Got the urge to go troutin' Friday night. So Saturday morning I got to my buddy Derek's @ 6. I was surprised he was getting his boat ready and I said sweet we're definitely gonna find em today! We got there at 630 still grey light and a sprinkle or two to go along with the fridgid 46 degree temp lol! Not a ton of people out but enough to make the small lakes hot spots a bit crowded. We headed over to a spot my buddy got into em at on the opener with his brother. we saw fish pudding and within the 1st 15min of chuckin spoons we both get a 2-2.5# rainbow in the livewells. Not a bad start and there was only one boat in the cove wit us and they were power baiting lol. We stuck with the iron and soaked some crawlers and pb for another 30mins b4 Derek got another 'bow to hammer his KM and it turned out to be a nicer fish at 4.5lbs! I followed his up with a 3 pounder on the KM. It kinda slowed down as the clouds cleared up but that didnt last long and it poured on us for a good 30mins and we had to run to the dock to grab my buddy's rain jacket and lost our honey hole to a couple poachers who watched us catch our fish from another cove. We waited them out with a few beers and some smoke signals. they got 2 smaller stockers and moved on and we went back to work but the fish seemed to have moved as well so we did the same. on my 1st drop on our 1st stop I got a soft bite on a crawler and set the hook, it didn't feel like a bass or trout or a cat... up from 39 ft came a chunky Red Ear!
Been a while since I caught one of those beautiful fish. Kept at it with the KMs and soaked some crawlers n pb but the fish seemed to be in the mid day lock jaw. We only planned on staying til noon and it was 1130 and we were out of beer... so we called our women and told em we wanted to try and limit out. the bite had been good in the afternoon all week according to the ranger so we decided to close the lake down if we needed to... we both got the green light and we went and grabbed lunch and beer from 7-11. Gotta love Jennings it's so close to everything yet seems so far away when your on the water!
We grubbed and went back on the grind with fresh brews in hand and cooler we had some work to do! We headed back to the OG spot we started the morning off at. it was still a Lil slow goin since the clouds were clearing up again but Derek got one to go on the crawler pb combo. So they were biting again at least but not on the irons so we tried some plastic worms and Derek is on again on the morning dawn robo c-rigged. So I try that for a bit and soak a crawler but decided to go back to the iron since I had caught all my trout on that. As Derek was rerigging after he straightened his hook I see his crawler rod get bit and grabbed it for him and hooked a 3 pounder to get back within one fish of him x) then it slowed down til the sun tucked behind the western hillside and they turned back on. They were hitting the irons but not committing completely, then Derek gets one on the KM and he's all smiles! it was small and not gut hooked so he tossed her back to get a bigger one hopefully. And I told him I was giving him all mine too so he wasn't worried about meat lol. We hear the ranger driving around telling shore anglers it's closing time so we start grinding hard for one more to get goin. As I see the chase boat coming I'm crankin my KM in from the depths and it jus stops dead. Am I stuck? Nope it starts ripping braid off and it's a donkey. I thought bass at 1st but it stayed deep and didn't have bass like head shakes but not rolling like a cat either... after a few runs i start to see a faint silverish flash down 25 ft underror the boat! Giant trout dawg! huge! I'm trying to stay cool but I know it's the biguest trout I've ever hooked on a spoon and have no idea how good it's hooked! I played her out for a good 2 more minutes b4 Derek manged to get her head in his tiny trout net! We squeezed her in the livewell and ran to the dock to get a weight on the beast.
My new PB and on a KM (she inhaled it btw;)
The Hallelujah Glory Shot!
And the final haul shot
Not a bad day on the lake drinkin beers with good company and pretty good troutin.
Rastafar-gone
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