A practice report

Well with the pending saltwater closure I figure I better get used to hanging in the Stillwater section once again. After a day spent fishing with Ira yesterday I thought it would be a good chance for some report practice

We spent the day fishing two general opener lakes yesterday. Neither of us had ever fished either of these lakes, so it was a day of exploring.

Weather was pretty crappy the first half of the day with a pretty constant down pour and a chilly breeze. By the time we got to the second lake around... 2 pm I'm guessing, the rain died and the sun peeked out a bit.

We caught fish at both lakes. First lake had really nice quality of fish. Serious footballs. Many of them were a solid 17-18" and unbelievably fat. Even the smaller ones were porkers. We had some decent bobber down action but Ira's troll game was on point and he caught and missed many trolling. Myself I couldn't get the trolling action to work until I finally changed flies (I was stubbornly sticking with a fly that SHOULD have been working), and finally managed to land one trolled fish. Of course the bottle of Fireball that I was working on after about 9 am probably didn't help there.

Headed to second lake and as soon as we got on the water Ira rammed full speed ahead over a sunken log and took out the trolling motor so he had to row the rest of the day. I would have gladly rowed but at this point the Fireball was getting low and I was in no condition at all to drive. I mean, I gave him plenty of warning regarding said submerged log but he just sped up and rammed that SOB. I don't know what else I could have done!

We caught some fish trolling, then we caught some fish bobbercating, but these fish weren't anywhere near as nice as the first lake. As such we weren't anywhere near as excited about the situation until we found..
the basshole!

We started catching tiny bass and pretty much instantly forgot about those pesky trout. Most of these bass were about 6" long but we tried out hardest to find smaller ones. For some reason I was still catching some trout while Ira was the bass master but I finally got the technical subtleties figured out and started doing some work as well. Then Ira caught a few perch and I was extremely driven to add the third species to my list but I just couldn't get it done!

We were so enthralled with this massive basshole that we caught bass right up until dark. Much to the chagrin of our spouses I'm sure. I wonder if Iras wife just ended up watching Game of Thrones without him since he couldn't be bothered to tear away from the bass.

Super fun day on the water. After getting the best of him our last two lake outings Ira spanked me yesterday. He had first fish, most, biggest, most species, and possibly smallest as well. (the true trophy!) In the name of full disclosure though I ended up completely hammered and was definitely not in my usual peak condition. Luckily the hot bass action seemed to sober me up or I may have been in a world of hurt. I am pretty sure I nearly took a swim a time or two.

With that in mind, I'm gonna post some pics and head back to my hangover.

P. S.....If Gary Game Warden happens to be a member of this site.... we KNOW it wasn't a two rod lake. Just because Ira threw a line out for me to troll while I was putting away the full sink rod does NOT mean we were fishing illegally. But really thanks for saving us from the world of trouble we could have got in lol



Ira had some technical difficulties during this hookup





But he powered through







Trout on the second lake were nowhere near as impressive



But these slabs easily made up for that





I just couldn't seal the deal with one of these elusive fish



A two species double is always rad



Biggest bass of the day