Water temp: 73-77, vis: 3-4', wind: pee-on-a-platter dead flat calm, air temp: nuclear.
Well, the wife came to me asking about how to get a long stretch of peace and quiet while studying 10-12 hrs a day for her new SW gig. Being a genius, I snapped back without hesitation “don’t worry babe, I know exactly what to do.” A hotel near lsc without the kids was what I had in mind. After dropping me off at the launch I had a rare full day to myself & armed with porkrinds, peanuts, pop & powerade my plan was to sling until it hurts (happens a few hours earlier than it used to) before reconvening at the launch for real food (pizza, obviously) in the early evening.
Though my only trip there so far this year was good for numbers, it produced nothing over 44” so instead of the usual up north-ness, I was leaning towards lsc. It didn’t take long to get down to business – about 10 casts into the morning I see a pointed blob on the sonar half way down, angled up towards the surface. I’m pretty sure that it’s a single fish close to the surface…and probably not too small. I remember when my bro swam off to the side & a few feet under the sonar a few times so that I could see what that looked like on my somewhat antiquated unit a few years ago…unfortunately, this wasn’t that big, but it was that close and got my attention enough not to plod my next toss out in succession, but instead flip one out next to the boat. 3 yanks got it to 8’ away, & before I could start angling its path parallel to the boat a big head blasted up and engulfed bait + 6” of leader. Her approach was ideal, heading from my feet out and it was as close to a no-doubter as it gets. She stayed up for a good 10 seconds, throwing whitewater, but facing dead away which you almost never see. That was time enough to gun the minn kota towards her tail, take off some line pressure and scoop her up before she ever cased me. A healthy 51”er before I even settled in made me think that this was going to be an epic day. Well, it wasn’t, which you may have surmised by how long I took to write about 1 stinking fish. 20 minutes later did get a 40”, but got blanked – not even a swipe – over the next 10.5 hours in brutal heat and flat calm. With bugs.
Hah! Nice job on the big girl. That sounds about like our day out there on the 14th. Boiling swealtering stroke inducing heat and blazing sun. Chaos in the form of giant boats blasting nowhere in particular every which way. Ankle biting flys and dipping our hats and buffs in the water every 15 minutes to try to find some relief. The first 13 hours we moved 1 fish, it did not bite, then finally put 2 fish in the net in short order with a pretty 44". Then of course my partner had a 48" class fish eat at the boat in dramatic fashion only to have the hooks shoot out of its giant head. Ahh LSC in the heat of summer, heaven and hell wrapped up in one big turquoise package.
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