Summer Steelheading with Bobber & Jig

If you're looking to increase your steelhead catch this spring, try hitting the river with this rig.

By Scott Haugen www.gameandfishmag.com

"It was a bit slow today," Bret Stuart told me. "Hooked seven is all. Yesterday we hit 15 fish on the same stretch. One day last week we hooked 20 in this section. I don't know what happened today."

I stood slackjawed: 15, 20 summer steelhead hookups in one day on the same section of river I'd been fishing the past 25 years? I'd come to be happy with four or five fish hooked each trip.

Jig-fishing for steelhead is nothing new to Western anglers, but the way Stuart approaches it is. The fishing guide has his approach down to a science, and what I've learned from him and picked up through my own trial and error has added a new and exciting dimension to the way I attack steelhead. Change is good, and if you want to increase your odds of catching fish, this is one change you'll want to make immediately.

GETTING STARTED

The setup is easy and can be inexpensive, depending on how elaborate the rod you choose is. I've used everything from a low-cost fiberglass spinning rod to a 12-foot graphite noodle rod. The longer rod is preferred, as it gives greater flexibility in terms of accessing more fishing water - but that 9-foot spinning pole can work.

"The biggest mistake I see being made is people trying to fish jigs with their baitcasting setup," comments Stuart. That was my error a year prior, and I didn't even realize it.

I love rolling eggs and Corkys for steelies, and carting another rod setup around just to fish jigs seemed unnecessary. After two days of dedicated fishing with bobbers - and not getting so much as a single nibble - I reverted back to my usual tactics and wrote jig-fishing off as a fad. Not until a year later, when I personally fished with Stuart, did I learn how to work a bobber and jig properly.

A quality spinning rod and reel, line, bobber, jig and jig stop are all you need for steelhead success this year. Photo by Scott Haugen

The spinning outfit is the most critical element in jig-fishing. Without it you won't cover water, you can't properly work the bobber, and thus, the jig will not be fishing with 100 percent accuracy. A spinning reel lets you work the jig where you want it and allows you to mend the line when needed, which can be several times a cast in fast water. This is something that simply cannot be done as effectively with a baitcasting arrangement.

The second key element - and the one that forever changed the art of jig-fishing - is the bobber stopper. In all my research, my leads take me back to Stuart as the man who introduced the bobber stopper to steelhead fishing in fast rivers. Ardent jig fanatics who don't even know Stuart credit "The Jig Man" for bringing the bobber stopper to steelhead waters.

He first tried the bobber stopper for steelhead in 1998. For years anglers had been applying the bobber stopper for bait-fishing salmon in tidewater, and Stuart reasoned that it should work with artificial attractants in fast, shallow water. After a bit of tinkering, he had a fail-safe system in place.

The entire setup consists of a jig tied to a leader, the opposite end of which is tied off to a ball-bearing barrel swivel that's attached to the mainline. On the main line sits the bobber, and above that, a small bead. Affixed to the mainline, above the bead, is the bobber stopper: a piece of string that snugs against the line, not moving until you make it move, and not allowing the bobber to slide past.

Rod-wrapping string or a heavy gauge thread will work best, as they will not slide up and down the line until physically moved. Pre-made bobber stoppers can be purchased, complete with beads, which work to some people's satisfaction; I've had too much slipping occur with such models.

By positioning the bobber stopper where you want it, you control the depth at which you fish. If you want to fish in a foot of water, simply shorten the leader to 6 to 8 inches in length and slide the stopper down near the top of the bobber. If you want to fish 20 feet of water, slide the stopper 20 feet up your line. Another bonus is that the bobber stopper easily winds on the spool and slides freely through the guides when cast.

THE JIG & BOBBER FACTOR

Jigs are weighted - 1/8- to 1/4-ounce are preferred for summer fishing activity - and must be kept in the quarry's line of sight. This is where a good bobber is a must. It's crucial to create a balance between bobber and jig. If fishing a 1/8-ounce jig, use a small-profile 1/8-ounce bobber. If changing to a 1/4-ounce jig, use a larger 1/4-ounce bobber.

There are two types of bobbers I use: A foam bobber crafted by West Coast Floats and the wooden Center Slide bobber created by Thill. Both are ideal, for they are sensitive, offer high visibility and are easy to read.

