After hearing that my sister in-law has breast cancer, wife’s grandma passed away 2 weeks ago and the kids just starting kindergarten, a person really thinks about life and truly puts things in perspective.
I know it’s an odd way to start a fishing story or report, but I just felt that it was appropriate for this cat as I haven’t fished with my brother in quite some time. I know he’s had a lot on his mind and to deal with since finding out that his wife has breast cancer. Well, what better form of treatment is there than getting out in outdoors and spending some quality time with his little brother?
So we headed out to a little lake in western WI to chase after some gills. We get to the landing and after about 10 minutes of trying to get his outboard started (’81 45 hp Mariner). I’m thinking to myself, this is the same DAMN motor that didn’t start for us late fall waterfowl hunting last year (God, please start this engine for him/us). You guessed it, she started. It was almost as if HE knew we needed to get out!
Once we got to our destination, we drifted over a 12 foot flat that led into 17 to 20 fow. The fish were pretty much stacked from 6 to 15 feet down over the deeper water. One thing that we noticed on the graph and flasher was that there was a TON of bugs on the screen and that’s what the gills were feeding on besides our little jigs tipped with Gulp pink or red fish fry.
It made perfect sense as to where these fish were relating to. You see, the actual bottom was a softer mud bottom where the bugs were coming from and that’s where these large gills were feeding.
It was very enjoyable to just spend some quality time in the boat with my brother. During and after the trip, you realize how short life really is and how important it is to spend as much time as you can with the ones you love and care about.
Oh and by the way, that Damn motor didn’t start for a while again as we needed to use the trolling motor to get us a 1/4 way back to the landing. Well, she finally started again.
