Wednesday, my youngest son and fishing buddy, Bruce and wife Margaret took advantage of the nice weather and went out to Manitou Island for a ride and to look for agates. M had the day off from our print shop and Bruce came along to fish and to try to catch frogs. Andy and the girls opted to stay at the cottage, so with just 3 of us, we used the little boat to conserve gas.
As we passed the Montreal River mouth, Margie saw a fish surfacing nearby, so we set out some surface lines and trolled for a short time to no avail. We just couldn’t entice them to bite. We tried varying speeds AND different presentations, but they were just not feeding too actively during mid-day.
At the island M took a fall off the bow when she tried to jump off in shallow water, but she just got wet from the ordeal. (later on she said her knee was selling a little, and later that night, said she had bruised her hip)
While she picked rocks, B and I went down the shore to find a swampy area to catch frogs. On the way, we discovered,to my pleasant surprise, hundreds of minnows in the shallow water. Chasing minnows occupied the 7 year old and I for quite a while and he forgot about frogs. He DID bring up the frog subject later, when he said “that was more fun than catching frogs, dad.” I thought to myself, that’s good because I didn’t think we’d find frogs anyway.
With the wind starting to pick up, and since we only had my little 19 footer, we set out to do a little trolling. We soon hooked a nice lake trout for Bruce to fight. We pulled it from the bottom in 150 feet deep, so he had lots of line out and had to fight it in for a long time. He laid down on the floor to rest after that and went out like a light. I got to fight the next fish, a 6.5 lb laker while M steered the boat and watched. She didn’t dare even net the fish for me, as she dose not have a fishing license yet, so I did with one hand while fighting the fish with the other.
By this time the waves were building, so we headed in.
Brian Helminen
