyes." In other words, we have fished here before so we can anchor here if we want to. The light breeze picked up and their tiny anchor did not hold. They drifted by us within rod distance...pretending we were not even there. I kindly offered..."You guys could get in the boat with us but there are too many of you." (There were at least six or seven in a smaller boat than we had.) Their response: "Yeah right. Probably wouldn't work too well." Shane and I looked at each other and realized that it wouldn't make much difference what we said. I won't lie and tell you guys that Shane shed big tears when they moved off. But he was shaking with emotion.
Bottom line...we pretty much stayed in one small area all day...up until about 1:30. We caught a steady procession of walleyes, perch and silly slimers. We were still getting bites when we agreed that we had over-funned and should probably head down the road so we could get our fish processed before too late at night.
We didn't catch any large walleyes. Lots of underfooters, footlongs and teen inchers...up to about 16 or 17 inches. We estimated we caught more than 30 between us...each keeping a limit of 10 for the table. We also ended up with over a dozen keeper perch. Actually, we caught nothing under 8 inches or over 12 inches. But enough fat tens and some 11s to turn into tacos.
Probably caught about 4 or 5 trout...on accident. We simply didn't have time to play with them.
A purty day on the water with a great guy and an angler of the first order. I think we agreed that we made a good team on the water...even if Shane probably got tired of me whining about how I could do it different and better if I was fishing from my tube. That'll learn him not to invite me on his boat too often.
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