We did several fishing trips in the last few days, both inland on Lac La Belle and on the Big Lake while staying at the “Camp.”
I fished Saturday evening for a couple hours by myself on Bete Grise with no luck. I tried to get my boys and bro-in-law to come, but they were all too busy with other things. When I kissed M before casting off, she said “are you still going even though you don’t have a fishing partner?”
“Does a bear sh…it in the woods?” I asked. (Just kidding, that was not my real reply).
I just said, “Sure, why not… I’ve been looking forward to getting on the lake all day.” I donned my life jacket, which I usually do not wear when fishing with a partner, and left the dock with a smile of anticipation on my face.
On this exploratory mission, I trolled in 18 to 50 feet with spoons, J-plugs and dodger-fly combo and there were fish on the sonar, but none bit. The water temp was running between 47 and 48 degrees, and suprisingly, the colder water was near shore with the 48 degree water about 1/4 mile out.
At this temperature, the human body would normally last 45 minutes to 1 hour, so my lifejacket would really only make it easy to find my body if I fell in. There were no other fishermen in sight and nobody on the beach to witness if I fell in.
On my last outing, we caught some splake trout, so I was targeting them again with the same spoons that we caught them on before. No luck this time, but at least I did not fall in and returned safely. The lake was calm and there was no stress or worries.
Sunday I fished on Lac La Belle with the boys. Openning day of bass fishing was just the day before, and the bass were biting. We caught a few, but only snapped one picture of my nephew. There was also a sucker caught, clubbed and released for the eagles. In fact we saw an eagle swoop down 10 minutes after throwing it in and he scooped it up to devour in the tree tops.
Memorial Day got up at 4:30 am, cast off by 5 and set out 6 lines by 5:23. Wally came with me and we had a little action from 1 coho and 3 splake trout. One was lost at the boat as it flipped and flopped and managed to elude the net. I won’t name any names, but someone needs practice netting fish. Of course, as usual, I netted the first fish, but let the other one try….
Water temperature was a little cooler… we saw 47.3, but nothing higher. One other boat out there, Knee Deep, but they went in skunked. We caught the coho on an orange dodger and fly, a couple splake on a red and black silver streak and one on a pink bait rig with a gulp minnow for scent.
The rest of the stay was too windy and we had thunderstorms preventing us from getting on the lake anymore. 60 mph winds today, but suppsed to calm this afternoon.
Brian Helminen
