Yesterday, I spent a good 12 hours at sea at Mayor Island. It was uneventful but still a lot of fun.
I met Michael and his Dad, Peter, at their place at 0600 this morning. We were on the lake by 0700. Michael's new boat is perfect for two to three anglers and with the 90 hp engine, it goes fast! This is good for Michael's style of fishing. He burns off to spot 1, cruises around looking for fish on the sounder, then makes a decision to move on. After seeing a lot of smelt at a bunch of places, he decided to put the trolling motor in at about spot 13.
We were jigging using three flies, spaced 1 m apart with a two ounce sinker at the bottom. It was literally a couple of hours before Peter hooked up first on the Grey Ghost Short Shanked Jigging smelt. Then he caught another. I was wondering what I was doing wrong.
At spot 14, I hooked and landed a great rainbow on a Parson's Glory Short Shank Jigging Smelt. It felt pretty good to catch such a fish. I changed that fly as it had caught a fish and replaced it with a Black Ghost Jigging Smelt. Michael put the Parson's Glory on his rig. Moments later I got my second fish and it was on the black ghost!
Michael was next with three fish in a row with the short shanked Parson's Glory I caught my first fish on.
This process of landing seven fish took over six hours so you could not say the fishing was shit hot. But with six fish in the bin, we headed home happy. They will all see the smoker soon.
I guess that the moral to the story is that the Parson's Glory Short Shank Jigging Smelt showed potential today.
