Met up with Jono at the lake on Thursday morning and after launching his boat off we set. The first bay looked good but after half an hour of casting topwaters and jerkbaits it seemed devoid of life; no insects, no fry and no trout meant no pike. We were in the wrong place so on with a trolling lure and off we set looking for a few fish. Not long after Jono had a hit on one of my borrowed crankbaits and landed this strange looking pike about 11lb or so...
As the water is gin clear on this lake every fish we've caught from there before is vividly marked and dark as you'd expect so it was a surprise to see a fish so pale and with pink stripes either side. I've never seen a pike coloured like this and it was a beauty in a strange sort of way.
We carried on trolling for a while with nothing to show for it so drifted back along the bank we'd just fished casting jerkbaits into the shallows. I had a jack and a follow from a slightly bigger fish but it was slow going. At the end of the treeline we stopped on the bank casting lures into one of Jono's favourite spots but after fishing the stretch with nothing doing it was back to the trolling.
After 40 yards of starting my lure was hit hard and a big head eventually came to the surface. For a minute I thought it might have been a twenty but as it turned we could see it was skinny... nice fish though at 15.04lb...
This fish came from the area we just covered from the bank so it seemed they wanted lures down deep.
Back round to where we started the troll and off we set again.. this time we got about 100 yards before another hit on my rod. It seemed a decent fish but once in the net it didn't look so big. We didn't weigh it and it might have made a scraper double but for the sake of argument called it 9lb+.
It went very quiet after that so decided to retire for food and beer for the day.
The Friday was a very different day; blazing sunshine and heat, flies hatching, trout rising.. that is, until we stripped down to summer clothes! Not long after that it went very dark, windy and cold and stayed like that for the rest of the day. Jono managed a nice scraper double before the sun disappeared then had a few more jacks but the fish were hard to come by so once again we retired for beer and food.
It was a chilly evening so Jono got dressed for the occassion in his new onesey! It was funny how people went out of their way to avoid him when we went for a short walk.
The following lunchtime saw me leave to fish a new venue for a few hours to see if there was any potential but after 4 hours of clambering through overgrown banks, down 45° slopes and over boulders I hadn't even had a follow. Not given up on it just yet though as there is surely pike in there.
Overall a great couple of days, even if the fishing was a bit slow, but the water was still a bit cold and things haven't really kickstarted yet. Fishing takes you to some fantastic places though and it was just nice being on a big wild water..
Won't be too long before I'm back again for another go, this time with some bass fishing thrown in.
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