The smaller, more streamlined the bobber, the less likely fish are to detect any resistance when striking the jig. Large bobbers create too much drag and make proper mending next to impossible. If shaping your own floats, craft one that is sleek and allows the jig to move downstream in a natural position.

When cast upstream, you want to get your bobber floating vertically as quickly as possible. Watch your bobber closely. If the top tips downstream, your jig is hitting bottom and you need to adjust your bobber stopper. If your bobber tips upstream, mend the line. This is where the 12-foot noodle rod is preferred, as it allows you to aggressively move more line, thereby working more water.

ATTENTION TO DETAILS

Bobber-and-jig fishing is unique. Being attentive to details and dedicating yourself to making it work are critical elements of success.

Upwards of 90 percent of bobber-and-jig fishing involves looselining - that is, the bail is flipped open and the line freely falls from the spool. This insures there is no resistance on the line, allowing your bobber to ride vertically and hold the jig in a natural position as it drifts downstream. From the top of the cast to the bottom of the drift - which may be 150 yards - I rarely reel.

Though lightweight monofilament can be used, the ideal mainline is one that rides high in the river. Floating line lets you mend easily and fish more water. The longer you can keep your line floating, the easier it is to mend, thus, the more water you fish.

Leaders are ever changing with water conditions. Early in the year when the water is high and the fish full of life, a 10-pound leader is ideal. I know of anglers who'll go up to 12-pound in extreme conditions. As summer progresses, low, clear water can make fishing jigs a challenge. Dropping to 8-, 6- or even 4-pound leader is a wise move at this stage. A 12-foot noodler absorbs much of the fight, thus allowing lighter line to be employed.

Jig colors can vary from river to river, day to day, depending on water conditions and personal preference. A pink-headed, purple-bodied jig is one I keep in the water as much as possible. This color combination has had the most consistent success no matter when or where fished. There are no limits to the color of jigs available, but orange, green, black, pink and white - alone or in combination - are all must-haves.

There are several jigs on the market, but the only ones I use - along with many converted jig fanatics - are those crafted by Stuart himself. He hand ties each jig, gets a nice tight wrap and uses only the best, most reactive marabou. Another key component of Stuart's jigs is how the heads are finished. Many anglers leave the lead head bare, while others apply various paints. By blending Cabela's Vinyl Lure And Jig Finish Paints, Stuart produces color combinations that create the illusion of three dimensions and look captivating underwater. Prior to fishing jigs, offset the hook so it's not in direct alignment with the cumbersome jighead. This will result in a high percentage of hookups.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Bret Stuart is an Oregon guide specializing in jig-fishing. To obtain information on where to get his jigs and learn more about this technique, call him at (541) 988-3828.

Get Down For Salmon

The downrigger is one of the most valuable salmon-fishing tools ever developed, but most anglers fail to get the most out of their 'riggers. Here are some suggestions to make your downrigger fishing more successful.

By Terry Rudnick www.gameandfishmag.com

Downriggers are especially effective at taking baits and lures down to where big Chinook salmon are often found. Photo by Terry Rudnick

Salmon were hugging the bottom, no doubt about it. Depthsounders sometimes mislead, but they seldom lie, and ours was showing plenty of fish in the lower 10 to 15 feet of the water column and only an occasional mark above that. The fish we were hooking and landing told the same story. We had a pair of 6- to 7-pound Chinook in the fish box and had released three or four smaller ones, and all bore the scrapes and scratches along the sides of their heads that indicated they had been rooting in the sand and gravel to feed on candlefish.

Acting on that evidence, fishing partner Clyde Revord and I were doing things the same way as anglers in a half-dozen other boats around us: slow-trolling fresh herring baits 20 to 30 feet behind downrigger balls that were all but bouncing along the bottom.

Friends in a nearby boat hooked what appeared to be a large fish, so we raised our rigs a couple of feet, shifted the motor out of gear and coasted past them, shooting several photos of their success from a few yards away.

As Clyde stepped back to kick the motor into gear, he let out a yell, and I turned to see my trolling rod bucking up and down wildly in the rod holder. My line had already released from the downrigger gear, and the reel started chattering like a berserk squirrel. Something powerful was headed for parts unknown.

I dropped my camera, wrestled the rod out of the holder and hung on as the fish peeled nearly 100 yards of line off the reel in its first run, then rolled on the surface for several seconds in a nearly successful attempt to give me a heart attack. We could see then that it was a Chinook much larger than the two we had in the box, but it was at least 10 minutes more before we coaxed it close enough to net, swung it aboard, and admired the 16-pounder. It may not have been a trophy, but the big salmon was enough to take bragging rights for that day among the group I was fishing with, and that was good enough for me.

