First Bite in Weeks
Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 7:28 pm
Yeah, like a single bite.
We started the morning out at our favorite launch, Redgate, about 6:45. Crew was Brody, Liam, and myself. I don't remember air temperature, but, no frost on the windshield, with some frost on the bow. Must have been hovering around freezing.
Boat started and ran great, with Liam waking up the big Merc 2 stroke, and Brody pulling over our little Honda workhorse.
On the way out of the river, I had to snap a picture of the conditions.
It didn't come out so great, but trust me, it was a beautiful morning.
We ran north to meet up with Reelax, and set up in their aquatic footprints so to speak, hoping to turn our luck around after a tough few weeks of fishing, but not catching.
We set out our big planer boards, stick baits, a couple little spoons, running a split shot in front of the stick baits about 6 feet. Except the leadcore rods of course. Those just had our stuff tied on. Did use a couple riggers less than 10' down.
We trolled north close to the shoreline, clotheslining more moorings with our planer board line than wrestlers at a WWE Smackdown.
Talked to the guys a while on the radio, sipping coffee, hot chocolate, and having a few Entimans donut holes. Not much else to do besides reel in lures without fish on them, and put new ones back out.
At one point along our 28.8 mile GPS track today we had our first release since I think January. And boy it was an exciting one. Leadcore jointed rapala 1.5 colors down plus a 50' flouro leader back off of a planer board. Liam was up, and I could have taken the net from Brody, but after a report from Reelax that they had just caught a laker, I figured I'd let him net it. The best way to learn is to do stuff, right? After some yelling and a couple missed attempts, I left the helm to see what was going on.
I'd bet our trolling motor that was a 7 lb salmon thrashing around right behind the boat. "Gimme that!" I grabbed the net, but, it was too late. Fish spit the hook before I could get the net in the water, and swam off.
Big heartbreak right there, especially for Liam. That one hurt. But like I told the boys, it wasn't so bad. Fish didn't swim off with the lure stuck in his mouth, he wasn't blinded in one eye or something since we were only running a tail hook on the lure, and we weren't going to keep it anyway. Only thing we missed out on was a picture, and another master angler salmon entry for Liam. He's already got a salmon this year anyway.
After another couple passes, we decided to part ways with the reelax crew, and test out some new waters. Got a picture before we left.
So for those of you that don't know, the best way to drown your sorrow after a missed chance like that, is to fire up the grill, and cook up some nice Yummy Boneless Wyngz. Hot buffalo style.
Yes, you read that right, wyngz, haha. Brody and I went out last night for snacks sans Mama, so I got to pick out what we brought out on the water.
I had Liam cook them up to get his mind off of the loss earlier, and the Wyngz really did take the edge off.
In this case, it wasn't the nice hot and spicy taste of chicken that helped our spirits, it was the weirdness of it. Check out these Wyngz.
At our house all the kids start eating buffalo wings right alongside rice cereal, and whipped carrots in their high chair. Not quite, but the kids like them. We call the two kinds 1 bones and 2 bones. Like you see above.
Well these Wyngz are boneless, somehow molded into 1 bone and two bone shapes. Liam and I were laughing as we ate them. There's just something not right about holding a drumstick by the small end, and just biting the thing in half. The taste however, was excellent.
He cooked up some nice kielbasa next.
We stopped along the way to check out the waterfall at the Palisades as well.
Another little curiosity for you to check out here, I was trolling along at one point, close to 5 hours into our fairly quiet fishing journey, and I thought I heard something bump the boat. I asked the boys, "You hear that?" ""No". "Was that ice?"
So if you look at that sonar graph, check out the vertical line from the surface to the bottom. That's what a mostly submerged 30" mooring ball looks like on sonar, when you directly run it right over.
Oops.
No harm done to either party though, just kept chugging along.
We didn't get to hook up with Dilly Worm, although we were on the water for an hour or so at the same time. Saw a bunch of other boats as we were heading in, including a Bass Boat.
Liam did a good job landing the boat in a really stiff sideways current today too. Tough one for anybody. He got it on the second try.
Liam's big salmon didn't cooperate today, but, you just really can't beat being out on the water doing what we were doing this time of the year.
