Fish Lake Friday!

We set out for Fish Lake in search of the Mackinaw.  Friday morning came with a blur at 4:30 am.  Loaded the boat and gear and hit the road picking up the crew and headed south for our two and half hour trip south.  We stopped in at Scipio and pick up breakfast burrito's and worms.  Made our way through the small towns of the back roads and made it to Fish Lake by 8 am.

 A little later than we wanted but it was a beautiful morning, the lake was flat.  We launched out of the west marina and made our way to the lane where all the other boats were fishing.  This being our first time on the lake in our boat we took all the tips we could see.  We started marking fish throughout the column from the surface to the bottom depth of 98 feet.  Fish were feeding on the surface all around us.  I quickly tied on a jig and tossed it over while the boys tied on their pop gear and flashers.  We ran worms and squid patterns as trailers on the pop gear, red cowbell, pink flasher blade and diamond flasher were the first attempts.  

Parker landed the first fish within a few minutes on his red cowbell with a worm trailer and then he proceeded to catch two more before I got one on my pink flasher.  Jim took a little while before he got one with the diamond flasher and pink squid.  The fishing was fast for most of the morning.  We had over a dozen landed before 10 am.  Rainbow trout were all we were landing but it was fun most of which we put back but kept a few of the nicer sized ones.  

We changed colors and depth often to keep the lines in the heaviest concentration of fish.  After 10 am however it slowed down and by 11:30 it all but stopped.  We had over 20 fish caught and kept 9 of the bigger ones.  We fished until 1 pm and after going through the lane a final pass and getting no hits we called it a day.

The day continued to be a nice day with of and on wind gusts and clouds moving in and out all day long.  We never felt that we had to get off the lake due to the wind but we did have to make adjustments to our path because the 55lb thrust Minkota could not keep up the wind.  Time for a small kicker for the Fish Steeler.  We loaded and headed for home stopping in Sigurd for lunch, good food and friendly owners.  We drove home talking about the day and what we learned.  We will return and target the Mackinaw specifically next time with proper gear.  Today was good preview of the lake and will give us enough information to return with success for the big lake trout that are found in these waters.