Post by MarknFish (Mark) on Jul 26, 2009 6:42:17 GMT -5
Since my daughter was with my folks in Addison, my wife and I took our neighbor's 13 year old to Burlington for hopefully a good day of laker fishing. I took two of the boys several weeks ago salmon fishing and neither of them had ever caught a salmon or ever seen a lake trout.
We hit the flat between Schuyler Island and the reef first, setting up with both vertical blades in blue/silver & silver/blue, a set of inline blades in orange and one rod clean. Quickly boated two small 16" fish on a large glow alewife on the bottom in 115 FOW 5' behind the vertical blades. About 0800 the alewife popped again with a solid fish aboard. 10 minutes later with tired arms Wade had an 11lb, 30" laker in the net. One of the fattest lakers I've ever seen, no lampreys but 5 or 6 old scars.
The bite died off there so we moved over to a little hump I'd found on the GPS. Strafed the side of it with the first pass and all four rods went off within seconds of each other. So we had fish on 3 of the 4 when one dropped off. Ended up boating a nice 4lb and a 6lber. Didn't seem to matter what was down as the fish hit every offering with zeal. Reset all the rods and made another pass, 3 rods fired, with another 2 fish boated. Clones of the last pass. Large silver mooselook, glow alewife and silver/green holographic stingers and NK's had the most success. Speeds were right around 1.5 the whole day. Made one last pass over the top of the hump which was lit up with hooks and boated another 6.3lb. Ended up boating 14 lakers and losing 6 or 7. Numerous fires with nobody home.
We kept 5 fish including the 11 and two sixes that Wade caught as he wanted to show his family and have laker on the grill. I don't like to make practice out of keeping the larger fish but I could not turn that boy down! The boy and his proud family came over for fish cleaning and pictures when we got home. Most stomachs were empty with one fish having a large smelt and one large fish I couldn't identify. The 11 was stuffed full of roe.
Overall a very nice day on the water. I still have my record intact this year of not landing a fish with a lamprey aboard. The last 6lber we caught had a skin tag in it so I will call Essex tomorrow to report the information to them. The tag looked like a stick hanging out just behind and to the side of the dorsal. There was a growth attached to it and it was literally hanging by a thread on the fish.
Mark
We hit the flat between Schuyler Island and the reef first, setting up with both vertical blades in blue/silver & silver/blue, a set of inline blades in orange and one rod clean. Quickly boated two small 16" fish on a large glow alewife on the bottom in 115 FOW 5' behind the vertical blades. About 0800 the alewife popped again with a solid fish aboard. 10 minutes later with tired arms Wade had an 11lb, 30" laker in the net. One of the fattest lakers I've ever seen, no lampreys but 5 or 6 old scars.
The bite died off there so we moved over to a little hump I'd found on the GPS. Strafed the side of it with the first pass and all four rods went off within seconds of each other. So we had fish on 3 of the 4 when one dropped off. Ended up boating a nice 4lb and a 6lber. Didn't seem to matter what was down as the fish hit every offering with zeal. Reset all the rods and made another pass, 3 rods fired, with another 2 fish boated. Clones of the last pass. Large silver mooselook, glow alewife and silver/green holographic stingers and NK's had the most success. Speeds were right around 1.5 the whole day. Made one last pass over the top of the hump which was lit up with hooks and boated another 6.3lb. Ended up boating 14 lakers and losing 6 or 7. Numerous fires with nobody home.
We kept 5 fish including the 11 and two sixes that Wade caught as he wanted to show his family and have laker on the grill. I don't like to make practice out of keeping the larger fish but I could not turn that boy down! The boy and his proud family came over for fish cleaning and pictures when we got home. Most stomachs were empty with one fish having a large smelt and one large fish I couldn't identify. The 11 was stuffed full of roe.
Overall a very nice day on the water. I still have my record intact this year of not landing a fish with a lamprey aboard. The last 6lber we caught had a skin tag in it so I will call Essex tomorrow to report the information to them. The tag looked like a stick hanging out just behind and to the side of the dorsal. There was a growth attached to it and it was literally hanging by a thread on the fish.
Mark