Arriving at 72, I scanned the area for signs of life. It looked promising with lots of bait on the meter, but no bird activity. Over went the trolling rods. I normally run 7 rods off the boat in the fall, but because this might be the last trip, I threw 2 more rods in the mix without weight and high in the water in case we found breaking fish.
With 9 rods behind us, we began "mowing the lawn" and searching.
A considerable amount of time went past. and I was starting to question my "plan A". It must have been 45 minutes into the troll, when we all decided to have lunch to wash down the beers that Mike and Lou had been drinking during the "down time"
Mike always brings me a couple of Michalobe Ultra's, but he brings the weirdest crap for him to drink. I think he must walk into the liquor store and ask for anything he can't pronounce
I try not to drink while I'm at the wheel, and especially when the water gets this cold. We were showing 51.6*
I work the binoculars constantly. If by chance, we don't catch fish, it's not because I am lazy at the helm
The bait was coming across the screen in "ribbons". A never ending supply of food for rockfish, and I was scratching my head as to why no predators were working this food.
Then, I spotted them
We had a bird show about two miles away. Damn, with trolling rods out, it was going to take us a good while to arrive at the action
And, with 9 rods out, it was going to take some time to bring everything in and run to the birds to jig. What to do?
The birds up north were not staying too long over feeding fish. Once you spotted a bird show, you had maybe three minutes of action before the pod of fish would move off and congregate somewhere else. But these birds were staying in place and there weren't a bunch of boats on them. So we trolled north, picking up our speed to about 4.5mph to get there just a little quicker (I normally troll between 3.5-3.8mph this time of year.
We got there with time to spare. The birds were still working and I watched the meter with trepidation. "Watch your rods", I yelled to Mike and Lou as the fish started to appear on the screen. The first rod went down HARD. Mike grabbed the rod and said, "This is a nice fish", as if we needed confirmation
Lou grabbed the next bent rod, and when numbers three and four went down, Mike yelled to me to leave the wheel (and the comfort of my Mr. Buddy heater) to grab a rod. As rod numbers 5,6,7,8,and finally 9 bent towards the water, chaos ensued.
Some rods had two fish on the umbrella's, both pushing 30+ inches
With a seasoned crew, we made quick work of bringing in fish and quickly tossed three "overs" into the box. Three "unders" (25 inches) went in as well; and the rest went back overboard as quickly as possible to catch another day
It was a well oiled machine. It went something like this, net the fish, lower to the deck, SLIDE the net out from under the fish, drop into the fish box (or over the side; and repeat
My tackle was a mess. Some of the umbrella's were destroyed
The pliers came off the hip and the cutting of braid began.................
Hybrid Mode
