A real Indian summer day! No rain, mostly sunny skies, 65 degrees but windy as heck. Almost didn't go as we knew the lake would be rough, but couldn't resist spending some time on the water considering the season closes all too soon. I also had some new birthday lures that needed to get wet. (Caught fish on two of four tried.)

We fished 11:30-2:30pm and caught and released 14. I was low man with four LMB - all peeps. K. and P tied with five each (4 LMB and 1 trout each). They even had a double on and each landed their bass.

Lunch was my homemade beans and ham and brownies. Yum.

We so hated to stop fishing but instead of the wind laying down as the day wore on, it got worse. Took out the anemometer and wind was steady at 18 with plenty of 23 MPH gusts. It got just too difficult to control the boat so we threw in the towel. Sure hated to with the unseasonably warm temps.

The water was substantially lower with only three concrete ramp ribs underwater. Never seen it this low. As last week, we had to offload K. and P. by the road on the rocks and then meet them at the ramp with the boat. As they walked away they said, "NO fishing on the way to the ramp!" When they were out of sight I decided I really needed to try to equal their five-fish body count, so I grabbed my ultra light pole I had not used earlier. When I took off the hook cover the small lure's treble was embedded in the inside of the cover. I knew I didn't have time to work it out, so I took pliers thinking a swift yank would do the trick. Instead it broke the lip off the new lure.
So next I thought I'd take a swift yank on the lure in the hook cover again to free it and this time I did while embedding the second treble on top of my middle finger by the knuckle. The barbs went all the way through and out the other side of the entry. Next I debate on cutting the barb or just yanking it back through. Since no meat was involved, only skin, I extracted it after four sharp yanks with the pliers. No fifth fish either.

Moved to the rear trolling motor and put it on it's highest power heading in to the wind. P and K wondered what happened to me...but finally got ahead of the wind and trailered the boat on level five. Full speed ahead - got it on the first try. Hated to go in that early, but the wind was fierce as is the wind burn.

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