Mighty Fine Catches

The fishing season began with a flurry of fine catches.  The Bob Wille group, which covered a two week period in all, came up with lots of walleyes over 27 inches including some 30 to 31 inches.  They were having trouble getting the smaller eating size walleyes they said.  What a terrible problem to have.  :)  I have always wanted to fish early in the spring when the fishing is best in the hot spots on the lake.  Usually we find ourselves overwhelmed with finishing up spring projects, planting flowers and the vegetable garden and regular maintenance.  

Bob overheard me voicing this desire and he immediately offered to take me out on the lake in his boat for some afternoon fishing.  I lept at the opportunity and grabbed my fishing rod.  Once parked at our "hot spot" , it wasn't long before I got a bite and pulled in a 22 inch Walleye.  Bob was regularly pulling in some nice fish. 

As I was reeling in a cast, my drag started squealing and my rod bent over.  I thought for sure I'd caught a big one.   Bob told me to stop reeling that I had snagged a log.  Oh, I was so disappointed.  He was able to free my hook so I didn't lose my jighead.  Next time, I caught a fish,  Bob asks, "Is it a fish?"  I said, "Yes!  Logs don't wiggle."   Next time he caught a fish, I asked,  "Is it a fish?"  I got an amusing look from him on that. 

 Soon after that I hooked my lunker, a 28 inch walleye, the biggest fish I've caught to date.  It looked huge as I pulled it up to the boat.  It really didn't fight all that much, so I was surprised how big it was.  We got it into the boat and some friends in another boat came along and took my picture before I released it again.  What a thrill!

  I decided to stop casting and just let my line down to the bottom, about seven feet and do some jigging off the bottom.  Shortly, I got a bite and excitedly reeled in an 18 incher, good eating size.  I got three more to fill out my limit and so we decided to head home and leave some for others to catch.   Bob had surely outfished me with all his catches, but his buddies teasingly told me the next day that Bob had nightmares about me catching more fish than him.  He's a good sport.

As you can see from the above pictures, their group got some mighty fine catches on Indian Lake.