PB Chrome
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2022 7:44 pm
After a very unproductive LCI Derby with the waves making my daughter sick, I headed out solo in the rowboat early this morning.
The lake was smooth as glass, the sky was clear, and there was just 1 other fisherman at the launch. Very quiet unlike a week ago. Surface temp was about 62 and I sent down a FishHawk TD just clipping it to a lead core line and lowering it down. It was something like 55F at 25', 47F at 35', and 43F at 40'. Seems like the south Lake stratified quickly after all the wind finally stopped. So I set out 4 colors of lead on an inline planer board and 6 colors straight off the stern and rowed north. Sonar kept showing bait balls around 25 to 35 feet and a few big marks, but no bites for the 1st hour.
The first bite of the day hit the rainbow trout speedy shiner that was on the planer board. It wasn't pulling all that hard and it wasn't until disconnecting the planer that I saw something big jumping way out of the water 150 feet away and realized this was a good one ! The fish dove hard three times at the boat - I think it was looking for an outboard prop to tangle the line in - sorry, no prop on this boat. Turned out to be a beautiful steelhead with no lamprey marks, 6lb 6oz for a new PB.
Right after that, I tried putting the line back in but when I went to attach the planer something was already tugging on the line. That turned out to be a laker a little over 3 pounds.
No other fish for the rest of the morning, got out by 9 before it got too hot for this sort of activity (and my 1/2 gallon water jug leaked so I had zero water to drink, wasn't going to risk dehydration after a nice fish like that).
The lake was smooth as glass, the sky was clear, and there was just 1 other fisherman at the launch. Very quiet unlike a week ago. Surface temp was about 62 and I sent down a FishHawk TD just clipping it to a lead core line and lowering it down. It was something like 55F at 25', 47F at 35', and 43F at 40'. Seems like the south Lake stratified quickly after all the wind finally stopped. So I set out 4 colors of lead on an inline planer board and 6 colors straight off the stern and rowed north. Sonar kept showing bait balls around 25 to 35 feet and a few big marks, but no bites for the 1st hour.
The first bite of the day hit the rainbow trout speedy shiner that was on the planer board. It wasn't pulling all that hard and it wasn't until disconnecting the planer that I saw something big jumping way out of the water 150 feet away and realized this was a good one ! The fish dove hard three times at the boat - I think it was looking for an outboard prop to tangle the line in - sorry, no prop on this boat. Turned out to be a beautiful steelhead with no lamprey marks, 6lb 6oz for a new PB.
Right after that, I tried putting the line back in but when I went to attach the planer something was already tugging on the line. That turned out to be a laker a little over 3 pounds.
No other fish for the rest of the morning, got out by 9 before it got too hot for this sort of activity (and my 1/2 gallon water jug leaked so I had zero water to drink, wasn't going to risk dehydration after a nice fish like that).