Knowing I had to work some of this weekend and that clearly the tourist volume has increased in town, we made time to fish today rather than Sat or Sun. The launch ramp had no one when we arrived at 11:00am, but the lake was busy with row boats, floats, kayakers and swimmers . As we were leaving plenty more were arriving. We began with the trout troll and within one minute I boated a decent Rainbow. The troll brought us all fish aboard and of course some got-aways. Fun action.

Overall a good weather day. 70 degrees high, 10-15 winds (a bit much at times), and 66.7 water temps. The bit of rain we've had must have cooled the lake. We found a nice float partially submerged and hung on a weed. Spent too much time battling the wind, but finally got our treasure. (No lure attached to this one.) Considering how much wind we were up against in most locations, generally our casting game was spot on. But the one time when it wasn't P. scored big nonetheless. Next it was time to find a bay out of the wind so we could BBQ some hotdogs.

After lunch we decided to keep plugging and was having fun with small to medium size largemouths coming aboard. A few double "fish-ons" happened which was fun. P. and I both got excited when he threw over a limb and the lure was just barely touching the surface. We were ready to say, "Heads up" and try to yank the lure free, when we saw a big fish cruise under the bobbing lure and return for a couple of swirls. We kept hollering "Oh nice fish.. It's a big one. Maybe he'll take it." After a few trys, no luck. But P. quickly threw out again and the fish very casually cruised under the floating lure again. And again we were hollering. He threw a third time fully expecting the fish had blown us off, when all of a sudden she bit. Next hollering was, "Get the net! Get the net!" Oh please don't lose it!" Then the coaching started from K. "It's too far out. I can't reach it. Bring it closer to the boat!" Then, "I can't - it's staying down." Then the coaching went the other way, "Don't horse it. Take your time!" LOL. In the end K. did a fine job of netting and P. played the fish beautifully. I supplied the tape measure. 17.5" largemouth. (Of course P had to beat my 17" fish of last week. Maybe I should have done the measuring.)

We caught and released a bunch more dinks and nice size bass and occasional trout here and there plus some pumpkinseeds. I had a real slabber come right to the surface but never buttoned up. That was an impressive sunfish. We seldom see any minnows in this lake but it was rewarding to see a huge school today. My great joy is switching lures often and catching fish on everything I try. I had 7 new lures and got at least one fish on all of them. Makes the price of the lure well paid for,

Not long after lunch, K. needed a bathroom. We knew we'd not make the launch ramp or park bathroom, so the next option was to find a tree ashore. Let's just say the fiasco that ensued has no words...or at least many that can be written here. We put the bow to the rocky shore line, I cleared all poles and trip hazards so K could exit safely, only to end up with my 8'6" pole snarled with a lure and all trebles in my pants leg. K. charged ashore while I tried to unhook so I could deliver the TP and bucket to him. After the snarling grew worse instead of better, I cut the line off with my teeth and walked bow-legged off the boat with lure in my pants and TP in hand hustling to deliver the goods to K....only to find that in his urgency he didn't make but two steps off the walking path and just as I came from the shoreline, three adult males were walking past K. who certainly must have appeared to be a Sasquatch squatting. By this time I had the lure in my pants plus the other end in my shoelaces. I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face and I couldn't talk for the next 5 minutes. Let's just say the comedy of errors was huge and the walkers saw alot more nature on their hike than they'd planned. P. was in the boat wondering what the hysterics were all about and for another five minutes through tears and laughter we tried to debrief him.

By 3pm, we'd fought enough wind so headed to the ramp after a final trout troll which produced a couple more doubleheaders.
The final catch and release was me with 4 trout, 13 bass, 5 pumpkinseeds. K. did great with 4 trout, 12 bass and 6 pumpkinseed. And P. was king with 7 trout, 17 bass (and the biggest) and 1 pumpkinseed. Well, maybe our eagle-buddy was king as he took one of our fish.

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