The downrigger has, over the past 30 years or so, become one of the most important tools of all among West Coast salmon anglers. It allows them to fish baits and lures at greater depths, more easily, than any method developed before or since its arrival on the salmon scene. Besides allowing anglers to troll as deep as they want, downriggers also provide a sort of trolling "accuracy" at all depths that can be every bit as important to fishing success. Its effectiveness and ease of use are why you see 'riggers on tens of thousands of recreational salmon boats from the central California coast to the Bering Sea.

Some of those salmon anglers, though, get to know their downrigger's abilities and use them to their advantage much better than other anglers do. It needn't be so.

The downrigger is really a very simple machine based on a simple principle. It's a large spool connected to a boom with a pulley or roller on the end. The spool is loaded with 200 to 400 feet of wire, and at the end of the wire is a 10- to 15-pound weight. Attach a fishing line to the wire by means of a release device and send it down to any depth you desire. When a fish strikes, the line pulls away from the release and you have a direct connection to your fish without any cumbersome weight between you and that streak of silver at the end of your line.

Catching Lake Michigan's Summer Steel!

Now's the time of year when Skamania steelhead will congregate at the mouths of rivers and inlets -- and that's where you'll catch your share of big fish right now.

By Mike Gnatkowski www.gameandfishmag.com

Summer-run steelhead are nomadic creatures. Once they've been stocked, one never knows if, where or exactly when they'll show up. Steelhead spend much of their time roaming the wide-open expanses of Lake Michigan, siphoning bugs and baitfish off the surface over hundreds of feet of water in the middle of nowhere.

These same steelies will suddenly make a beeline for the shallows in the middle of the summer -- long before typical winter-run fish are even considering it. The one thing that's for sure is when they do show up off natal pierheads and river mouths, it doesn't take long for the word to get out and for "Skamania Mania" to set in.

The roots of the Great Lakes' summer-run steelhead program can be traced to stockings made by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) back in 1975. Initial stockings were the Skamania strain of summer-run steelhead, which migrate into streams during the summer and early fall months. Today, Indiana stocks upward of 275,000 Skamania steelhead, with the St. Joseph River getting the bulk of these fish.

Michigan initially experimented with four strains of summer-run steelheads during the early stages of its summer-run steelhead-stocking program. Originally, Michigan's DNR planted Rogue, Siletz and Umpqua strains, in addition to the Skamania, but the stockings resulted in poor returns and success. Currently, Michigan's entire Skamania stocking contains some 33,000 fish in total. These fish go into the Big Manistee River.

While Wisconsin stocks several strains of steelhead, the Skamania is the only true summer-run strain. Wisconsin dumps between 150,000 and 160,000 Skamania into their streams annually and targets their larger-class ones in rivers that offer consistent water conditions. Illinois lacks any suitable rivers to attract or receive Skamania stockings, but the state's Great Lakes anglers benefit from the plants of other states. Today, the summer steelhead of choice is the Skamania. These rainbows grow up to 25 pounds and provide more bang for the hatchery's and the angler's buck.

The shallows of southern Lake Michigan can get fairly tepid during the summer. If the lake is too warm, the steelhead may just shoot up the river to find cool water or retreat back into the lake. Ideal conditions occur when strong offshore winds push warm surface water offshore, which allows cool water near the bottom to well up near the surface. Big rain events that cool the water and increase the river flow can jump-start steelies, too. Rainbows usually respond accordingly then and make a mad rush to the pierheads where anglers have a ball trying to corral the rambunctious rainbows.

Pier anglers are usually the first to discover that the steelheads are in. Many a perch angler has watched as his reel sings as a sleek Skamania grabs the rig, or the rod suddenly gets yanked off the break wall by a cruising silver bullet. Anglers armed for battle with the big rainbows do well with a jumbo shrimp suspended below a slip bobber. Fishermen who have mastered the art of cast netting catch live alewives and fish them under a bobber or anchor them with a pyramid sinker for steelies. The alewives can be caught using plain gold hooks as well.

Another option is hardware. Spoons and spinners draw the wrath of ornery steelheads. Lures that feature hot red or orange seem to work the best during daylight hours. Glow-in-the-dark versions excel during low-light hours in the morning and evening.

