This past Saturday was filled with a lot of "firsts". This was my first time hitting the spring time lakers the big lake has to offer, the first trip in my buddies new boat, his first time after spring time lakers, the first fish to cross the gunnels of his new boat, my PB laker, his PB laker, the first sun burn of the year, and the first double header of the year.
The day started out with bumping into a fellow fish-hawker at the launch. I was anxious to get on the water, so a quick "long time no see, how are things, how ya been, talk to ya later" chat and we were on our way. I had some fresh intel from RJ so we weren't going totally blind for our first time out. Buddy's new Lund 1875 was purchased last fall and had only seen one quick tour on the water, barely wetting a line. He bought the boat based on it's purpose: family fun and fishing. Over the winter he certainly "crossed it over". Riggers, rod holders, sonar, she was fully rigged. The Merc is still in break in mode, but it was a beauty morning for the 25 minute boat ride.
A long time friend of ours from Kingston was already on the spot so a short chat revealed they hadn't hit any fish yet. No worries, it's still early. We setup a spread if two spoons on the riggers, one lead core on the board pulling a spoon, and a long line off the other board with a stick bait. We didn't have two lead core setups so we worked with what we had. Jake said I could take the first fish. "You've put me on plenty of fish, now it's my turn". Fine with me. About an hour or so into the troll, we had worked out all the kinks with the new boat, the setup, the gear, etc. and were sippin some java and jamming to classic rock when the leadcore was hit hard. I grabbed the rod and immediately new it was a tanker. It was a solid two minutes before I even got the board to the boat.
This was a hell of a fish to start off my softwater season. Once we got it in, it broke my previous PB by 4 lbs. A couple high fives and the fish went into the well so we could get the rod back in the water. Yep, it took two hands to tail this one out of the net.
Once we were rigged again we took a couple photos and continued on.
That fish came on 4 colours off the board (thanks RJ) paired with a Williams Whitefish (Hammered, half and half). As we trolled, I was into my my box looking to see how many more of those spoons I had, and what else I had for extra large spoons. 2 more. I was about to put one on and decided on a different one. An old time favourtie from back in the days of pulling steel line in smaller inland lakes. The lucky Strike Canoe bait, pearl with one red dot. I pulled one of the riggers and it I wasn't even back in my seat after setting the canoe bait in the rigger and it fired. Jake was up and hauled in 7-8lber.
I was up again and by this point we had switched a Cleo off the rigger and were running another Williams Whitefish. Solid Silver. This one fired and I was into another dandy. We had the system down to a science by this time. So fish in well, rod reset, picture time.
And the first time I've been able to hoist 30lbs of grease. I got he photo I was looking for and the slobs went back to the 38 degree water of Lake Ontario.
Jake followed suit with pretty much a twin to my second fish. Just another 13lb pile of grease. This is Jake's new PB.
I was up again and the lead core fired. I no sooner had the rod out of the holder and one of the riggers fired. First double header of the year. Basically a set of twins. 6-7lbers or so. We three them into the well with Jake's PB laker and were sitting at 6 for 6. I really wanted a double double photo and we currently had 3 fish in the well. We needed one more but the fish had slowed right down on us, or had moved. The wind had calmed right down by noonish and so did the fish. We tried deeper and shallower but couldn't find them. On our second or third "let's do one more pass", the lead finally fired. It was my turn again but we decided Jake would take it, since he didn't get to bring one in on the lead setup yet. I grabbed the rod as soon as it fired and almost soiled myself when I felt the wait on it. This was by far bigger then the 17lb first fish. I handed the rod off and the fight was on.
This one was not moving. It was a good 4 minutes before we got the planer board in and as soon as I did this fish peeled a colour and a half off the reel. I slowed the motor as much as I could to relieve some pressure on the rod and we slowly gained some line back. Probably about 10 minutes in and the hook popped. Real disappointing, but that's fishin. Our perfect record was now 6 for 7 and we only had about 200 yards or so left on out troll. We didn't get the 4th fish I was hoping to for the double double shot, so we hoisted the 3 we had, tried a timer shot on the phone and sent them back to the lake. Not the photo I was hoping for, but not too shabby either.
As we packed the lines in the for the day we didn't really have anything to complain about. The boat worked good, all the riggin worked flawlessly, we got some fish, the weather was mint, the tunes were rockin all day, and we didn't lose or break anything. Jake's rig is mint and living about a minute and 40 seconds down the road, you'll see many more reports aboard the cross over. We'll be hitting the big water as often as we can.
A very successful first mission.
