just for you trout envy pondbossers, here's a cut and paste of my report i just posted on the my OTHER forum
well, in summary, our annual fall trip to this very special place did not disappoint!
in my boat, we started out the first day with limits in just a couple hours. i felt more lucky than "skilled" to have found just the right menu favorites first thing in the morning slow trolling raps off points in the middle basin, we could barely keep rods in the water. when the rest of our group compared notes that evening, everyone was trolling raps the next morning
over the next few days we tried some different methods including slip bobber fishing and simple casting. we�d move around hunting birds and bait schools, then simply drift or anchor and cast around in relatively shallow waters of the middle and north basins. slip bobber fishing wasn�t happening for us, and it didnt take us long to abandoned that. we had some epic moments though casting from the drifting boat. one time we caught 3 fish in four casts, then a short while later 2 fish in 3 casts after experimenting w/ different lure patterns. my brother rediscovered the magic of panther martins and one of my all-time favorites produced ...an old crusty brass acme wobble right
an old and very large tui chub also found my acme wobbler edible, either that or she was protecting a nest site. my nephew has the picture of that fish, i did not take it out of the water, but carefully de-hooked her, had my nephew shoot a pic of it before releasing her back to breed some needed forage for the lake. we estimated the fish at 18 to 20-inches and 6 to 8 pounds. she was probably a very old fish maybe over 20 years old. i understand they live to over 30 years. it was my first tui chub, what a fascinating and prehistoric looking fish.
all in all we figured out some good productive patterns and stuck with them the whole week for people/boat limits every day staying in the middle and north basins. other folks in the group fished pelican, youth camp, miners point areas etc, but their reports were not as encouraging, generally catching smaller fish and working pretty hard for them, so my boat stayed north and stayed in pretty good quality fish averaging 2 to 3 pounds.
a week of no tv, no radio, awesome food and drink, great fellowship and consistent fishing. we didnt care what was going on in the world, although we did get word of the incoming storm on sunday. we kept a careful fish count for the group, and determined we could fish monday and am glad we did. in the late afternoon, the front was coming in hard, wind howling, white caps, we had banked the boat on the protected side of a point in the middle basin. my nephew says �why don�t you try orange uncle dave?���.i said good idea, it was the color that had worked well in the early mornings for us���..first cast out I hook a good one. drag zipping out, heart racing, 10 minute fight, i land the big fella, a beautiful fat buck going nearly 5 pounds on the boga. it was a beautiful gift from eagle lake in our last hour of fishing. i brought him back to the cabin to a group of envious friends. he weighed in on the group scale at 4.5, and took first place for big fish of the week. i was stoked and thankful for my life and eagle lake fishing friends, what a great week.
based on the size of the incoming storm, we pulled boats a day early on monday evening. tuesday was spent watching the howling wind and driving rain from the inside, while drinking, eating leftovers, filleting, vacuum packing, and cabin cleaning. we ended with sending everyone home on wednesday each with four precious red meated eagle lake trout and a slew of new memories to enjoy until next year.
i didnt get many pics on my camera, and am waiting for others to send me theirs, but i hope you enjoy my few for now, i'll post up some others later:
