Spring had come early. The early spring brought on some excellent Brown Trout fishing in the end of March and it continued through the month of April. Now it was May and water levels were lower than they should be for that time of year. I had a guide trip booked for opening night at midnight and was worried.
I spent the day time rigging rods and shopping at Gander Mountain. I was worried with the low water I would need some different lures to put fish in the boat. I purchased multiple small jigs and smaller stick baits. Now that the boat was all set it was time to take a nap until 8 pm.
As I drove to the river I kept going over my game plan in my head. I was very nervous as I had never fished this river at this level before. As always I wanted to put my clients on good fish. They had called me because they normally fish for Walleye on Onieda Lake and wanted to catch bigger fish then what they are use to. I had told them I could put them on 6 pound plus fish and I was determined to do so.
I had asked them to meet me at 11 pm so we could get in the water in case there were other boats fishing that night. I arrived at the launch around 10 and there was no one there. I launched the drift boat and put all the gear in the boat. My clients arrived a little before 11 and there was still no one else there. We talked about fishing and hunting as we waited for legal fishing time. The season didn’t open until midnight. They had plans of Turkey hunting in the morning after we finished fishing and joked about being done in time to take a nap before hunting. Finally it was quarter to twelve and we got in the boat.
I rowed us out into the river and anchored up where we would start fishing. I then explained how the reels worked and what my plans were. At 12 am I had them put the lures out and pulled anchor. I started up the middle section of the river where I knew the water would be the deepest. It wasn’t long before the left rod doubled over… FISH ON!!!.
I dropped anchor and netted a nice 5 pound Walleye as he brought it to the boat. We put the lures back out, pulled anchor, and started up the river again. It wasn’t more than a few minutes and I was yelling left rod left rod again. This time we brought a Walleye in the 6 pound range to the net.
Time to change the lure on the right rod. I put the same Rapala on it that was on the right rod. Normally I would run different lures but it was obvious tonight that was the lure the Walleye wanted. We started pulling the plugs again in that same fast deep section and it was game on.
At 2:30 am we put the 6th Walleye in the fish box. They had hooked 8 fish landed 7. One was not big enough to keep. In just two and half hours they had limited out with 6 fish all in the 5 to 7 pound range. They were very happy with the trip and had time to get back to camp for a nap before Turkey hunting.
Turns out there was no reason for me to be worried about this trip. I should have known that the low water was just going to stack all the fish in the one deep area on the river and they would want the same lures they always do. To this day I still have not used that tackle I bought.
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