Monday, June 05, 2006

Fishing Games

Yesterday was Nancy's last day with us so we decided to go Lake Trout fishing in the afternoon. It was a wonderful day. Clear blue skies with a south wind to put a light waves on the water.

We drove over to Bruce's favorite spot on the north shore of Gunflint Lake. I can't tell you exactly where it is or what we fished with because these details are deep dark secrets for all guides. It's kind of like the location of your best wild raspberry patch.

One common fishing game is to have a pool for the first, the biggest, and the most. Usually the winners get a cash reward but we didn't have any money so we just talked about it.

Well, Bruce got the first trout after we had been out for about 1 1/2 hours. It was a nice 3 lb. fish but not quite enough for dinner since Lee and Eva were going to join us. We could have all had a taste.

Then we entered the long dry spell. The frustrating part was that Bruce's deep finder was showing fish all over and lots of them. We tried trolling and jigging with just about every kind of bait. Each rod had a different lure on it or a different color on it. Any fisherman readying this is familiar with the situation.

Finally about 5:30 Nancy got a fish. By then she had been snagged on the bottom so she just thought she was snagged again. Bruce felt the line and said, "Would you believe a fish?" A few minutes later she landed a beautiful 7 lb. trout. That was the biggest.

By now I was feeling a little bit left out. It would not be long before we went back home. In just a few minutes I felt that familiar tug on the line. A nice 5 lb. fish ended up in the net. Then shortly after that I got a second fish so that took care of the prize for the most.

We fished a bit longer to try to limit out with two more fish. Of all those thousands of fish, there were only four hungry ones, or maybe dumb ones. We drove home with four fish and sunburns after a relaxing day on the water. It was a great dinner!

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