Strike Three on the River
Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:06 pm
The forecast a couple of days ago had said calm winds, partly sunny. Well this morning at 5:30, I looked out to a pretty gray sky. Looked a heck of a lot like rain to me, so I checked the weather report. "Slight chance of showers". Ok, well, maybe its a passing shower. Hooked up the boat, pulled it out, woke up the boys.
The Crew of Strike Three launched today out of our usual launch, and headed straight back to where we were last time, to see if we could find all of those smallmouth the other day. Well, like I said in that report, you can't fish history. No fish.
Also, as I'm sure all of you guys who were out there this morning are acutely aware, the weather wasn't really a passing shower. More like a steady light rain, air temperatures in the 40's under a gray sky.
We had reluctantly set up the bimini right at the launch, because the rain didn't seem to looking like it was going to be letting up any time soon. Well, a couple of hours later, we were glad we did, as well as glad that I had stashed some handwarmers in the glove box of our "warm" water boat. Pretty raw out there. We tried fishing here and there, but your hands would get cold fast. We ended up hiding quite a bit under the bimini.
We also saw a bunch of other guys trolling out there for the cold water species, and that reminded us that if we were aboard the Country Angler, we would be warm, dry, and probably be cooking hot food. A friend of mine had texted me a picture of a 6lb PR salmon he caught right over where those guys were trolling yesterday too.
We all agreed that had we known the weather and fishing was going to be like this, we would have taken that boat out instead.
But, we were out there already, and there was a lot of features of our setup we haven't utilized yet, and if we had the tools right in front of us, we might as well learn how to use them on a day like this. Man, there is some cool ones. Just as an example, we set a route on the chartplotter, basically dotting the shoreline on the map where it touched the water. Set the offset to 75' to starboard forward, and basically pushed go. The boat kept us about casting distance off of the shoreline, and followed it around every point, and every bay for about a mile and a half all by itself. Only stopping when we pushed andhor lock, just to learn functions. It took a couple hours of learning to do it fast, and find a good method, but man, time well spent.
Ok,yes, boring report so far, right? No pictures, making the best of a rough time all that. Here's where it gets interesting.
36" 25 lbs. Liams new record of biggest fish in his life. Kid's caught a lot of big fish too. Him and I were both shaking like leaves after that fish was netted. He couldn't be smiling any bigger either, if he had two of his grandmothers on either side of him each pinching a cheek and pulling as hard as they could.
On the way back home we had decided to try an autopilot technique that we had thought up to drift fish for walleye when walleye season starts. Made a course, figured it all out, and figured we'd throw some crawlers over and try it out one pass down the river. Well, Brody and I were watching Liam's jig on the livescope, and jigging ourselves out back when we saw this monster come and check out his bait. After that, the fight was on. Brody actually stowed his rod, and grabbed the tablet, and filmed it all.
I'll post a response to this report with a link to the video on here when I get it uploaded, for those of you who have ever wondered what it sounds like on one of our boats when there is a real monster being boated.
Amazingly, he had it barely hooked in the tail, and he didn't lose it. Very careful fight by Liam. I told the boys I was actually glad we hadn't caught this fish in the derby like that, since it couldn't be entered being hooked like that. But we weren't in a derby, and that fish was stalking his bait, and he still singlehandedly caught it.
Here's how I know these guys were going around sucking up worms today.
My own biggest fish of my life. This one was just a baby though, 30" 17.5 lbs. He had the worm in his mouth.
Brody was skunked today, however had one good bite, probably another one of these guys. Credit that kid too, for bringing no hint of jealousy to the table when Liam was having one of his most exciting fishing mornings of his life. He's lucky to have a brother like that. All Brody did was make it more exciting for his little brother. Even though that kid puts us all to shame all the time in the fishing boats.
Liam fought another one for a while, but, it was probably only a 10 lb er. That guy spit the hook at the boat.
Here's a few more Miscellaneous picures from the catch.
If you go back and look again at the first two pictures of this report, there's a couple things to notice.
In Liams picture, check out his hat. Randy, if you see this, this kid never takes this hat off, even inside.
In My picture, check out what Liam is doing while I'm getting my picture taken with the biggest fish of my life, haha. Yup, just hard at work, doing his thing.
So if you made it this far and have been paying attention, remember the part where we fished history even though we knew we shouldn't, and all agreed we should have launched the Country Angler instead because of the weather?
Well, we were wrong again.
The Crew of Strike Three launched today out of our usual launch, and headed straight back to where we were last time, to see if we could find all of those smallmouth the other day. Well, like I said in that report, you can't fish history. No fish.
