Bit of a lengthy story folks, TL;DR is at the bottom (for those unfamiliar with the term, it means a quick summary if you don't want to read my essay lol)
So went for the first time on thursday. Got there about ten in the morning (Durrance), set up shop on that floating dock right near the parking lot. First few casts were actually decent and then I got cocky. Tried to get'er out there and snap. One lure gonzo.
Next I tried weight with a leader with some power bait. First cast was ok, got it out there about 20 yards. Let it sit for about ten minutes while reeling slightly every once in awhile. Nothing.....
I put some power in my next cast and it felt like it went on forever. In fact with the slight rain and fog I couldn't even see where it landed. Reeled for a minute, and then IT HAPPENED... tension. Heart starts racing, I start reeling in harder...
You should have seen the size of it...
a nice 30 foot...
500 pound...
pine tree. She was a beauty. Alright so lost everything in the tree.
A nice gentlemen (Pete was his name I believe) came by and gave us some tips. He told my brother and I to stop everything and really look at the lake. He asked what we noticed. Nothing at first, and then I saw a splash out of the corner of my eye. Holy sh*t the fish were jumping. Now this may be normal to everyone but I had no F'ing idea! So he said the fish are near the top, look around for different bugs floating on the surface and go get some fly's and really small bobbers.
Break for lunch and shopping for bobbers and fly's.
Headed back around 1:30. The rain wouldn't let up, we had good rain gear but my hands were numb and wet and some water went down my back when my hood popped off.
The next 2 hours were miserable. Miserable weather for one. We moved to a different spot and tangled our lines numerous times. It tied in ways I didn't believe were possible around my spool and knotted. By the end of it however I could untangle and fix my lines pretty quick (with cold, wet hands!)
After some struggles, I finally decided to try this one nice spoon I bought. Was scared to use it earlier because of losing it. So I tied it up. Released the bail, swung back and whipped the rod forward. OOPS forgot to release my finger in time, and SNAP my beautiful spoon went flying into the middle of the lake. This was the low point of the day.
A little while later some ladies came by and showed us the 8 fish they had caught. "All we had was a 15 foot leader with a fly at the end, we just let it float and the fish were going crazy!" they said.
Naturally I told my brother to pack up and we headed where they told us. Much nicer spot for sure! Right then a member of this forum came by (which I found out by mentioning the help I'd received on the forum). RenraW is his forum name, and Evan his real. He was extremely nice and helpful. He showed us a few tricks, some new knots and even gave us some new bait and a fly to try! He fished with us for a bit, then headed off. We didn't catch anything, but we were able to cast for a couple hours with no problems which was nice.
The day was coming to an end around 6:30pm. We had some tension on our lines throughout and while we'd love to believe it was trout biting and our incompetency to reel them as the reason why we didn't see any, we knew it was most likely the weeds near the bottom of the lake. BUT THEN it happened again. I threw out one of my last casts and within seconds felt a solid tension. I quickly looked to the trees, I was good. The tension hit to quick for it to be snagging something on the bottom. This was it I thought. I looked over to my little cooler and had visions of myself victoriously placing my first catch in it (after a few pics for the forum of course).
It must have been a small one I thought, because it wasn't fighting hard. I continued to reel it in, as it got closer my excitement grew. It was really close now, this is it I thought. I pulled up out of the water and to my complete amazement.....
I caught MY SPOON I'd lost earlier in the day!! This, funny enough, was the perfect ending to a great day.
Suffice it to say it was a horrible day, didn't catch a thing. But I learned a lot, had an absolute blast and I'm hooked. If I could have that much fun on a crappy day with nothing but problems, a nice day with some fish could be a religious experience.
Thanks for reading!
TL;DR
Was a horrible day, weather wise, but got a lot of help from some friendly people and learned a ton. I'm hooked!
Cheers,
~Kevan
So went for the first time on thursday. Got there about ten in the morning (Durrance), set up shop on that floating dock right near the parking lot. First few casts were actually decent and then I got cocky. Tried to get'er out there and snap. One lure gonzo.
Next I tried weight with a leader with some power bait. First cast was ok, got it out there about 20 yards. Let it sit for about ten minutes while reeling slightly every once in awhile. Nothing.....
I put some power in my next cast and it felt like it went on forever. In fact with the slight rain and fog I couldn't even see where it landed. Reeled for a minute, and then IT HAPPENED... tension. Heart starts racing, I start reeling in harder...
You should have seen the size of it...
a nice 30 foot...
500 pound...
pine tree. She was a beauty. Alright so lost everything in the tree.
A nice gentlemen (Pete was his name I believe) came by and gave us some tips. He told my brother and I to stop everything and really look at the lake. He asked what we noticed. Nothing at first, and then I saw a splash out of the corner of my eye. Holy sh*t the fish were jumping. Now this may be normal to everyone but I had no F'ing idea! So he said the fish are near the top, look around for different bugs floating on the surface and go get some fly's and really small bobbers.
Break for lunch and shopping for bobbers and fly's.
Headed back around 1:30. The rain wouldn't let up, we had good rain gear but my hands were numb and wet and some water went down my back when my hood popped off.
The next 2 hours were miserable. Miserable weather for one. We moved to a different spot and tangled our lines numerous times. It tied in ways I didn't believe were possible around my spool and knotted. By the end of it however I could untangle and fix my lines pretty quick (with cold, wet hands!)
After some struggles, I finally decided to try this one nice spoon I bought. Was scared to use it earlier because of losing it. So I tied it up. Released the bail, swung back and whipped the rod forward. OOPS forgot to release my finger in time, and SNAP my beautiful spoon went flying into the middle of the lake. This was the low point of the day.
A little while later some ladies came by and showed us the 8 fish they had caught. "All we had was a 15 foot leader with a fly at the end, we just let it float and the fish were going crazy!" they said.
Naturally I told my brother to pack up and we headed where they told us. Much nicer spot for sure! Right then a member of this forum came by (which I found out by mentioning the help I'd received on the forum). RenraW is his forum name, and Evan his real. He was extremely nice and helpful. He showed us a few tricks, some new knots and even gave us some new bait and a fly to try! He fished with us for a bit, then headed off. We didn't catch anything, but we were able to cast for a couple hours with no problems which was nice.
The day was coming to an end around 6:30pm. We had some tension on our lines throughout and while we'd love to believe it was trout biting and our incompetency to reel them as the reason why we didn't see any, we knew it was most likely the weeds near the bottom of the lake. BUT THEN it happened again. I threw out one of my last casts and within seconds felt a solid tension. I quickly looked to the trees, I was good. The tension hit to quick for it to be snagging something on the bottom. This was it I thought. I looked over to my little cooler and had visions of myself victoriously placing my first catch in it (after a few pics for the forum of course).
It must have been a small one I thought, because it wasn't fighting hard. I continued to reel it in, as it got closer my excitement grew. It was really close now, this is it I thought. I pulled up out of the water and to my complete amazement.....
I caught MY SPOON I'd lost earlier in the day!! This, funny enough, was the perfect ending to a great day.
Suffice it to say it was a horrible day, didn't catch a thing. But I learned a lot, had an absolute blast and I'm hooked. If I could have that much fun on a crappy day with nothing but problems, a nice day with some fish could be a religious experience.
Thanks for reading!
TL;DR
Was a horrible day, weather wise, but got a lot of help from some friendly people and learned a ton. I'm hooked!
Cheers,
~Kevan
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