You wait a long time for the first fishing trip of the season. In Saskatchewan, for me, that means from mid to late October until usually early May. With ice still on the lake in mid-May, the first fishing trip was pushed well past the official opening date of May 5th. Add some boat engine problems to the equation and it was second week of June before the first casts were launched from the boat.
You will notice in this post, a profound lack of fish pictures. That is because there was a profound lack of fish caught. We fished hard. The fish did not play along. Here is the best fish of the 3 days.
A quick recap, we had to stop at the “Last Call Perch Hole” a few times just to reach double digits for the days. Perch was the only volume fish we managed to catch consistently.
We fished very stained water. A high volume of runoff has filled the lake with a lot of silt and high winds in recent days have pushed it around rather than letting it settle. In places we normally have 4 to 5 feet of visibility we had less than 2 feet, often only one. The classic Len Thompson spoons, Wally Divers, jig heads, big streamer flies, and all other manner of lures were thrown at the water.
We fished all the fish producing spots that have been mediocre to good over the past couple years. Tried a few promising spots that the fish finder said were holding fish.
The end result was that we spent some time on the boat, beside the fire, ate Moose stew and Elk tenderloin, listened to tunes, retold many lies about our days in high school and since. The fishing was poor, the company was great. We will do it again.