Heavy 2/3-ounce models of Cleos, Kastmasters and K.O. Wobblers are proven producers. Hardware users need to experiment with their retrieves until they hit on the right combination. Some days you'll want to burn the lure just under the surface; other days you might want to let it flutter enticingly toward the bottom. Let the steelheads tell you which action they prefer. Go spooled with a high-quality line in the 10- to 15-pound category and a reel that has a good, smooth drag.

"In-line boards are the No. 1 tool for targeting Skamania when they're schooled near the pierheads," said Four Seasons charter Captain Bill Doak. "Divers would be a close second."

City man takes Lake Erie for a loop

By JOHN D’ABRUZZO
NEW CASTLE NEWS (NEW CASTLE, Pa.)

WELLINGTON, Ohio — It was a genuine round trip.

That described Ernie Copper’s victory lap in the Lake Erie Loop, which was held June 8-10. Copper, 46, of New Castle, won the 4th annual race, riding his motorcycle 650 miles around the Great Lake in 10 hours and 19 minutes.

“And that counts gas stops and boarder crossings,” he said.

The three-day event is highlighted by one day of riding that starts and finishes at Clare-Mar Lakes Campground in Wellington, Ohio. From Wellington, riders go west through Detroit and into Canada through Windsor, Ont., before heading east through Fort Erie and back into the United States at Buffalo, N.Y.

“There are guys from Canada and different states, and this year there were about 30,” Copper said. “So it’s a big accomplishment for me. There’s not a whole lot of races like this out there. It’s kind of unique.”

The Lake Erie Loop is a fundraiser to benefit the Aluminum Cans for Burned Children Foundation, which provides services for pediatric burn victims. It was started in 2003 by firefighter Bill Murar and his wife, Nancy, who is a registered nurse.

According to Copper, this year’s event raised $3,500 with the proceeds used to send burned victims to summer camps.

A friend of Copper, Bill Murar is from Brookpark, Ohio, and an avid motorcycle enthusiast.

“Bill tried to incorporate the vintage cycles,” Copper said. “These are the older bikes and some are as small as mopeds. This isn’t a race with the big Harley Davidson motorcycles.”

The event is divided into three cubic centimeter (cc) classes with the 200 cc, 100 cc and 50 cc, which is determined by the size of rider’s motor. Copper won this year’s race riding his 1972 Honda CB175 with a CB200 engine.

“The first year I won the 100 cc and (was) second overall,” Copper said. “The second year I blew up about four miles from the finish and had to be towed in. And last year I ran out of gas.”

To ensure a solid finish this time, Copper relied on the assistance of fellow New Castle residents Rich Beaman and Doug Harlan.

“A lot of the guys, including myself, have a team — like a NASCAR team,” Copper said. “I had two guys who followed me around. Those guys really helped out.”

While Copper had some assistance from friends and a bigger engine, others weren’t as lucky.

“For those who ride the 50 cc bikes, it takes 27 hours,” Copper said. “That’s a lot of time on the bike. It can be pretty tough.”

Nevertheless, the event is still enjoyable for Copper.

“It’s quite a collection of great people and good stories,” he said. “It’s just a whole lot of fun and it’s for a great cause.”



John D'Abruzzo writes for the New Castle (Pa.) News.

Lake Michigan's Super Salmonids

Our trout and salmon expert says you can expect great fishing on the big lake this year. You better take advantage of it while you can! (July 2007)

By Jerry Pabst www.illinoisgameandfish.com

Capt. Bill Kelly (center) is flanked by the Considine family after a memorable day of Lake Michigan salmon fishing. Sean Considine (second from left) plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. Their catch is typical of the midsummer action off the Chicago lakefront. Photo by Jerry Pabst.

Based solely on the 2006 Lake Michigan salmon fishing season, this year should be great, too, and it probably will be. But as the late Gilda Radner's Saturday Night Live character Roseanne Roseannadanna cautioned many years ago, "It's always something." It seems like every year we hear about new threats to the Lake Michigan fishery, but somehow the salmon and trout manage to thrive. So, don't sell your boat just yet.

While the theme of this article focuses on salmon and trout fishing opportunities in the Illinois portion of Lake Michigan, we must recognize that this huge body of water is really just one ecosystem. Events occurring anywhere on the lake can -- and usually do -- materially affect fishing elsewhere, so we will be looking at how seemingly distant problems could relate to Illinois' waters.

