The Tin Can is Ready Too

[fishmeister]

Well, tomorrow's the opener for trout in many lowland lakes.  If everything goes well, I'll be back home in less than 12 hours from now with some trout pics.

The trout are fun to catch but lousy to eat.  The lake was just planted two days ago (Wed).  I don't even bother cleaning them.  Two to a zip-lock bag and into the freezer they go.  They'll come back out in July when they get loaded into crab pots.  The dungies absolutely love them.  I just throw them in the bait boxes whole and frozen.  They thaw in the water pretty quickly.

If anyone is in my area, I'll be out on Lake 16.  My target is to be on the lake, with lines wet, no later than 5am.  Here's my tin can all hooked up and ready to go:

You cannot view this attachment.

Yeah, I'd definitely rather fish a lot more comfortably in my Arima.  But, the pesky rules about no gas motors allowed is a problem.  Not up for paying fines/tickets. 

Besides, launching/retrieving this thing solo is about as easy as it gets.  It only takes me about 3 minutes to prep for launch and I can usually be on/off the launch in around 90 seconds.

For the at least the last 3 years, I've been the first one into the parking lot and on the launch.  So, not it's not a circus getting on the lake.  But, when I'm going to retrieve, it's usually a different scene. 

If you think the YT videos of Florida boat ramps are funny, you should try hanging around a WA. lake on the opening day of trout season.  It's almost scary when you see 3 full-grown guys pile into a little 10' fiberglass boat that looks like it should be yard-art.

[fishmeister]

Well, not a terrific morning.  But, not too bad either.

Weather was definitely a problem.  It hadn't started raining yet (I can deal with that).  But, it was windy right from the start (just after 5am).  Trying to troll in the wind with just a little Minn Kota is not much fun.  Spent a lot of time/effort just trying to control the boat.  Maintaining any sort of "optimum" speed was difficult, at best.  Had trouble finding enough time to take my hand off of the tiller long enough to drink coffee.

I stayed out for a couple of hours.  Got 3 into the boat.  The first two were definitely holdovers from last year.  The first one went 14.5 inches and started stripping line from my little reel the moment it hit.  It was a blast to catch on small tackle.  Second fish went 13.5 inches and also put up a nice fight.  The last victim was only 11 inches which would make it one of this year's plants (from 3 days ago).  It put up a scrappy little fight though.

I know that these pale in comparison to a 100lb+ halibut or a King Salmon.  But, hey, they are still fish and this is still a fish story.  Therefore, in accordance with "unpublished site/forum rules" (without pics posted, it never happened), here's the picture of the fish:

You cannot view this attachment.

[Fisherdv]

Nice. Yeah those little trout can be fun on light tackle.

[Ed De Explorer]

Hit the derby lakes...

Catch bait and win a prize.