Had Zeb and Scott jump on today and we motored right over to whalons at 1st light and setup a skinny water troll with otter boards and small sticks. We hit every culvert and water inflow between split and Essex NY. Water temps were 34 up to 34.5 all morning with no detectable warm spots.
We tried to get the skunk off by sparking up the grill early at 945am and bbqed some marinated venison back strap that just melted in your mouth. That usually works to get a rod to fire. Today is didnt.
At 10am we picked and ran to townfarm to see the ice conditions there. When we arrived we found a sheet of 6” ripe ice still blocking the marina to the red can and over toward Thorpe to brook. We setup a hybrid rigger, diver, long line shallow program there for a few hrs. While the ice moved and broke up in front of our eyes by the time we got done there we had MUCH more open water to work. Lots of crap floating in water here so hard to keep hooks clean. Water here was 35ish and got Temps as high as 36 in front of Thorpe. The high point here were the Delux cheese burgers we cooked up and the dead calf floating in the lake we trolled by around noon.
At this point, we began to discuss the fact that we still had a SKUNK riding around with us! It was starling to stink really bad and we discussed plans to kick that bastard off as soon as possible… we tossed the shallow program, ran back to whalons and setup riggers, slide divers and lead core around the best bait we found in morning and began the assault by bombing the area..
It was not long before Zeb jumped on a slide diver down around 50ft that fired and we were on. I can tell you that I don’t remember ever being sooo happy to land a mediocre laker before!!!
We celebrated by cooking up the days 3rd course which were a special spice rubbed chicken sandwitch and chips.
All in all systems ran well, minimal issues noted for the 1st trip. Could not beat the company. Any 2 guys who will put up with me for 6 hrs of NO fish must be saints:)
Can’t wait till next trip, it’s ON!
