Day 7 & Fury

Saturday after work, on a whim, I decided to go fishing and get a boat with a trolling motor. I was tired of rowing across the lake, then rowing back, unloading all my gear and putting all the boating stuff away, and then having to ride back up the hill to my house. So I got a trolling motor which didn't move the boat any faster than rowing, but is much kinder on the arms and back. Using a motor after having to row all these times before wasn't quite as glorious as I'd imagined it to be, however. All I did was sit on the back seat and hold onto a piece of plastic for 20 minutes until I got across the lake. Hardly epic poetry material. But having the motor made it much easier to reposition the boat after drifting.

But enough about the motor, and on to the fishing. In a word, it sucked. At least the most part. I've been scouring the internet and finally found the 3 websites that have any useful information on lake trout fishing. Lots of stuff on trout fishing, and lake fishing, but not the two together. Most trout fishing is done in streams or rivers, where you can see the fish. In Hume Lake, you can see about five, maybe six feet down, on a good day. A couple times I've seen fish following my bait up as I reel it in, but usually by the time you can see them, they've seen you and have vanished into the murky depths. The fishing lately has tapered off as the lake warms up. The last couple times I've gone have been unsuccessful.

The first hour, hour and a half of today I got nothing, not even a nibble. The fishermen on the shore weren't having any better luck, either, based on the dead silence on the lake. I've been trying to train myself to find places fish would most likely hide, based on one of the three pages I read online. Finally, as the time was approaching to head back to return the boat before the staff bike jump, I spotted a potentially good fishing spot, so I motored over and cast out.

Now, keep in mind that for the past two hours, at least, nobody in the vicinity of the dam has caught anything. Sound carries really well across the water and I would have heard if anybody caught something. But they didn't. I motor over to about 40 yards from shore, about 20 yards past the average casting distance of a shore fisherman, and cast out. Within fifteen seconds, I feel a tug at my line, and another twenty has my fish flopping around in the bottom of my boat. Though it was about 70 degrees out, I could nearly see the steam coming from the fishermen's nostrils on shore. Here I was, not 60 seconds past cutting my motor, not a stone's throw away from where their lines were sitting, yet I had the fish and they did not. Such goes fishing.