As my eyes glazed over the crystal clear lake, only one thing came to my mind. The fishing was going to be awesome. After getting to the secluded Lake of the Woods, located in Ontario, Canada, we wasted no time in getting our poles in the water in hopes of catching the big wahnee. I felt enormously optimistic about the fishing trip, since I knew all of the tricks of the trade about fishing. We rushed down to the shoreline and threw our poles in. After my eight family members and I got tired of reputedly throwing lures from the shore and catching nothing, we decided to venture out on the resort lodes boats. There was only about an hour left of sunlight that day, so we all piled into the boats and raced off to catch the big one. After casting into the weeds for about 30 minutes, I got lucky and snagged a pike.
English: Trawler Hauling Nets Source: http://www.p...
Foggy Fish
Plastic Bag Fishing Lure. AKA "Casper"The fish probably just incoherently ran into my lure, but I was excited because it was the first pike I have ever caught or seen in real life. We threw the monster into the live well and headed back to the lodge before it got darker out. Upon arriving at the lodge we arrogantly showed off our massive catch to the guides. After the guide examined the fish for a split second, he said in his Canadian accent, "awe, he is just a baby," and threw him back into the water. As I looked up at the guide, I noticed that this act didn't faze him at all. I thought to myself- my god, how big are the fish up in this neck of the woods. But, my heart was crushed, for after putting all my blood, sweat, and tears into catching and hauling the fish back to the lodge. I knew tomorrow was going to be better.
After a good hearty nights sleep, we struck out bright and early with the guides in the hope of catching the illusive walleye. It was cool that morning and the fog was just hovering over the water. However, this minor inconvenience didn't stop us in our pursuit. We drove about 4 miles from the lodge and stopped over a point and started jigging lures. After doing this for about an hour and not catching anything, we moved on. We did this stop and go action all day to try and find the schooling walleye. After a good hard days work of jigging points and only catching about 20 small walleye between the nine of us and the 2 guides, we decided to call it a day. That night we conjured up the idea that we didn't have to pay a guide 120 dollars to catch small fish. We could accomplish this feat on our own. The next day, we set out in high hopes of catching more or bigger fish than we did the day before.
The first technique we tried was jigging. This type of presentation is usually excellent for catching walleye. In this technique, try to find some under water drop off or cliff with your depth finder. After locating this spot, mark it with a buoy. Now, you won't have trouble relocating to this spot when you drift off. When this is all accomplished, you can now start jigging. This technique is fairly simple, all you need to do is let the lure hit the bottom of the lake and give it a pop about every 2 seconds. I would prefer using a 3/8-ounce jig head with a minnow attached to the hook. We tried this technique for almost 3 hours and caught just as may fish as we did with the guides. But this was not enough, we just didn't drive 2,000 miles to catch a few small fish. We had to resort to plan B.
We knew this technique of fishing was a surefire way of catching fish, because it always worked in Kansas, so we thought why wouldn't it work in Canada also. This method of fishing was the cast and reel method. It is used to catch pike, musky, or smallmouth bass. In this technique, we found the heaviest cover and threw our lures into it in hopes of catching and type of swimming species. After we caught more weeds than we did fish, we decided to call it a day before on of us had a mental breakdown.
The next day we resorted to the lazy man's way of fishing, trolling, which is my all time favorite method of fishing. This technique is the simplest and most relaxing. For this technique, all you need to do is tie on a lure and drag it behind the boat, in the hope of producing a reaction bite from the fish. This system is used primarily to catch small mouth bass, and pike. After using this method for the whole day and only catching a few fish, we had to resort to our last and final plan, drinking.
I the wake of our drunken splendor, I realized that we tried every technique that I knew of and only thing we caught was a nice buzz. I then came to the conclusion that fishing was not all skill and experience. It was just plain luck.
English: Smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) Fr...
Smallmouth Bass from Eagle Lake in Ontario, Canada...
A jig