Got out this morning (it was a cold one and got a bit windy and rainy after a couple of hours too) but couldn't get my 10 min plan to work. 10min. to launch, 10 for the launch and 10 min. pedaling out all worked but couldn't get my first fish in 10min after starting to fish
Not too many fish marked. Some were willing to come up to have a look and had a couple of chasers as well (could have been moody trout of course, which is fine by me since they are OOS). But I got one aggressive one that came off the bottom and hit my lure sitting about 15' off bottom with no hesitation (I was actually doing something else with the lure in the water and not paying enough attention to notice that I was not as close to the bottom as I usually like my bait to be and by the time I saw the streak, all I did was hang on and wait for the hit). Even thought it was a laker when I first saw its back and was kind of glad it was not hooked too well (the lure was hanging mostly outside the mouth), then, "oh crap, it's a WF", got the net and was able to get it into the net just as the hook popped out and of course the trebles were in the netting (but at least did not hook the seams so no problem). Got a 14" SM bass later in shallower waters as I was heading back...released (happy with my 19.5" WF). The WF was full of eggs and ready to pop any day now (so the WF behaviour maybe changing and I am happy to have landed one today). You can see the roundness of this fish in the photo. Glad to be out again even if it was only for about 3 hours of fishing (I've got things running smoothly now that even for a short 1-2hrs of fishing, it's worth going).
Muskokan whitefish getting ready to spawn, female full of eggs