But first, let's recap the 2006 fishing season on "The Big Pond." From the Wisconsin state line down to the Indiana border, salmon and trout fishing held up pretty well. Of course, there were high points and low points from area to area along the lakefront, as seems to happen every year. Fortunately, the dry spells without fish usually weren't very long ones, and the good times always returned.

Spring fishing started with a bang, because the cohos were open for business in April and kept rods jumping for most of May. Then, unexpectedly, they went somewhere else. But a suddenly resurgent chinook population replaced the silvers and produced some pretty good action during June. While the chinooks were not of trophy size, there were plenty of them. From my observations, the average size of these salmon ran from 8 to 15 pounds.

As summer progressed, reports of much larger chinooks began to come in, especially from Wisconsin where fish in the low-30-pound range were reported in some of the fishing contests held there. Tournament officials at Kenosha and Racine weighed in bigger chinooks than had been recorded in the last five years.

By late June, the cohos had returned to Illinois waters in decent numbers, and most boat catches were mixed with about even numbers of cohos and chinooks. The average size of the chinooks remained on the low side, but the cohos seemed to be growing fat and sassy, ranging from 4 to 8 pounds.

Salmon fishing has been holding up much later into the season over the past four or five years. In the past, the deep-water catches dried up by about the third week of August, and all that remained was to troll around the harbor mouths for returning 4-year-old chinooks. Once those fish swarmed into the harbors to "spawn," fishing from boats pretty much ended. But lately, determined anglers are motoring offshore into deeper water and finding big schools of young cohos and chinooks, along with the occasional brown trout or rainbow trout, which are really steelhead. Some charter boat operators are still plying their trade well into October, and even early November, weather permitting. And with our greatly moderated fall temperatures, this late-season fishing is not only productive, but it is comfortable.

Trout fishing in 2006 was just fair. Some years, rainbows/steelhead and brown trout seem to cluster into certain areas, and hold there for a month or more. When that happens, everyone becomes an instant "expert" on landing big trout. The secret to success under these circumstances is the same as in selling real estate: location, location, location. Just get in among those fish and put something shiny in the water.

While no special hotspots developed for steelies or browns in 2006, there were enough of these species scattered along the Illinois shore to provide some thrilling action. As with the salmon, not many wallhanger-sized trout were landed, but as we know, it is a big lake, and they are out there somewhere. They'll be back, and maybe this year.

The lake trout, or "beautiful gray fish" as one charter captain termed them, are still abundant and still doing their thing on the deep-water reefs. However, with all the trout and salmon around, very few trollers bother to chase lakers. For a long time, the lakers got a bad rap as being pollution magnets, storehouses for the chemical PCB. That scare is now officially laid to rest, and there is nothing to fear from eating a lake trout. However, because they require a completely different lure presentation than do salmon and trout, you really can't fish for both at the same time. However, remember, when all else fails, the "beautiful gray fish" are still down there, just thinking about what a Weber Grill looks like.

The Hawkeye White Bite

It doesn't get much better than a summer afternoon on the lake tangling with hard-hitting, hard-fighting white bass. (July 2007)

By Rich Patterson www.iowagameandfish.com

Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

It was a perfect fishing Saturday. The sun was bright, and the air was cool. Coralville Reservoir's crappies would surely be hungry and husky this September day.

I fish from a small rowboat, so I normally avoid Coralville and its legions of roaring powerboats. Some toss up wakes big enough to swamp my tiny boat, and they always make fishing frustrating. But this was a Hawkeye football afternoon, and I knew the vast bulk of speedboaters would be watching the game.

I had the big lake nearly to myself that perfect fall afternoon, but there was a problem: I couldn't find the crappies! They weren't in their normal mid-autumn staging areas. All the honeyholes were empty.

In desperation I switched to an old tactic taught me by my dad, also a rowboat angler. I rigged one rod with a simple hook and fathead minnow. The other rod had a medium weight twistertail jig. As I slowly rowed, they ran at different depths. From time to time I changed my rowing cadence to let the lines work different depths, and altered oar pulls to make the boat zigzag down the lake. Trolling this way made it likely that sooner or later at least one of my baits would pass in front of fish.