Thanks for the tips Matt, and Reelax crew.
We started the morning out at our favorite launch, Redgate, about 6:45. Crew was Brody, Liam, and myself. I don't remember air temperature, but, no frost on the windshield, with some frost on the bow. Must have been hovering around freezing.
Boat started and ran great, with Liam waking up the big Merc 2 stroke, and Brody pulling over our little Honda workhorse.
On the way out of the river, I had to snap a picture of the conditions.
It didn't come out so great, but trust me, it was a beautiful morning.
We ran north to meet up with Reelax, and set up in their aquatic footprints so to speak, hoping to turn our luck around after a tough few weeks of fishing, but not catching.
We set out our big planer boards, stick baits, a couple little spoons, running a split shot in front of the stick baits about 6 feet. Except the leadcore rods of course. Those just had our stuff tied on. Did use a couple riggers less than 10' down.
We trolled north close to the shoreline, clotheslining more moorings with our planer board line than wrestlers at a WWE Smackdown.
Talked to the guys a while on the radio, sipping coffee, hot chocolate, and having a few Entimans donut holes. Not much else to do besides reel in lures without fish on them, and put new ones back out.
At one point along our 28.8 mile GPS track today we had our first release since I think January. And boy it was an exciting one. Leadcore jointed rapala 1.5 colors down plus a 50' flouro leader back off of a planer board. Liam was up, and I could have taken the net from Brody, but after a report from Reelax that they had just caught a laker, I figured I'd let him net it. The best way to learn is to do stuff, right? After some yelling and a couple missed attempts, I left the helm to see what was going on.
I'd bet our trolling motor that was a 7 lb salmon thrashing around right behind the boat. "Gimme that!" I grabbed the net, but, it was too late. Fish spit the hook before I could get the net in the water, and swam off.
Big heartbreak right there, especially for Liam. That one hurt. But like I told the boys, it wasn't so bad. Fish didn't swim off with the lure stuck in his mouth, he wasn't blinded in one eye or something since we were only running a tail hook on the lure, and we weren't going to keep it anyway. Only thing we missed out on was a picture, and another master angler salmon entry for Liam. He's already got a salmon this year anyway.
After another couple passes, we decided to part ways with the reelax crew, and test out some new waters. Got a picture before we left.
So for those of you that don't know, the best way to drown your sorrow after a missed chance like that, is to fire up the grill, and cook up some nice Yummy Boneless Wyngz. Hot buffalo style.
Yes, you read that right, wyngz, haha. Brody and I went out last night for snacks sans Mama, so I got to pick out what we brought out on the water.
I had Liam cook them up to get his mind off of the loss earlier, and the Wyngz really did take the edge off.
In this case, it wasn't the nice hot and spicy taste of chicken that helped our spirits, it was the weirdness of it. Check out these Wyngz.
At our house all the kids start eating buffalo wings right alongside rice cereal, and whipped carrots in their high chair. Not quite, but the kids like them. We call the two kinds 1 bones and 2 bones. Like you see above.
Well these Wyngz are boneless, somehow molded into 1 bone and two bone shapes. Liam and I were laughing as we ate them. There's just something not right about holding a drumstick by the small end, and just biting the thing in half. The taste however, was excellent.
He cooked up some nice kielbasa next.
We stopped along the way to check out the waterfall at the Palisades as well.
Another little curiosity for you to check out here, I was trolling along at one point, close to 5 hours into our fairly quiet fishing journey, and I thought I heard something bump the boat. I asked the boys, "You hear that?" ""No". "Was that ice?"
So if you look at that sonar graph, check out the vertical line from the surface to the bottom. That's what a mostly submerged 30" mooring ball looks like on sonar, when you directly run it right over.
Oops.
No harm done to either party though, just kept chugging along.
We didn't get to hook up with Dilly Worm, although we were on the water for an hour or so at the same time. Saw a bunch of other boats as we were heading in, including a Bass Boat.
Liam did a good job landing the boat in a really stiff sideways current today too. Tough one for anybody. He got it on the second try.
Liam's big salmon didn't cooperate today, but, you just really can't beat being out on the water doing what we were doing this time of the year.
Thanks for the tips Matt, and Reelax crew.