I was fortunate enough to have my work hours shifted to the afternoon which means *BING* I get to go fishing in the morning.

Made it out to Lake Tye this morning at around 715, it was pleasant out - not too cold and still steam was rising off of the lake surface. There was already a handful of people fishing around the park entrance and southeast corner so I made my way around to the vacant west shoreline.

I wasn't having any luck whatsoever with the Powerbait, so on my second rod I was spinning a small silver dick nite spoon. I stayed for just under 3 hours and all up caught two small stockers and lost on two other hook-ups.

Curiously, my first catch of the morning was really odd - I was retrieving the dick nite and suddenly it felt like I snagged a shallow weed, I kept reeling it in thinking that I'd have to pull a bunch of salad off my hook when I realized that the lure actually "hooked" into the eye of a snap swivel that was attached to a leader that already had a fish on it. Evidently someone probably lost their baited gear and this poor trout ate it and swallowed the hook. It was still alive and pulling when I brought the whole rig in. I'll be darned, this is the first time I've caught a line that had already caught a fish!

Another strange hit was when I switched to a small black floating rapala minnow. The fish had been surface feeding heavily all morning and I thought why not give this a shot. It had been in my tackle box for over 20 years and the rear treble had (what seemed to be) just a bit of rust on it. I used the wounded baitfish technique, much like when topwater fishing for largemouth bass - twitching and bobbing. On my second cast there was a giant splash and a big takedown....I fought it for a good ten seconds and then the hook broke off. Oh well.

I watched a boat launch and literally 3 minutes after they had hits on both lines. Not a bad day at all...and now a good excuse to go through all my old lures and replace hooks.