I had made plans to take my younger daughter fishing after school today, but then canceled due to high wind warnings and forecasted showers. But, when she got home from school she made it clear that she wanted to go catch trout on lake 12, hell or high water. What could I say? (proud dad smile goin' on here) Off we went. (Lake 12 just received 4500 planter trout a couple days ago)

Lines in around 5pm, whole lake to ourselves, we started off tossing some heavy spoons towards some surface activity. I quickly landed a few then just as quickly that bite died out..... just as well though....she was having a hard time keeping her kastmaster out of the weeds. This was still one of the highlights of the trip though, casting heavy spoons with ultralight rods and reels spooled up with fresh suffix 6lb braid was a hoot. "Did you see how far I just cast dad?"

I was having a hard time keeping our 15ft aluminum high sided boat positioned in the wind (with both of us standing up and casting) so we decided to cover some ground and troll around the lake to find some active biters. Using a prehistoric wireless bow mount trolling motor, I still had to throw a bucket out behind the boat to keep us heading straight due to the windy conditions..... then after a few more light rain showers, the clouds parted and the weather turned beautiful!

Trolling around the lake, cycling through wedding rings, wiggle hoochies, flat fish and another small plug got us few bites, but then I tossed out a little dick nite in nickle/chartreuse and it was on. After I caught and released 2 little rainbows with it, I handed it off to my daughter, who caught fish with it nonstop for the rest of the evening. No bait, no scent, we caught and released many fish, keeping the bleeders and big"er" ones. Lol. The entire time she was catching fish with that little spoon, I was swapping out gear on my rod. I tried similarly colored spinners, similar looking needlefish spoons, little cleo in nickle/chartreuse and even dick nites in other colors. The closest I came was with a goofy fish shaped spoon with some chartreuse on it, but still only catching at half the rate of my kid. With 9 fish on ice we decided we were keeping the next fish for our limit. On the far end of the lake from the launch, and the second that last fish was on ice, it started downpouring. Bow mount and transom mounted electric motors going full tilt, at the blistering speed of almost 4 mph we dashed for the launch. After nearly backing out altogether It turned out to be a truly priceless evening.

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