I recently have gotten back into fishing after a few years off. A week or so ago I found this site and have really enjoyed reading the reports.

My plan now is... to leave my gear in my Jeep and a hit local lakes whenever I get a chance, even if its only for an hour or so. So far I've hit 4 local lakes over the last couple weeks with not a single bite, but had some very enjoyable "me" time.

Monday evening as the clouds broke I told my 15 yr old son that we were going fishing (his first time in almost 10 yrs! I know... shame on me.)

We hit the dock at Cottage Lake about 7pm. I had a 6' leader and a slip weight on my pole and had another pole with a 4' leader ready to go for my son. I put one chartreuse and one pink power egg on mine, and a chartreuse and an orange on his.

In 15-20 minutes I had a 10" rainbow on the stringer. 10 minutes later I missed another fish and since my son had no bites yet I decided to re-rig him with a 6' leader as well.

While I was setting his up I missed another fish (we're having fun now!)

As soon as he was set up with the longer leader he brought in a 10" fish only to have it come off as he was bringing it onto the dock.

I next landed a 12" and my son landed a 10" of his own.

Between us we missed over a dozen bites or had them come unhooked on the way into the dock in under a 3 hour period (we quit at 9:45), and most importantly we had a great time!

There were several other people fishing using various methods and it appeared the guys casting lures were getting some nice hook-ups as well.

On a side note... I'm curious, of the three fish why is the one so much darker than the other two? Any ideas?

Thanks for reading my first report, and hopefully I'll have more to post in the near future.

Tight lines!

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