My wife and I haven't been to Roosevelt since April, so when she offered to take some time off during the week, it was a date. I dislike "silly season" so avoid weekend day trips until after Labor Day. It was nice to go almost mid-week and not have to deal with the silliness at the launch.

Pulled out of the driveway at 5:05am and arrived at the Seven Bays launch 6:50am. Launched the boat, parked the truck and trailer, and headed to the San Poil. Nice 30 minute boat ride, and gear in the water just before 8am. Debbie started the day off with a fish on and in the cooler less than 10 minutes after gear down.

We fished the area around the "B" boundary marker until 10:30 and by then the wind died, surface flattened, and the sun was shining bright - conditions I always struggle with at Roosevelt. With 3 in the cooler, and a long dry spell, I decided to move up to Whitestone.

The wind was blowing good there, white capped waves and lots of surface agitation. Much better! Got 3 rigs in the water and I hook up with a nice one making the bait clicker zing. Grab the rod, fight the fish to the boat, and Debbie makes a nice scoop on a 2lb, 10oz native 'bow. :-)

Reset gear, and get back to work. Debbie boats another and so do I before the wind dies down and the surface flattens out. Once again we hit a dry spell, so I make another move and we head upstream with 6 fish in the cooler. I move to Sterling Point and drop the gear. Bang - fish on and Debie boats her 4th for the day. We persevere despite the calm, sunny conditions and complete our limits there around 3:30 or so.

Surface temps ranged from 68.9 - 71.1 later in the day. We started the day running two leaded line outfits 155' back with Frisky Jenny flies, one in perch pattern and the other a Black Ant. The Black Ant fly was the preferred pattern yesterday, and I changed out the perch pattern when we moved to Whitestone. I also had two mono rigs out 195' with Rip'n Minnow plugs but not a bite on them, too shallow for conditions. I changed things up when we moved to Whitestone, and dropped a plug to 20' on one downrigger and a 4/0 UV chrome dodger and a squid on the other at 15'. The dodger/squid combo didn't pay off, so I changed that out for a 4/0 dodger with red prismatic tape on one side and a purple Apex. That combo accounted for 2 fish mid-afternoon.

The flies were tipped with a piece of crawler and the squid and apex were tipped with Gulp maggots. Trolling speeds ranged from 2.4 - 2.8mph most of the day.

Most of our fish were this year’s planters which are now running about 14” and a pound or a little better. We caught two that were 13" and just shy of a pound. Like my recent trip there with a friend, the activity came in spurts, we'd catch one or two, then long periods of nothing. We had several drive bys, and I had a doozy on in the San Poil but it came unglued before I got it within sight.

Any day fishing is a great day, even better when shared with my favorite fishing partners. Limits in the cooler was simply a bonus. :-)

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