Well is was pan fried walleye tonight. It’ll be grilled trout some time this week. For a rainy cold day it was my best of the season for fishing. The day started without much promise of being a fishing bonanza. Little did I know that after cleaning the kitchen, making the beds and doing the laundry I would earn myself a kitchen pass as the wife decided to take the 3 girls to see her mother and sister. Now free, I was still not too motivated with 50 degree temps, steady rain and 20 mile an hour winds. But when you are married with three girl kids and have a demanding job you take what you can get. So I loaded up the Jeep and pointed the wheel north. I decided that trout wouldn’t care too much about the cold front and 1 minute after arriving stream side that notion was proved correct. 45 minutes later after catching my 5th rainbow it was time to load up and try for some Smallies and Walleye, a purple 1/64 oz glitter jig was all I needed to coax the trout into biting. Next stop was the Maquoketa river which was running surprisingly normal. The 2nd cast yielded a bruiser of a smallie 17 inches and shaped like a football it made several strong runs peeling drag before I finally got it lipped and freed, after 5 more cookie cutter smallies all 14 inches, I caught a pot bellied largemouth before the bite dried up. A 1/16 oz jig with a silver glitter KGrub was the ticket. It was around 6 bells, just time for 1 more stop before heading home. I pulled into a spot on the Wapsi hoping to top the day off with a Walleye or two. The first fish was a big toothy critter of a different sort, ned the northerine made a visit, she taped out at 34 inches before I slid her back into the swollen river. 30 more casts yielded 6 smallies and 1 hammer handle northern, my hopes of adding walter to my bag were dimming. I moved to a spot that had some new wood in the water which was creating a nice obstruction. The 3rd cast sweeping the front side of the structure hit paydirt 
. A nice fat 20 inch walleye ended up rounding out the mixed bag. Re-energized by the catch, I sent a few more casts into the area and connected with 2 more smallies and 1 more 17 inch walleye. It was getting close to dark so I thought I’d quit while I was ahead. I got home, froze the trout and cleaned the two walleye while heating up some baked beans and fried potatoes to accompany the walleye 
. Add a few Killians to wash it all down and I was in hog heaven 
. Just goes to show that you can’t always predict when you best days will be. Sometimes a great day is hidden within a cold rainy package.
April 30, 2006 at 3:49 am
#1284412
, with the rain I wasn’t planning on having such good luck. Tight lines.
Rugbystar
