Sandy 8/22, 8/23, and 8/24

[Gator]

Friday looked good, but my fishing partner for that day had a last minute thing, so I put up trail cameras instead and spent a few hours running the forest clearing saw in preparation for bow season.

 

Saturday we decided to head offshore, based on the week's crazy fluctuations in water temperature and the fact that the inside water went from ice cold to 70 degrees top-to-bottom literally overnight. Unfortunately, with the south wind it got a bit lumpy running out so I had mercy on the crew and we started our troll at the 27 line, well inside where I wanted to be. That was a mistake. It was not the stable water I wanted to find. We did run into a bunch of steelhead and smaller kings, including a couple chromers in the 10+ plus range, but it just wasn't consistent. Much like the lake itself, which went from relatively flat to 3' and back to flat.

 

I got excited at one point when we found a dramatic temperature break of over 10 degrees, on the surface as well as down, but the wind had picked up which made trolling into them to get back to the break a sloppy affair. When the lake flattened out, we could see a barbed wire fence set up defining the break, but the fish didn't seem oriented to it like they'd been earlier, or maybe it was moving so much or the current was impossible to set up on effectively...I don't know. We struggled trying to figure it out for a couple hours then headed south, where we had a king rip a wire diver, the only one of the day.

 

Insult on top of injury, we didn't land it. But it was interesting how the warm water had pushed in so hard from the west, displacing a bolus of cold water way offshore, and the barbed wire fence was cool to see. - about fifty yards of choppy water on an otherwise flat lake. We rolled the dice and came up snake eyes. Great day to be fishing regardless.

 

Sunday was spent scaping the bottom on the inside with meat, looking for one big pink-bellied king. And that was what we found. One king. Just not quite big enough. There were no skippies, no browns, no steelhead, nothing else. We found 54 degree water 120' down over 140'. We heard that the bite the day before at the Canadian border was good, but we didn't have the time to run that far, unfortunately. What a difference a week makes. Ultimately, this season consisted for us at least of a good four week period from mid July to mid August, with the alewife die off just FUBAR for most of May and June and now the dreaded August turnover sending the matures hightailing it east to stage and spawn. We will get out one more weekend, weather permitting, but that's going to be it this year for Nothing But Net. Meliora!