It worked! A half-mile down the reservoir my rod arched as a husky fish bulled its way toward Iowa City. An alluring part of fishing the big reservoir is the mystery generated every time a fish hits. It could be one of many species; at the other end of my line could be a white or black crappie, largemouth, channel cat, relatively rare mooneye, or one of several other species. This fish was a bulldog fighter that bored down. It was obviously bigger than any crappie I'd pulled from the lake.

I suspected a catfish until I was able to work it close to the boat and catch the silvery glint of its side reflecting the fall sun. Parallel lines on a white background could only mean two fish: a white bass or a wiper. The mystery was soon solved as I worked the 15-inch white bass close enough to hoist into the boat.

White bass are one of the most mysterious of Iowa's commonly caught fish. They are not well known, and are usually unpredictable. Perhaps that's because they're one of our few pelagic fish. Bass, bluegills, crappies and even trout are homebodies, predictable; when not making seasonal movements from deep-water wintering areas to summer habitat, they stake out turf and stay there, so the big largemouth that lurks near a stump in May is likely to still be there two months later. Find the right structure, and you've found bass, crappies and many other species.

Not so the wandering white bass and its huskier hybrid cousin, the wiper. Both are "pelagic," meaning that instead of relating to structure, they wander through the water column of big lakes and rivers, cruising, usually in schools, through hundreds of acres of water. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Most well-known pelagic species such as salmon, tuna and bluefish roam the oceans. Voracious, and constantly on the move, they spend their lives trailing mammoth schools of minnows, eating as they swim. Powerful athletes, pelagic fish constantly exercise. You don't catch tuna, blues or salmon -- you battle them.

Iowa lacks an ocean and the powerful pelagic game fish that live there, but we have white bass and wipers, close relatives of the powerful striped bass of both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Although smaller than the ocean swimmers, pound for pound white bass are just as powerful, and they're common in Iowa's large lakes and reservoirs and in its rivers. Not as common as white bass, wipers, a white bass/striper hybrid, also swim in some Iowa waters and can top 12 pounds! Their small cousin, the yellow bass, is also found in some Iowa waters.

I'll never forget the first white bass I caught. Living in Kansas, I took an evening trip to Kanopolis Reservoir. As the sun dropped below the prairie behind me, fish churned the surface just beyond casting range. I could see silvery shad jumping into the air in a futile effort to avoid the massacre below; maddeningly, the school stayed just out of range of my light lures. But I had a secret weapon: Deep in my tackle box was a rarely used Kastmaster, a dense, heavy lure that'll outcast just about anything. It splashed into the school, and a bass immediately snapped it; minutes later a 3-pounder was in my hand. I caught a few more before the school moved beyond casting range.

"White bass are a hit-or-miss fish," said Iowa angler Dave Novak. "You don't catch any or you catch a bunch of them."

Finding the school makes all the difference, and in an Iowa river or reservoir, that school could be a few feet or a few miles away.

Steve Krotz, manager of the fishing department at Cedar Rapids GOT outdoors store, spends his life in only two places -- in the store talking with anglers or out on the water fishing.

"There's great white bass fishing in Lake Macbride, Pleasant Creek, Coralville, and the Iowa and Cedar Rivers, but not too many people fish for them," he said. "Probably because they're hard to find."

Trails & lures: Surprise: Fishing is a great birthday party

So, as the story goes ...

I went on a launch this weekend on Mille Lacs Lake with 30 other people. It was not my favorite choice to do for my birthday, but my husband hooked us up, and off we were going.

The lake was smooth, no waves to speak of. And now I am fishing. Here we go, four hours on a boat.

My husband picks the rod, my husband baits the hook, my husband sets the depth and my husband hands me the fishing pole. I am chatting and talking with friends, I set the rod down, I move around, take some pics, chatting and checking on people ... My husband yells, "Laurie, your bobber is down." I go back to where my fishing pole is. My husband hands it to me and tells me to reel, hold the tip up, reel ... Capt. Ron comes with the net, scoops up the walleye, takes off the fish, measures it, puts it on a hook/holder, hands it back to me. I smile ... get my pic taken. It's 24 inches (I think).

And there you have it, I went fishing. I don't know if it was the bait or the location. I really think it was all about the company, fun with friends. It was a blast, I caught three that day, two keepers and one to throw back. I would recommend this sport to anyone, I think I could go pro.

by Laurie Busche

Sauk Rapids

www.sctimes.com