On Friday 11/14, I hit the river after work in search of Walleyes. I had been doing very well on these fish so I was surprised when I fished for two hours in the cold and snow with no fish to show for it. I got some neat video of fishing in the snow but overall an extremely disappointing trip considering I'd been hearing good reports from some of my friends in town. If the weather recovers a bit this weekend I plan on getting out for them at least one more time.
On Sunday 11/16, I got out trout fishing for the first time in a few weeks. My friend Andrew and I decided to try our luck at a lake that has been pretty lackluster the past several years. We had heard some good reports so we thought we'd give it a try. When I pulled into the lot, Andrew was already there waiting. He told me that the channel to the lake was open but there was some ice at the ramp that we would have to break to get to open water. I was surprised to find that there was ice about an inch thick for about 50-75 feet out from the ramp. We spent about twenty minutes breaking this ice to get to open water. Once we got to the open water, we turned the corner to go through the channel to the main lake. The channel was frozen for about 100 yards, so much for it being open! Luckily this ice was not as thick and was relatively easy to push through. Once on the main lake, it didn't take long for us to get into some Rainbows. I hooked up within 5 minutes of starting to fish. Before I even got that fish landed, Andrew had hooked up and was also fighting a fish! I spent the next three and a half hours having really consistent action from the stocker Rainbows. It snowed for at least the second half of the trip and snow accumulation was pretty close to an inch while we were on the water. I landed a total of 8 fish between 14 and 16 inches and lost or never got a good hook-up on about 8 more. The fish are fighting extremely well now with the water temps in the mid 40s. They would jump, pull, and bulldog for everything they were worth. One more pretty interesting thing that happened is that a Seagull swooped down and grabbed my streamer from the water and I hooked it in the beak! I actually reeled in a bird! Every time I would get it close to the boat and try to reach out with pliers, it would fly off until it ran out of line then crash into the water. After about 10 minutes I finally had it subdued enough to get some pliers on the hook and leverage the bird free. It flew off pretty agitated and only slightly worse for wear. Between the ice, snow, Rainbows, and Seagull, it was a pretty memorable and enjoyable day.
Here's a video of the trip:
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