East Lake Ice-out

The winter/spring of 2011 was extremely reluctant to let go of it’s icy grip so I was anxiously waiting for word that the ice at East Lake was finally 100% open. Once the news came, we were off. We left mid-day on a Thursday and planned on staying through Sunday. We arrived in the early evening, launched the boat parked the camper and got down to business. The first hour was fishless as they seemed to be scattered and not in their usual haunts. The water temps varied greatly as there was a full 10 degree difference from one side of the lake to the other. We decided to switch things up a bit a fish a little shallower than usual. As we were making the turn to our target area, Tyler’s rod doubles over and starts buzzing to life. He grabbed it and was fast into our first fish of the trip. We both knew from the peeling line and head-shaking that this would likely be his biggest brown to date. He’s waited 4 long years and spent countless rod hours hoping for a new personal best. He worked the fish in like a pro and once we saw it, we both immediately knew that this was the one he’d been looking for. The fish was tired and with one final lift of it’s head I was able to secure it in the net. He was in awe, he had just landed a 26 ½” 7 lb hookjaw!!

Well, I can’t think of a better way to get the skunk off the boat. The first fish being a 7 lb”er means it’s all gravy from here on out. Little did we know that in the next 90 minutes we would be very busy. The fish became very active and we were blessed to be there when it happened.

As the last remnants of light disappeared, I donned my headlamp so we could still fish the last few minutes of legal light. I turned to get something from the front of the boat and Tyler yelled, “Oh my gosh, he just tore it out of the clip!!” By the time I realized what had happened, Tyler already had picked up the rod and was watching the line peel off of his reel. He was into yet another quality fish. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see much until the fish was ready for the net. The fish came in uneventfully and Tyler’s 4 year drought was over……. Times two!! This time it was a beautiful 6 lb hookjaw.

We couldn’t believe our good fortune in being able to land 3 fish over 5 lbs in an hour and a half! Additionally, we also boated 2 more 3 lb’ers and a couple dinks for a total of 9 fish for the evening.

Friday was a very different story. We fished for a total of 8 hours and only managed to scratch out 5 fish with Tyler landing a very colorful 3 lb’er.

Saturday was worse, a low level front came in overnight and sat right on us. It wasn’t particularly windy or rainy, but it was apparent that the barometer was on the fall and had put the fish off. We fished for another 5 hours and picked up 4 dinks for our efforts. At that point we both agreed that the trip was already a huge success, so we decided to pack it in and go home a day early.

Sorry for the late report, But I owed it to Tyler as this was his most successful outing thus far.