Hit Ward Lake with the boys and upon arriving I was happy to see the lake was not crowded (1 other boat, a couple of paddle boarders, and swimmers). If you have read any of my previous posts I followed my same routine. Headed Northwest from the boat launch trolled an orange wedding ring, and a pink hoochie, the long line had a green/red smile blade wedding ring on it. Within 5 minutes had the first rainbow to the boat and released it turned the boat towards the south and then things got really interesting a double... kokanee on the pink hoochie and rainbow on the long line. Brought the koke in first and threw it in the ice box then the rainbow which was released. Set everything back up and trolled back North... nada. Turned South and viola a fish which turned out to be another rainbow on the orange wedding ring. Turned North... nothing, turned south Fish this time a Kokanee on the long line (14 incher). Only this fish had got the stinger hook in it's gills so as it's flopping around blood is going everywhere... the windshield, the seats, the cooler, my pants, my shirt, my face, my sunglasses, my hat, the boys, the carpet, the sidewalls, the motor, the roof of the boat, the other people on the lake... it looks like Jackson Pollock had a party in the boat. Finally got that guy off the hook and in the cooler and tried to settle the boys back down who were hooting an hollering about all of it. It was a scene for sure definitely a memory not to be forgotten soon as I'm sure I missed cleaning a lot of the blood up. Ok... so at this point (as I'm sure you already figured out) trolling North= no fish, trolling South= fish. Now there is two reason why I figured this was happening 1) the way the sun was hitting the blades/dodgers or 2) speed. See my boat has a 1965 (51 year old) 6hp trolling motor on it. The only way to keep it going consistently is to have it run at a higher rpm which means more speed. Since the wind was blowing from South to North and I was trolling South (into the wind) I was dropping my speed enough to get to that magic speed Kokanee like. I said all that to say this... fishing is what you make of it you don't need thousands of dollars of gear, a new boat, expensive rods. Would I like all of that? You bet! Do all those things help? Absolutely, but they aren't necessary. To me what's necessary is spending time with family, laughing, talking, joking, catching, and teaching my boys things like who Jackson Pollock is. Ended the day with 5 Kokanee in the boat 3x 14 inches 2x 12 inches. We lost another at the boat much larger than the 14 inch fish. It actually peeled off line which none of the others did. I'd say it was 16 inches but who knows for sure. So, 5 kokes in the boat and at least 10 rainbows left in the lake. Not bad for 3 hours of fishing in the middle of the day on a Sunday!

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