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Long time NO FISH!! With the forecast for windy conditions in the afternoon, and the fever running high, Cindy and I headed up to Rufus early and put the boat in the water around 0830 and headed up to the pens area. This being the first trip in a while to the mighty Rufus, Cindy wanted to head up to the Pens, "Cause she had a feeling". We got to the lower most pens around 0915 or so, and had a decent ride up river. Water choppy but not too rough. Saw lots of Burned out area on the Douglas side, and the small wooded area around pump #5 was totally burned down. Looked like replanting had started already, so someone is being Proactive at least. Saw 4 wild turkeys in the Pump #5 area on the shoreline, not sure how they were surviving, but maybe some feeders out or something. Anyway, Pulled in above the Lowermost pens as we have gotten a few in that area before. We rigged up our usual Jig combos of Plastic minnow and grub imitations in dark colors, and the B-2 Squid, along with some Crocodile in the fire tiger pattern. There was little to no current and the wind was blowing upriver. Had to use the bow mount trolling motor to push us down stream. We went down along the pens about 20 feet out, jigging along as we went. SLOW. A few light taps was all we could entice. There were some marks showing close to the bottom in 77 - 80 feet of water, so I broke out the heaver rod with 6 # P-Line and rigged a 2 oz sinker "Carolina Style" with a great big ole Night Crawler. Thought there might be a walleye down there. Well I bumped the sinker aling the bottom as we drifted (motored) along, and after about 20 yards or so got a Tap. picked up the rod and felt another tap, set the hook and Fish ON!!. After a healthy battle Cindy netted a healthy 4# 3oz Triploid for me. No complaints from this guy. Nice I thought, I'll put on an artificial so I can release if lip hooked in case there are some "Big" ones down there. Bled then Iced the lil fellow, and was feeling good. Back to the bottom I went with a black plastic leach on the hook. Cindy was busy jigging a plastic grub on a 1/16 oz jig head, and was starting to get a hit once in a while, but no hook ups. As we got close to the lower end of the pens we eased over closer to the structure, still very little current. Cindy had a couple follows by some 2-4 pound trout but still no commitments. She put the jigging aside and cast the croc for a while with some hits and follows. All this time my leach was doing whatever a plastic immitation would do in 80 feet of water. I started putting some action on the leach and was able to get some action in return. got a hit I missed and then a hook up. Fought a nice fish to visual then lost it before it came to net. It looked about the same size. Cindy hooked up and netted a 3 1/2 pounder, and in the cooler it went. I didn't get any more action on the bottom rig, but bet if a person just soaked some power bait on the bottom it would produce. There was a couple other boats on the shore side of the pen system, and one boat with two fishermen caught their 4 fish using power bait, and the other boat landed a couple that we saw. All in the 2-4 pound range. There were a few fish starting to rise so I shifted back to my ultra light rig and put on a pellet immitation, and cindy put a minnow immitation on her jighead. Bingo, we had our limits in short order. As I was bleeding my fish before putting it on Ice, I hear Cindy saying something about the net. After I did a "Remarkable" netting job (at least I thought so), we had our 4 in the boat. We didn't catch a lot of fish, but enough to make it exciting. OH yea, I got the big fish of the day, 7# 5 oz. Cindy came close as hers weighed in at 7# even. So not a bad day at all, and we'll be going back for another shot at a big one. The ride back down river was pretty rough. We left the Pens area around 1230 and some stretches of the river was churning pretty good. From Pump #3 all the way down to the corps launch was white caps and strong winds. SO if you get a chance to fish that stretch of water, be sure to check the wind forcast, It can get nasty. I'll try to include A couple of pics of the fire area. Tight lines everyone, and be safe on the water.
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