You know you're hardy, when you fish in fog, thunderstorms, and huge wind. We had it all today.

We started out at 11:30am with our first goal....P. to dive the area where K. lost his rod and reel overboard last week. We drove two vehicles leaving one by the swim beach/rental dock and the other at the boat ramp. We loaded all the dive gear and motored across the lake to the over-the-side-spot. We had hoped due to the intense fog the island had over the last 4 days the lake would be calm. Not exactly. P. had gotten in the dive gear and was quickly over the side and at the moment he hit the water a torrential rain began. While he dove we tucked our boat under the bridge to dodge some of the worst rainfall. A couple and two dogs were in a canoe and they were drenched and joined us under the bridge. Observing the dive and our embarrassment saying we'd lost a rod and reel, the woman admitted as regular visitors to the lake, she had two rods overboard. Later in the day as we off-loaded the dive gear near the concession stand parking, we were enlightened by another regular fisherman that he too, had two poles in the lake, and another fellow during the week admitted a depth sounder was in the drink. After about fifteen minutes the errant rod, reel and magic lure was found. Way to go diver P! (I don't know if K was happiest to get the St. Croix rod and Sprirex reel back or the special lure!)

After going to all the trouble to truck the gear out, P decided to dive the area for a while. Of note, as in the past diving here, the bass just come right up to you and look at you! Pretty neat. He observed some interesting coral-like growth, grasses, rocks, etc. The water temperature close to the surface was 68.1 and at 41' deep it was 54 degrees! He could really feel the difference physically on his face and body. While monitoring our diver, K couldn't help but cast and caught two fish while P. was underwater. After exploring about a half an hour, we headed back to the swim beach area to off load the 100 lbs of gear. Now at least the boat glided a little easier. We trolled in the rain.

The park had few campers so we went ashore to a picnic site and warmed up a bit while we barbecued hamburgers. The rain stopped just long enough for us to cook and eat. Favor smiled upon us.

Due to the crazy weather, we only plugged a few times. We mostly trolled. I'd say we had a good day despite rain nearly non stop, varying from a few scattered drops to heavy rain and wind. At one point, it felt like we were in Minnesota again trolling into 2' rollers. We ended our day with 35 fish caught and released. P. boated 15 (two trout, 13 bass), K. boated 11 fish (three trout and the largest) and I boated 9 fish (all bass). I got the largest bass of the day at 15.5 inches.

We concluded when the thunder returned and lightening wasn't far off. We hustled to the ramp. P. backed the trailer in perfectly and super fast and despite blustery winds, I trailed the boat perfectly the first time in about 30 seconds. (We looked like professionals. ) The moment we got the boat out of the water the rain got heavier and the winds kicked up. We left the ramp at 5:30pm calling if a very good day of fishing.


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