Also, as I'm sure all of you guys who were out there this morning are acutely aware, the weather wasn't really a passing shower. More like a steady light rain, air temperatures in the 40's under a gray sky.
We had reluctantly set up the bimini right at the launch, because the rain didn't seem to looking like it was going to be letting up any time soon. Well, a couple of hours later, we were glad we did, as well as glad that I had stashed some handwarmers in the glove box of our "warm" water boat. Pretty raw out there. We tried fishing here and there, but your hands would get cold fast. We ended up hiding quite a bit under the bimini.
We also saw a bunch of other guys trolling out there for the cold water species, and that reminded us that if we were aboard the Country Angler, we would be warm, dry, and probably be cooking hot food. A friend of mine had texted me a picture of a 6lb PR salmon he caught right over where those guys were trolling yesterday too.
We all agreed that had we known the weather and fishing was going to be like this, we would have taken that boat out instead.
But, we were out there already, and there was a lot of features of our setup we haven't utilized yet, and if we had the tools right in front of us, we might as well learn how to use them on a day like this. Man, there is some cool ones. Just as an example, we set a route on the chartplotter, basically dotting the shoreline on the map where it touched the water. Set the offset to 75' to starboard forward, and basically pushed go. The boat kept us about casting distance off of the shoreline, and followed it around every point, and every bay for about a mile and a half all by itself. Only stopping when we pushed andhor lock, just to learn functions. It took a couple hours of learning to do it fast, and find a good method, but man, time well spent.
Ok,yes, boring report so far, right? No pictures, making the best of a rough time all that. Here's where it gets interesting.
- 20210418_112714.jpg (56.2 KiB) Viewed 1612 times
36" 25 lbs. Liams new record of biggest fish in his life. Kid's caught a lot of big fish too. Him and I were both shaking like leaves after that fish was netted. He couldn't be smiling any bigger either, if he had two of his grandmothers on either side of him each pinching a cheek and pulling as hard as they could.
On the way back home we had decided to try an autopilot technique that we had thought up to drift fish for walleye when walleye season starts. Made a course, figured it all out, and figured we'd throw some crawlers over and try it out one pass down the river. Well, Brody and I were watching Liam's jig on the livescope, and jigging ourselves out back when we saw this monster come and check out his bait. After that, the fight was on. Brody actually stowed his rod, and grabbed the tablet, and filmed it all.
I'll post a response to this report with a link to the video on here when I get it uploaded, for those of you who have ever wondered what it sounds like on one of our boats when there is a real monster being boated.
Amazingly, he had it barely hooked in the tail, and he didn't lose it. Very careful fight by Liam. I told the boys I was actually glad we hadn't caught this fish in the derby like that, since it couldn't be entered being hooked like that. But we weren't in a derby, and that fish was stalking his bait, and he still singlehandedly caught it.
Here's how I know these guys were going around sucking up worms today.
- 20210418_114923.jpg (107.01 KiB) Viewed 1612 times
My own biggest fish of my life. This one was just a baby though, 30" 17.5 lbs. He had the worm in his mouth.
Brody was skunked today, however had one good bite, probably another one of these guys. Credit that kid too, for bringing no hint of jealousy to the table when Liam was having one of his most exciting fishing mornings of his life. He's lucky to have a brother like that. All Brody did was make it more exciting for his little brother. Even though that kid puts us all to shame all the time in the fishing boats.
Liam fought another one for a while, but, it was probably only a 10 lb er. That guy spit the hook at the boat.
Here's a few more Miscellaneous picures from the catch.
- 20210418_112341.jpg (113.85 KiB) Viewed 1612 times
- 20210418_112348.jpg (84.83 KiB) Viewed 1612 times
- 20210418_112517.jpg (78.13 KiB) Viewed 1612 times
- 20210418_114816.jpg (118.22 KiB) Viewed 1612 times
If you go back and look again at the first two pictures of this report, there's a couple things to notice.
In Liams picture, check out his hat. Randy, if you see this, this kid never takes this hat off, even inside.
In My picture, check out what Liam is doing while I'm getting my picture taken with the biggest fish of my life, haha. Yup, just hard at work, doing his thing.
So if you made it this far and have been paying attention, remember the part where we fished history even though we knew we shouldn't, and all agreed we should have launched the Country Angler instead because of the weather?
Well, we were wrong again.
i enjoy your detail in the report keep chasing. you will probably be seeing me soon looking forward to shore fishing there again.