I really don't even know why I am bothering to blog about this all night fishing trip because it is one I would just as easy rather forget.
We left the house around 5:30pm to go get Pete's boat at the lake place. Pete had a bunch of stuff that needed to be moved out of the boat and as always there was preparation to be done. We didn't make it to the lake until around 8pm.
We got the boat in the water and Pete realized that he had made a mistake while putting together the fuel line earlier. After some deliberation and jerry rigging Pete was able to make things work and the big motor fired. While Pete was messing around a boat came in that had been fishing Indian Point since before dusk and they were skunked. They did say a boat was trolling for Ski's and landed 2, muskies or pike I assume. They said the wave action on Indian was pretty significant with the South wind. Pete was not happy that the wind weather forecast and the actual wind speed did not seem to be matching up.
It was probably a little after 9pm when we made it out of the boat harbor and into the lake. There were 4 or 5 boats trolling in Casino Access Bay and I am not sure if there were any boats left up at Indian. Once we got out of the narrow boat channel and into deeper water we started heading North. I thought we were going to troll super shallow so I put on a small pink X-Rap. We trolled around Sherman's Point with nothing to show and so Pete wanted to try deeper, so we put on Shad Raps and tried 15-20ft all through Wigwam bay making our way slowly North. Pete was marking fish deeper than the Shad Raps were probably running so we switched to Wally Divers. We got North of Wigwam still out deep. Pete brought his line in to discover that it was fouled with weeds and caught up with my line. We were fishing with rods in the rod holders so who knows how long that had been going on. Pete broke his line and managed to get my Fireline untangled all the while we were drifting farther out with the SW wind.
Once we were set to fish again Pete noticed we had made significant progress out towards Sherman's Flat and so he wanted to give that a try. I can't say I was enthusiastic about the choice, but the waves were not that bad and I wasn't super cold so I didn't object. I suppose we must have wasted an hour or so trolling in that adventure.
Next Pete wanted to try about 10ft over rocks much closer in towards shore. I think we might have trolled South for a little bit at that point, but this didn't last long because Pete didn't like trying to navigate with his back to shore. We headed North and closer to shore. At some point Pete asked me to take over and he went up front to take a nap. I paralleled the shoreline in 6-10ft of water, mostly 8 feet. Nothing and we made our way farther North.
Eventually we started working our way around Seguiche Point into the Southern slope of St. Alban's bay. This was around the time the nearly full moon finally came out from behind the clouds for a while. We got into an area with some weeds and I had a good strike in 10ft of water. Later I was to discover that the belly treble on my Frenzy Crankbait had one hook totally broken off hook and another that had opened up quite a bit. Earlier this summer Pete was talking down the hooks they put on Frenzy lures and in this case he was sure right. I have never had a problem with the hooks they put on Frenzy Poppers. A little while later I might have had another bite, but it might have been weeds. With me driving we worked our way past Terry's Boat Harbor and a little ways North up St. Albans Bay before I gave up, the clouds had come back and were thicker at this point. It was coming up on 5am and I had pretty much had more than enough.
Pete fired up the big motor and we made a run back to Sherman's Point. I was lucky and the chop wasn't that bad and so the ride was not nearly as sucky as it could have been. We stopped at Sherman's Point and started trolling South back to the access. At this point we were the only boat in the bay. It started getting a little lighter out and we tried shallow and out to about 15 feet. We were just about to start turning in at the access when Pete shouted fish on. I couldn't believe it but Pete had a chunky 26.5 walleye on his shallow diving crank over 13ft of water. This stroke of luck kept us out on the water for at least another hour and a half. At least I got a show from some Loons and seagulls. About the time Pete caught his fish, the wind shifted out of the NW and started blowing 10-15. Even though the electric trolling motor was about dead we managed to hold in the narrow boat channel and make it in around 8am.
That is right 11 hours in the boat with Pete for 1 fish and 1 miss.
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