Every day is different.
It does not seem to matter how much we try and repeat a successful fishing trip, because something will always change. Today was a good example of an attempt to reproduce results that were unattainable.
Our day started out similar to yesterday. We slept in and woke up in time to pack up and head back out to the lake. This time, we each had our own preferred breakfast, which was a slight variation of yesterday’s events. Could this change have caused our day to be not as successful? Maybe a hearty breakfast helps with success?
A variable that was out of our control was the snow we received over night. It was the perfect snow for snowball fights and building snowmen, but it had also covered the main trail out to our “hot spot.” Thankfully, we had marked our spot yesterday and were able to return to our exact spot on the ice. As a back up plan, I also knew that our spot was 470 steps out from shore, in case our marker was removed. At our “hot spot,” I even found the holes we made yesterday and they were not froze over. Later, I used one of them to catch a couple kokanee thru the ice.
We placed our tent in front of our old holes and were about 10ft away from where we were fishing yesterday. Come to think of it, maybe we should have placed our tent over our old holes. Maybe this would have made the difference in catching more kokanee?
We brought both augers again today, because the boys wanted to sight fish for kokanee. I continue to be amazed at how much easier the 4 inch auger is to drill a hole over the 8 inch auger. Will I choose the 4 inch auger over the 8 inch auger when kokanee fishing? Absolutely. However, when my family comes, I enjoy watching them get excited when a kokanee comes in below the ice so the 8 inch will always be a part of our gear.
We started fishing at 9am and marked fish right away. Over the next couple hours, we would watch kokanee swimming all over from depths of 5ft down to 30ft. There was no rhyme, reason or pattern to follow. Finding active fish was not hard as most would swim up 10ft to 15ft and then swim down again. The bite was light and we missed a lot of light “bumps” as they were checking out our jigs. We would eventually land 6 kokanee between us and all were caught using various combinations of bait. Mealworms combined with pink synthetic maggots seemed to catch the most fish, but we also used corn and anise tuna ice gel.
As the snow started to fall again in the wind, we decided it was time to pack up and head home. We talked with a few anglers on the way out and the results were conclusive. The bite was not on today. Next time will be different and we will be rested and ready.