The colors of fall always amaze me.
Today was the first day that it truly felt like fall, even though the morning air was not as crisp as it can be. The colors of the trees and bushes around the lake have started to put on a spectacular show of color.
We arrived at the lake in the dark and quickly got the boat ready as day break happens quickly at this time of the year. In fifteen minutes we were in the water and day light was trying to push through the dense fog that lay on the lake. Our motor started on the first pull which was great. It did not take long for our motor to warm up and start purring like a kitten. We started slowly trolling to a location we have not fished in the early morning.
Keeping orientated is always a challenge in the fog. We kept the shoreline close in sight and had our anchor ready in case we hit extremely dense fog. After a few hook ups and lost fish, we arrived at our target location. We drifted under the cover of the morning fog as the breeze slowly pushed us quietly towards an area that held some hungry rainbows.
We hooked, lost and also landed a few chunky rainbows. Friendly competition has become a healthy way for us to enjoy our fishing trips. Austin made it very clear that he was in the lead with his 4 fish landed to my zero.
Our second location was a location we fished before but only in the afternoon once before with no luck. After multiple fish hooked, we landed a fat football of a trout. We spent a large portion of our morning in this location hooking, landing and loosing many footballs. We focused on being quiet while anchored in place. Many large fish swirled comfortably beside the boat. We had numerous fish strike at the boat which made for exciting fishing. The fish size in this location was impressive. We liked it so much that we have named it the football field.
After the football field started to slow down, we started contemplating moving spots. We pulled the anchor and looked around. Our timing was impeccable. The fog was lifting fast and we were able to see the other end of the lake, so off we went to where the “grass was greener.” A couple of our fishing holes across the lake produced more well fed rainbows, until the bite died down as if someone flicked a switch and shut the lights off.
One thing we started experimenting with today was barbless treble hooks versus single barbless hooks. We have noticed two things so far with the single barbless hooks we have been using. First, we seem to be loosing more fish on the initial bite to single hooks. More importantly, second, we have started to hypothesize that smaller barbless treble hooks might be easier on the fish than the longer wide gapped single hooks that we have been using on our spoons and/or the hooks that come with the spoons. We have noticed that the Kamlooper spoons we have been using seem to be hooking more fish than the single hooked spoons we have. They also do not penetrate as deeply as the longer shaft hooks. Could this be the answer to reducing mortality rates on some of the fish we catch? What are your thoughts on single barbless hooks versus barbless treble hooks?
This year has been great so far for casting spoons for rainbows. Fish size seems to be up from last year and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next few weeks have in store for us.