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Turnkey weekend angling sometimes involves weekday maintenance. Our last trip to Decker in Todd’s Stratos was hampered by a noisy and poor performing trolling motor. This past Tuesday, Todd opened the motor housing and discovered a stator magnet had separated form the housing. The armature was dragging and dropping the magnet as it rotated. Todd used JB Weld to resecure the magnet. Thursday we went to the boat to assemble the troller and test satisfactory. I was impressed with Todd’s repair and excited to fish the weekend with him. We made plans for Sunday.
Zero-dark-thirty and I’m up, anxious to get on the water. We rolled thru the gate while the park attendant was still rubbing sleep from his eyes. We launched fifth. Or fourth, because it appears one of the trailers in the lot was from the big center console that was heading in while we were heading out. We guessed the CC must have spent the night on the lake.
Todd asked me where I wanted to start and I told him the very back of any cove. I dimmed the front screen to better my lookout over the bow as Todd ran us back to the home of the giants. The wind was already blowing good and I swear I got a chill as we rounded the peninsula. We’ve been overdue for a good day here and so far everything was going our way. We pulled up to our starting spot and deployed the troller.
Todd keyed the troller fob for the moment of truth. We were silent running, heck yeah! I started with a chatterbait and got a short strike. I swapped to 10” worm and got a short strike. I cast a senko and guess what? I got a short strike. Then I went to swim worm and got a short strike. Was today really going to be our day?
Todd drew first blood and went on a run of several mean, swarthy, cookie-cutter fun-fish. I cast out the Chug Bug. Todd reminisced back to last year. We were at this same spot when he‘d had a huge blow-up and miss on a buzzbait. I had quickly followed up with the Chug Bug and caught “his” fish. Ah, remembering the good times.
Todd cast senko at the reeds. The senko must have landed right on top of a bass. The bass exploded out of the water in an attempt to kill whatever had just touched him. The fish evidently lost sight of the senko in the spray. Todd reeled in quickly to cast a follow up, but I beat him to the punch and put my senko right on the fish’s nose. Ironically, just after mentioning last year’s stolen fish, I caught “his” good’un, a skinny four-and-a-half, that was strong enough to take five feet of drag.
A couple fish later, Todd’s rod bent double on a big’un, this fish making repeated drag burning pulls under the boat. The other boats in the cove were surely wondering if someone in our boat had won the lottery. We were shouting and high-fiving, weighing fish and snapping pics. Finally, our day had come. The fishing gods were smiling on us. We were giddy with joy. The shouts we were rolling across the water included, “LET’S GO!”, “FISH ON!”, “GET IN THA BOAT!”, “WHAT A TUB!”, and our very own invented exclamation, “WE NEED THIS FISH!”
The fish shut down and we shut up, I’m sure to the relief of the other anglers in the vicinity. We decided to fish our way out of the cove. The bream were stealing our worms and trying our patience. Todd put me at the helm and I took us to the flat north of the discharge where I caught a swim worm fish. The forecast [email protected] wind was closer to double that. We moved to another flat where we had caught them last time here, but after methodical carpet bombing, we concluded no one was home. We puzzled, “Where to now?”
Todd made “The Move of the Day”. He staged us upwind at the top of a nice wide grass flat. We could both comfortably cast downwind off the stern. He eased us spot-lock after spot-lock into the strike zones. We were both throwing TR Ol’ Monster and boating good fish. Todd said, “Hang On!” and went full send, r’aring back and fully bending the rod. The fish had bitten the worm at the end of a bombed cast. In the distance, Todd saw the fish broach, coming fully out of the water then disappearing in a belly flop. Todd had the fish buttoned up pretty good. After a nice battle, the played out fish was brought boatside, where it took me both hands to belly the fish.
