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I knew it was going to be a rainy one today, but I learned long ago not to wait for the "good weather days" to go fishing. Fish when you can!

I launched just after 7 am from the Murray launch. Two boats were already in ahead of me, and one fellow launched just after me. My usual routine at the launch is pretty fast- I park a good distance away from the ramp, double check the plug is in, take off the tiedown straps from the back, and take the motor off it's locks. Then I look to make sure there is no one else waiting to use the ramp & I go. The whole process probably takes me less than 30 seconds, but I still do it in the parking lot, not at the ramp. If someone else looks like they might be ready soon, I usually double check with them; since there's two ramps at the launch there, it's probably not a big deal, but if someone is launching alone like I do, it's helpful to be able to use the near one, as it's easier to pull a boat by rope around to the beach that way.

I'm just pointing this out, not because of any incident today, but because of the number of times I've seen folks pull up to the ramp, then hop out of their truck and start putting on their rain pants, sorting through gear, etc. Please do that stuff at home, or in the parking lot, or on the water. It's not a big deal on rainy slow days like today, but you know things are going to get busy when the weather starts to warm up a bit, and it's discourteous to spend time at the ramp gearing up while others wait for you.

Anyway, off my soapbox and on to the report. It was already raining as I launched, and everything was gray. The water was a little turbid looking (and later as I reviewed some underwater videos I took, that was definitely the case... more of a brown tint than the usual bright green om the underwater camera.)

It was fairly windy at first, but this quickly turned into some pretty big gusts. My tri-hull doesn't have a very deep keel, so while it does fine when running at even a medium speed, my slow trolling speed means I have to constantly be at the wheel when running into the wind, or it'll whip me around. This tends to have a poor effect on the lines (more on this later).

As it was though, the wind was initially blowing from more of a Southeasterly direction, which meant I could put it at my stern or at least at my starboard stern and troll North. I trolled my front downrigger at 13 feet, using a splatter pink dodger and red/green wedding ring with a brass colorado blade. This was 70 feet back from the ball. My rear rig was at 20 feet deep, running a chartruse/black tractor dodger and a pink hootchie with a glow bead. This one was 50' back from the ball. Both were tipped with gulp maggots on the front hooks.

I didn't pick up any fish on the first run- the wind had picked up considerably though, and my rods were bouncing in their holders just due to the heavy wind pushing on them. I had to make sure everything in the boat was secured to keep it from blowing away. As it was, one old plastic container of bait I had flew across the boat and popped open, sending mealworm carcasses everywhere. (I save the dead ones that my lizard doesn't eat for bait.)

Rather than turn and try and fight the wind all the way back, I decided to bring up the lines and power back to the south end again using the big motor. When I popped the front line out of the downrigger clip, I was surprised to find a Kokanee on the line! I don't know how long I was dragging it around, but I was happy to put it in the livewell and start bleeding it out.

I picked up #2 on the next pass and #3 on the pass after that. All 3 were at 13' on the front rig. I tried a few different depths on the rear rig with no success. Motoring back south at the end of each run was an interesting time, with the rain hitting me full in the face at high speed. I can appreciate you folks that have windshields!

I switched out the rear rig for a pink UV sling blade, but left everything else the same and continued to try it at different depths. At one point I went to check it and found it had caught around its own downrigger cable. The line on my rear downrigger is old and was starting to fray in several places. Apparently at some point, perhaps due to the wind blowing me around, I managed to catch my line on a frayed spot and the fishing line was well wrapped and entwined with the fraying. I managed to retrieve my gear and break off the line to free it from the rigger cable.

Koke # 4 came around 9:00, also on the front rig. I was worried about whether I could get #5 before the 9:30-10:00 dropoff I always seem to hit, so rather than power back agian, I decided to try and fight the wind a bit, and started trolling across and upwind. This turned out to be a bad choice, as at one point when I went back to adjust the rear rig I got spun completely around, and my front and rear lines got tangled. I reeled in the rear line and freed it from the front line, then went to the front to reel that one in and check it. As I got to the front line, I heard the motor start to bog down and saw the rod jumping. I jumped back to the back of the boat and killed the motor, but it was too late- in freeing the front line from the back one, I had brought it right up under the boat and it caught in the kicker motor prop.

I raised the kicker and motored back to shore using my big motor. At the shore I spent half an hour clearing the line out of the motor and getting everything set back up. At this point it was around 10:00, but I decided to head back out and try again. I should have done the smart thing and packed it in and gone to the kokanee seminar, but I'm a stubborn bastard sometimes.

