Not every fishing trip is successful. At noon today, it was sunny, hot (78 F), and buggy. To make matters worse, the spillway was very crowded. Normally, that would either be a recipe for me to find a different fishing spot in the shade and away from people or just go home and drink beer. My hubris got the better of me though. How could my Goture swimbait fail, even in a crappy spot away from the water actively spilling from the dam?
On my second cast, I hooked up with something.
It didn't feel like a wiper because it wasn't really fighting. It didn't feel like a small fish either, though, because I still had to put some muscle into the retrieve. Did I catch a boot or a lethargic catfish?
Not long after I started reeling in whatever was on my line, I saw it in the distance to my right near a nice Latino family. It was a fish, it had surfaced, and it was lolled on its side. I thought that maybe it had just become tangled in my line and was stunned because its gills were involved. As I continued to reel though, I saw that I had foul-hooked it near the tail.
I got the fish toward the rocks near my feet and saw that it was an enormous walleye. As visions of delicious fried fish surged through my brain, adrenaline surged through the walleye, which began to frantically thrash its body. The net effect of all of this was to snap my line. I watched the biggest walleye I'd ever personally seen swim away with my favorite swimbait still stuck in its nether regions.
How big was it? I don't have a picture, so you'll just have to believe me when I say it was THIS BIG!!!
I don't know if this sequence of events cursed me for the afternoon or just shook my confidence, but the day was a bust. I didn't catch anything else. I lost a bunch of lures to snags. I got tangled up in someone else's line. I watched other people reel in water donkeys while I got skunked.
No fish, no pictures, no nothing. I don't think this trip was a complete waste though. If I had a landing net, I would have been able to put that walleye on my stringer. The same could be said for a handful of wipers that I lost on previous fishing trips. It's a lesson that I had to learn the hard way, but most valuable ones are. Time to buy some more fishing gear!
No comments:
Post a Comment