That was Todd’s last, but best, fish of his day. We stayed for a couple more hours and I caught a couple more fish. Todd caught fourteen LMB, including a 5-14 and a 5-3. I caught nine LMB, including the 4-8. The water is a little murky, but clear at the shorelines. The level is lower, suffering from evaporation. The hydrilla clumps are shrinking but still holding fish. The water temperature was bathwater 87.5°F everywhere we went. Most anglers were already gone when we went to the ramp. Off at 1:30PM.
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Zero-dark-thirty and I’m up, anxious to get on the water. We rolled thru the gate while the park attendant was still rubbing sleep from his eyes. We launched fifth. Or fourth, because it appears one of the trailers in the lot was from the big center console that was heading in while we were heading out. We guessed the CC must have spent the night on the lake.
Todd asked me where I wanted to start and I told him the very back of any cove. I dimmed the front screen to better my lookout over the bow as Todd ran us back to the home of the giants. The wind was already blowing good and I swear I got a chill as we rounded the peninsula. We’ve been overdue for a good day here and so far everything was going our way. We pulled up to our starting spot and deployed the troller.
Todd keyed the troller fob for the moment of truth. We were silent running, heck yeah! I started with a chatterbait and got a short strike. I swapped to 10” worm and got a short strike. I cast a senko and guess what? I got a short strike. Then I went to swim worm and got a short strike. Was today really going to be our day?
Todd drew first blood and went on a run of several mean, swarthy, cookie-cutter fun-fish. I cast out the Chug Bug. Todd reminisced back to last year. We were at this same spot when he‘d had a huge blow-up and miss on a buzzbait. I had quickly followed up with the Chug Bug and caught “his” fish. Ah, remembering the good times.
Todd cast senko at the reeds. The senko must have landed right on top of a bass. The bass exploded out of the water in an attempt to kill whatever had just touched him. The fish evidently lost sight of the senko in the spray. Todd reeled in quickly to cast a follow up, but I beat him to the punch and put my senko right on the fish’s nose. Ironically, just after mentioning last year’s stolen fish, I caught “his” good’un, a skinny four-and-a-half, that was strong enough to take five feet of drag.
A couple fish later, Todd’s rod bent double on a big’un, this fish making repeated drag burning pulls under the boat. The other boats in the cove were surely wondering if someone in our boat had won the lottery. We were shouting and high-fiving, weighing fish and snapping pics. Finally, our day had come. The fishing gods were smiling on us. We were giddy with joy. The shouts we were rolling across the water included, “LET’S GO!”, “FISH ON!”, “GET IN THA BOAT!”, “WHAT A TUB!”, and our very own invented exclamation, “WE NEED THIS FISH!”
The fish shut down and we shut up, I’m sure to the relief of the other anglers in the vicinity. We decided to fish our way out of the cove. The bream were stealing our worms and trying our patience. Todd put me at the helm and I took us to the flat north of the discharge where I caught a swim worm fish. The forecast [email protected] wind was closer to double that. We moved to another flat where we had caught them last time here, but after methodical carpet bombing, we concluded no one was home. We puzzled, “Where to now?”
Todd made “The Move of the Day”. He staged us upwind at the top of a nice wide grass flat. We could both comfortably cast downwind off the stern. He eased us spot-lock after spot-lock into the strike zones. We were both throwing TR Ol’ Monster and boating good fish. Todd said, “Hang On!” and went full send, r’aring back and fully bending the rod. The fish had bitten the worm at the end of a bombed cast. In the distance, Todd saw the fish broach, coming fully out of the water then disappearing in a belly flop. Todd had the fish buttoned up pretty good. After a nice battle, the played out fish was brought boatside, where it took me both hands to belly the fish.
That was Todd’s last, but best, fish of his day. We stayed for a couple more hours and I caught a couple more fish. Todd caught fourteen LMB, including a 5-14 and a 5-3. I caught nine LMB, including the 4-8. The water is a little murky, but clear at the shorelines. The level is lower, suffering from evaporation. The hydrilla clumps are shrinking but still holding fish. The water temperature was bathwater 87.5°F everywhere we went. Most anglers were already gone when we went to the ramp. Off at 1:30PM.