For the next couple hours I tried finding fish, but it appeared I had missed my window. I ranged from 13-30 feet on the front rig, and all the way down to 50 feet on the rear rig. I trolled all around, to the north side of the island to the south, trying to hit different depths and bottom contours. (It probably doesn't help that my depthfinder was made in the 70's and anything more than it finding the bottom is a pleasant suprise.)

I did make one other unusual catch- around 11:00 I was running the rear rig at 30' and saw the rod jump. I brought it up and it was about a 13" largemouth bass. I had hooked him in the lip, but it looked like he was in the middle of eating something else, as there was another large mass sticking partway out of it's mouth. I brought it in and took a look- the mass sticking out of its mouth appeared to be part of it's stomach or air bladder, and it also had what looked like tiny eggs coming out it's anal vent. The belly area seemed rather bloated. I wonder if someone else had managed to hook it previously, and pull it's insides out it's mouth? I don't know whether it was injured or had some other problems. I decided to let it go, so I held it in the water for a bit and then let it flip away. A few minutes later I saw it at the surface, but it was still swimming around, so who knows...


I kept trying for the final kokanee until around noon- most of this time was heavy driving rain and high winds, so I probably should have heeded my initial thought and stayed in at 10:00, but as I said, I can be stubborn sometimes.

Around noon, I once again managed to get turned by the wind and got my line snagged on the frayed downrigger cable. This time both lines got tangled in the kicker motor, and I lost the gear off both lines. I finally took the wiser course of action and headed to shore.

I dropped off the boat, and then immediately went to the store and picked up a new line for the downrigger. I took off the old rusted & frayed steel line and replaced it with a new braided line.

Anyway, there's my long, rambling report. I'll add pictures of the kokanee I caught today. I will likely head back for a few hours in the morning tomorrow, to once again try to limit out before 10:00, or to figure out where the kokes sneak off to every day at that time. :)

salmonbarry

3/30/2014 7:20:00 AM

Great report and way to weather the storm out there! I have fished American in the wind and it's a challenge when you are solo and trying to run to rods. I replace my wire cables years ago with braid and haven't looked back~ love it!

salmonbarry

3/30/2014 7:22:00 AM

BTW, I know what you mean about people at the launch as I have actually had people ahead of me back the boat down to the water and then take 15 minutes getting ready before putting it in~ grrr!

larryw

3/30/2014 10:05:00 AM

Boy when you said windy you mint it. I though you were talking about the wind to start with.

bassman72

3/30/2014 11:47:00 PM

bringing the bass up from 30 feet probably caused its air bladder to expand out of its mouth like that, they are more sensitive to depth change that trout. bass are also entering pre-spawn which is why the females bellies are swollen with eggs. the expanded air bladder probably caused her to push some eggs out.

tmib

3/31/2014 7:56:00 AM

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Hopefully that also means it would recover after it normalized. If I had been thinking I would have let it recover in the live well.

Fishman_Kuzan

3/31/2014 6:21:00 PM

Nice report! Do you like to use colored dodgers in murky water? I fish mainly clear water and haven't really ventured much into using colors on my dodgers. Way to brave the storm and pull out some fish. Out of curiosity how big are those fellas? I'm with you, it's always hard to quit when you finally get out to fish but more often than not you kind of get screwed! Can't count how many times I wish I would have called it a day.

I always try to get out of the launch area as quick as possible and having your gear ready before you get to the launch/on the water gives you more time actually fishing. As they say 10% catch 90% of the fish... I'm sure people messing around with gear at/in the lauch/on the boat in the water catch less and are irritating to boot... now I'll get off my stump

tmib

3/31/2014 10:14:00 PM

When the water gets a little turbid I look to using colors like chartreuse, black, gold and brass. Things in the red and orange spectrum pretty much vanish then.

When it's been clear, American has a green color- very bright at shallow water, but still visible for some depth. In those water conditions, I like red (in the shallows) fluorescent orange, pink and chartreuse. I like silver blades on my lures too, but on a bright day toward the surface, I stick with brass, as I think too much flash\brightness can turn fish away.

Regardless of water condition, I find the splatter pink dodgers to be decent from about 20' up. The white is visible and while the pink does fade out as you go deeper, the contrast against the white still helps. But when I'm going deeper, I look to dodgers with some other colors on them, particularly chartreuse, but really just a good contrast in colors that will let it show up against the darker background of the water.

I've been playing around with my underwater camera and looking at the varying light conditions as it drops. I was thinking I should put together a video with all the common colors of dodgers and lures and show how they appear at different depths.

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