I had an awesome day of fishing with my 6 and 5 year old sons! We’ve been skunked on our last two fishing outings (Black Friday fishing and earlier this week). During our last outing to one of the local lakes, a kind gentleman gave us 2 of his 4 jumbo broodstock trout- 19 and 16 inches! We were so appreciative of his kindness and generosity! My kids were ecstatic to say the least. Today we broke our skunk streak! My amazing husband stayed back with our youngest soon-to-be-angler while I headed out with our older two boys at around 2 pm. The weather was clear and cold. The water was chilly and in the 40s. No wind. We were the only boat on the water but there were a few anglers fishing from the bank. We saw one of them hook up on a couple of nice fish. We tried a few different set ups, including a chartreuse mouse tail, chartreuse power eggs, worms, and our winning setup today- a pink and purple mini hoochie with pink shoe peg corn dipped in garlic scent, trolled 10 ft down on a downrigger, 10 inches behind a silver sling blade dodger. All of today’s fish were caught on this setup! Our speed was a little less than 1 mph. Once we loaded our gear into the boat, we took off for the far end of the lake. My boys fussed around with their lines and tried out different baits. Once they were settled in, I set up my downrigger line. I didn’t have the line out for long before I hooked into an average size trout… I ended up losing it on the surface after a short fight. I quickly deployed the rod on the downrigger again and hooked up in no time! This time, I caught a 16 inch rainbow and it put up a good fight! We trolled around the end of Lake Tye (closest to Hwy 2) but I held off on the downrigger because of the constantly changing depths and smallish area. My five-year-old had some nice nibbles on a chartreuse mouse tail but that’s about it. We headed back to the main body of water and my five-year-old caught a nice 14.75 inch rainbow on the downrigger rod! Again, awesome fight! Our grand finale was a 17 inch rainbow that my six-year-old caught… this beauty of a fish put up the best fight and it was so awesome to see the excitement on my son’s face as he was reeling in! The fish we caught were close to the shoreline. A couple of us in the boat finished the day with our personal bests for rainbow! Our toes were frozen by the end of the day but it was worth it! We were blessed with an incredible sunset as well. We headed home at just after 4 pm. I marinated the filets in a yummy teriyaki marinade for 20 minutes and then baked it. The filets were nice and flaky. I am not a huge fan of the taste of freshly stocked trout but teriyaki covers a multitude of sins! Haha! Looking forward to our next outing. Tight lines everyone!

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