Got back to Cda yesterday, this time with Mark K. Things started out very quickly when I boated a nice 26" pike on the very first cast of the day. Our next fish was a large mouth about 10 minutes later, then a small mouth. Three fish in the boat in about 15 minutes. That's not always a good thing. Some times it seems like you should just load the boat up and go home when you have some luck in the first few minutes of the day. I've had many trips that start off fast only to get a butt kicking the rest of the day. Of course a guy can never go home because he caught fish early, so we continued on. We went fishless for the next hour or so then I got the opportunity to see Mark K display his awesome fish netting skills. A white spinner bait tossed over a weed bed in one of my favorite spots, produced a bite and the biggest fish of the day. A nice 38" pike. The fish made a couple of short runs, but the real action came after Mark scooped it into the net. Without an actual count, I would guess it made 5 to 6 separate strong attempts to jump out of the net. The dang thing looked like a dolphin, leaping out of the water and nearly making it's way out of the net. Mark did a fine job of keeping the fish in the net, while I got the spinner bait unhooked. We finished the day with 5 pike and 2 bass. Not a stellar day in terms of numbers, but I gave this trip a 4 because the fish were good quality and the action started fast. We also missed several other fish on the day.

I was once again reminded that if you look at your line and think it just might be a little frayed and in need of re tying, RE TIE IT !!!! I had just clipped off about 4 feet of braid and retied it to the leader. I thought the braid looked a little checkered, but elected to "NOT" cut more line off and re tie. A few casts later, I inflicted a manly hook set on a pike, only to have the line break right at the leader, (imagine that) and watched as my brand new spinner bait fluttered it's way to the bottom of the lake. Did I swear when his happened? You'll have to ask Mark K. I think I held it in pretty good. :)

The fish seemed to be in 6-8 feet of water for the most part. The white spinner bait got 4 out of the 5 pike we caught, and the other came on the first cast of the day with a spoon. Water temps were 62 to start the day and crept up to 68 by around 3pm. We fished main lake weed beds for the whole trip. The fall bite just might be starting now. Over night lows in the 40's have helped drop the temps a little. A few more degrees downward and the action could just get fast and furious.

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