Toothy Critters On Tiny Gear
Sunday was forecast to be a beautiful, sunny day. Of course, the chimps predicting the weather were wrong and it was actually a cloudy, cold and windy day.
But that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm as we took the boat to Belwood Lake to give the freshly repaired motor a test and try to catch some pike.
The motor performed flawlessly, taking us on a great tour of the lake and getting up to speed in no time. Apparently I’m lucky enough to have a good boat motor repairman living in my house. We weaved around Gull island, into the bays, past the brush patches dotting the lake, and over by the dam. The motor didn’t make so much as a blip.
My first pike of the day.
We spent a few hours fishing, tossing everything we could think of to try and interest a fish into biting, with nothing more to show for it than an adventurous perch follow a big spinnerbait.
As we fished along a ledge I got bored and decided to switch over to some lighter gear, in hopes of enticing a few perch to play. My gear of choice was a 6’6″ ultralight rod with 4-lb Power Pro and a 1.5-inch white tube jig. I made a couple tosses with no bites before I hooked into what a thought was a rock…until it started peeling line. It took me a few minutes to reel in what turned out to be a 24.5-inch pike. What a blast to reel that in on ultralight gear! And boy was I lucky those teeth didn’t touch my tiny line.
That seemed to set of a storm of bites and Darrell reeled a pike in on a jig with a 2-inch twister tail.
Darrell and his first catch.
After a few fish the bite died down. They weren’t big fish but they were a ton of fun. My first pike was easily my personal best for a pike and I loved playing it out on the light tackle, wondering when its razor-sharp teeth would slice through my line.
A really nice perch out of Belwood Lake. It took a bigger lure than any of the pike did!
It turned out to be a great afternoon on the water. I even took a turn driving the boat (at faster than trolling speed) which was an absolute blast! One of my goals this year was to learn how to drive the boat and this was a great way to get going.
Toothy critters and flying around in the boat – what a way to spend the day!
argosgirl
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