Watching A True Fisherman – Metro Lake Update

My son and I, Riley, were finally able to get out today to a metro area lake that we have had some great pike action on in the past. We had originally been shooting for Saturday as the day we would be out fishing, but he ditched me to go over to a friend’s house, funny I can remember countless times doing this to my father. So I gave him the go ahead with the promise that he would join me today, Sunday, to lay some tip ups and chase some pike, he quickly agreed. We took our time getting out this morning as we arrived at the lake around 12:00pm; we got the house set up in 15 FOW and put 2 tip ups down. Everywhere we drilled we had a solid 8 – 10 inches of ice, with not much slush.

One thing Riley is quick to tell me is when he’s not showing any fish on the graph and would like to move. We left the house as a base camp and started to venture around it, drilling hole after hole from 12 FOW to 15 FOW until he was confident he saw fish on the bottom. “Dad, there’s some fish here, can you grab my pole?” We set him up with a flutter bug and a meal worm, these marks looked small. This didn’t last long; the jig was lowered to the bottom, and as quickly as it went down, it was bitten off. We decided to change to our tactics and use our bigger rod which had 4 lb ice line, a pink diamond jig and bobber.

This fish was sure hungry, as soon as the bobber was set, the bobber lay on its side and the flasher lit up in red. “Riley, set the hook!” FISH ON! The hook was set and this fish was not happy, pulling drag like a freight train. This is where Riley showed his true fishing skills – keeping the tip up and letting this fish pull out the drag before reeling in. He worked this fish for a good 3-4 minutes, the fish making run after run, a total of 7 runs in all. The fish made it to the hole and it was grabbed before any final runs were made. The smiles this brought will be something I will not soon forget.

A quick high five, a couple of pictures, and Riley made a great release. Although we only caught one fisher on this day, it was a day Riley and I will never forget. We moved because the fish were not there, and were rewarded for our efforts.

To my little fisherman – Thanks for teaching me a little about fishing today.

The moral of the story? If you’re not catching fish, move until you find them!

“Dad, there’s no fish here, let’s move.”– Riley the True Fisherman