This past Saturday was toss up from the start thanks to being under the weather with a stomach bug. As luck would have it, I knew it was one of the last days to get the kids in a boat where they could enjoy the warm weather. Most of my trips from here on out will be weekdays, and hunting season is upon us, so they will be hunting on the weekends. My wife's sister has been wanting to go, so we all loaded up for a trip to Big Lake. We launched at Cal. Point on Saturday morning and started to pull away from the dock and then I saw it......................a man carrying a bucket of live shrimp. I had flash of brilliance and said to myself - "self, you might want some shrimp if these peeps want to catch some fish". So I jump right back out and picked up some live shrimp for the day. In an instant, I went from a sure "zero" to a "hero".
Departed and hit the lake, knowing some recent intel on the east bank. I was hoping to get some lake time in before the near gail force winds set in, but it was howling early. After 4 stops and 1.5 hours of fishing, we had 1 trout to show. I decided to salvage the day on what I call "democrat" fishing which I don't particularly care for, but I wanted them to get some tugs on their lines. Who would have thought what would come of the day??? I had to be at work for midnight for an 18hr shift in a patrol car, before going back to my regular job on Monday, so I didn't want to stay all day. Made the call that we were heading for protected water and they were all about getting out the wind!
Arrived in the Haymark and immediately found my spot, setting anchor w/o the trolling motor hitting the water. Tied on popping corks and let the "crickets" fly. Immediately, the Chinese firedrill started and to my surprise, we had some really nice fish coming in, along with a bunch of rat reds. Kids had a blast and it was awesome to see my sister in law having a good time. To top it off, she caught a really nice doormat, and Griffin got his biggest speck to date coming in at 4.8lbs.
Put the boat on the trailer with enough time to get some rest before heading out in the early morning hours. The decision to get some live bait for them was worth it and lots of smiles were going around!