After a hiatus from fishing for a couple to years to focus on my golf game I finally hit the water with an old fishing buddy, Bob Johanson, who is a regular on this site. We arrived at Phillips lake around 7:15 am. It was overcast with a threat of rain and enough wind to affect casting. Bob, ever the expert, headed us off down the lake in his trusty Bass Tracker boat. He found us a place out of the wind and we began to beat the water. We beat the water until a little after 9:00 am when I hooked and landed a nice 14 1/2" trout using my white spinner bait. We beat the water some more and I hooked and laneded a nice 14 3/4" LM bass. Of course he went back into the lake after a picture and measuring. We fished there for another couple hours without any success so Bob suggested we run over to Spencer Lake which is just around the corner.

This should be another lake report, but it is so funny that I am going to include it here. We launched at the public site and ran all the way to the other end of the lake, passing up some good cover, and went up into a little cove. To Bob's credit he did hook and land a couple small (legal) LM Bass. Finally Bob suggested we head back up the lake to the cover we passed coming down. We stowed all the gear and got ready to leave when would you believe it the trusty Bass Tracker wouldn't start. Low battery. Bob smiled and said no problem, "I have a back up battery for just such occasions." He quickly hooked up the backup battery and turned the key. You guessed it. Nothing. Deader than a dorenail. And here we are clear to the other end of the lake, up in a small cove with not another boat in sight. All we had was a paddle so Bob handed to me and pointed toward the boat launch which was so far away you couldn't see it.

I don't know if any of you have tried to paddle a bass boat with a paddle into the wind but I don't recommend it. After about 40 minutes of hard work I got us out to the edge of the cove when we spotted a home owner up on the bank. Well my paddling was over. This kind soul agreed to come tow us to the launch site.

All the way there and all the way home Bob kept saying, "I just don't understand why that battery was dead. I charged it last year." I asked Bob if he was going to write this story since he didn't hesitate when I caught a shrimp pot fishing for halibut or the time I fell in the river when we were after steelhead. No problem writing those stories, but no way when the trusty Bass Tracker failed us on Mason Lake.

All joking aside, it was a great trip and I was happy to be back on the water.

Mike L

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