And it was unseasonally cold. So cold that at the boat ramp I donned not only a sweatshirt, but put my rain jacket on over it.
As usual, the weather report really didn't seem to match the actual "on the water conditions", today. But, being an adventurer, I figured we'd go see what was up.
Had Bob and Ralph aboard the JETTYWOLF, and they didn't have time to re-schedule. Our trip was already re-scheduled from Monday till Tuesday.
Monday was really BAD. With definite GUSTS to 30 MPH. So, really....."how bad could Tuesday be?"
Leaving the dock was so bad, running down the river wasn't so bad. But at the first anchor-up, the wind showed it's ugly head!
My regular anchor didn't hold and two minutes into our fishing day, the anchor tripped and we went sailing down the bank backwards.
As the comedian Bill Engval would say......."HERE'S YER SIGN!"
I ran back up, re-anchored way far away from the actual spot, got the anchor into some harder bottom and deployed mass amounts of scope, and we held. Bob flipped his float-rig behind the boat and on his first drift landed a box'able Yellowmouth Trout! Wow, that already superseded my initial expectations!
-JUST AN FYI: ANY WIND 15KTS OR BETTER BE IT DUE EAST OR DUE WEST LIKE TODAY, BLOWS "STRAIGHT DOWN THE PIKE" IN THE RIVER. BECAUSE MOST OF THE RIVER I FISH IS GOING FROM WEST TO EAST / EAST TO WEST.
Through the day Bob and Ralph remained un-daunted. These guys were "anglers".
I forgot my whole boat pak, which included my tide book and camera. So I didn't get to take any photos.
We and myself included lost several decent to large Trout. It seemed that they just slipped off the hook after several reel turns. And these fish would have enhanced the fish box very well. Because many of the "specks" were small. We had one small Flounder, along with Trout, some mini-Jacks and a few Ladyfish.
But those larger Trout were the ones we really wanted. In all, there was about 10-12 Trout caught, but only 4-5 good keepers laned on ice. Which is about 10 more than I thought we might have caught, as conditions were very challenging.
I tossed a big 6" Rapala (subsurface) X-Rap Subwalker all day. And didn't have a single "swipe" at it. But from the looks of it "walkin' the dawg" just under the surface. This will be a B-I-G Trout lure, when the conditions are right.
The combination of my Shimano 300EG Curado, and a 7'6" Okuma Guide Select "swim-bait" rod, really casts these large heavy lures a country mile, even in the wind.
Bob and Ralph departed with a decent bag o' fillets at the end of the day. And I really enjoyed these guys. They are my kind of fisherman. Die-Hards, it seemed to me. Hope they can be aboard the JETTYWOLF again someday when the conditions are better. Because they may really clean-up!
As for the rest of the week..........
The winds aren't gonna subside any time soon as per the National Weather Service reports. Any wind 15 knots, has me mighty leery. So, Wednesday's charter with two local guys has been postponed till possibly Friday or Monday.
I'm taking my Truck to get a front end alignment, instead of fishing. Because I just bought new tires last week and wanna keep them that way!
