Fishing in the dog days of summer

I’m not really ever fired up about sitting in a boat with no shade on a bright 85 degree day. I wasn’t on this day either, but we were on a camping trip for fishing.

So far that day we couldn’t have gotten a panfish to bite if we were paying a thousand dollars a nibble. We marked them on the electronics, all were suspended, and nothing wanted to feed to any presentation we threw at it. The longer the day went, the hotter it got and the hotter we got.

I headed a different direction from the launch and I didn’t go a few hundred yards and noticed the water depth to be over 36 feet. I started looking for the sharp drop off that usually means good fishing. Submerged vegetation had reached the surface just 20 yards off a point.

I learned a long time ago that sometimes we motor pass good fishing just because its next to the launch. I decided to check this out. The weed line was in 12 feet of water, coming out from that a shelf at 16 feet that dropped to 28 feet. The front of the boat showed 16 feet and the back 28 feet. The sonar also showed fish suspended at 10 to 12 feet everywhere over the deep water. Kind of like the other spots we fished that day. We anchored.

I figured there had to be bluegills along that weed line, but there wasn’t, or they weren’t feeding like the crappie we were marking underneath us. We went there due to stories of a 14 inch crappie. We never did catch any crappie or bluegill, not even a perch. If they were feeding it wasn’t on any grubby, buggy, fishy, live bait presentations we tried. Before we headed in to grill dinner, I decided to stop fishing for the fish we were marking and just fish like I didn’t know what was underneath us. Hence the guber rig. And once again the guber delivered. I felt a fish pick up and set the hook. I set it as hard as one can with an ultralight panfish setup and I could tell right from the start that this wasn’t a panfish. I figured bass. The fish fought hard and it took a minute or so to boat it, over the side came a nice couple of walleye sandwiches at four in the afternoon on a bright sunshiny 85 degree still day.

That walleye was just under the slot size. That seemed to stir things up a bit where we were anchored and we stopped marking fish. We repositioned 20 yards down along the shelf.

A fish picked on the first cast that I set the hook and could tell it too wasn’t a panfish. Another walleye just under the slot and again it moved the fish away from our position, so we repositioned.

The boats heading out to fish motoring past us kept looking at me like my elevator doesn’t go to the top floor. Maybe it doesn’t, but we were catching walleye midday in the bright sun in warm, I mean warm water and that’s not a bad problem to have. I forgot all about the sweat dripping off of me and the hot sun.

And if I looked like a guy a rod and reel short of a fishing trip, fishing next to the landing not catching walleye midday in the bright sun; well, when it comes to fishing spots, you’ve got to love it when a plan comes together. And technically since I didn’t have a single pole for walleye in the boat, I was a couple rod and reels short of a fishing trip.

I missed a couple hooksets and we kept moving from spot to spot. We came to a spot with a lot of structure along the shoreline.

The first cast I didn’t get a good hookset. Hey it’s hard to do with ultralight rigs on toothy fish. The next fish I set the hook and it felt like a northern or small musky and I set the hook again. Five minutes brought a walleye over an inch and a half above the slot up from the deep. Not a bad problem at all.

Now I’m trying to decide between mayo or an aioli with a bit of Cajun spice for those sandwiches. Not a bad problem for a guy a rod and reel short of a fishing trip.

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