Nice day at the Vine 3-8-09
I woke up around 8 am and debated whether to go fishing or not. After a few minutes I come to a compromise with myself that I will only fish until 2 pm regardless if I catch a fish or not. By 8:30 am I was on a rental and trolling. I've never caught a trout trolling before (mainly because I haven't tried that much), but I was determined to today. About a half hour in, while in the flats, I saw a few fish jumping close to shore ahead of me. Catching a trout while trolling is going to have to wait. I anchored up in about 10 feet of water and tossed out plastics on both poles. About two minutes later Patrick shows up to see how I'm doing. I tell him I just anchored down and was only going to give it a half hour or so. He wishes me luck and leaves, and not a minute goes by when one of my rods starts dancing. It didn't put up much of a fight, but it was a skunk beater. As I scoop it into the net I here drag screaming and a loud splash. I turn around and the other pole is at major bendo! This trout had plenty of fight in it. I can't tell the difference between them, but I think this one had to be a steelhead. It made about a dozen runs and went airborn a few times. As I reach for the net I remember that there's already a fish in there, and the line is all wrapped up in it. So I cut the line, dump the fish onto the floor and net the other fish. That second one was barely hooked too.
Toss both back out and not 2 minutes goes by when I get another hit. This one went on a run and wrapped itself around some structure. I put the pole down, opened the spool and 10 seconds later the line starts ripping out again. The fight went another 5 seconds before it got wrapped up again. Did the same thing and it freed itself. The fight is back on. It got wrapped up one more time, but this time it was good and stuck. After a couple of minutes without any progress I grab the line and start pulling it in. The line held up and I was able to free my third trout and get it aboard. It was probably less than a pound, but it didn't think so. It must've been one of those Napolean trout.
I threw back out and wouldn't you know I get another bite about 10 seconds later. This time I wasn't so lucky though. It got really wrapped up and the line eventually broke. Other boats started to arrive and the bite died so I pulled up anchor and headed a little further down. I saw Trollie and he mentioned that he was going for cats, but he hadn't got so much as a hit yet. That second spot was dead so I decided to try out the west shore. I saw Maverick go by while I was there, but I don't think he saw me waving. The west shore was dead. I looked back at where I had caught those fish and everyone was gone. Back I go. There was a boat where I was previously so I went about 70 yards down. The structure was even worse there! I must've tied a half dozen setups in 10 minutes, but I stuck it out. It paid off too because I landed #4 and #5 in about a half hour of dropping anchor. I did lose two in the weeds (or whatever they were). The last trout got caught up in structure 5 times before I netted it.
#4
The full stringer
After I put #5 on the stringer I look at the time, and it was 1:30 pm. Sweet! I got my limit in the time frame I gave myself. I'll tell you what, that Berkley 2# fluorocarbon is some strong line. I thought for sure it was going to break on those two fish that kept getting snapped up, but it held in there. Four trout were caught on plastics, and the last on was caught on Powerbait.
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Originally Posted by Marley
