"I Suck at Fishing" Challenge (1/16)

[Latimeria]

(Pictures will be inserted when I get home from work today)

Well, here's some freshly cooked crow for you Joe!

Long story short, I had plans on catching up around the house since I spent the last few days fishing for only one measly small trout.  Before I left from work, I get a text from a buddy who moved up to Utah "You suck at fishing..."  Funny, we have fished together on and off for over 25 years and he's NEVER beaten me.  He was just having fun that I could only catch one trout in 2 afternoons of fishing.

Challenge accepted... but now I have 2 days of work to squeeze into one day now.

I ran home and threw the gear in the truck and ran down to the puddles for 2 hours.  It was definitely trout weather.  Cold, Cloudy and Breezy.

4 lakes have been stocked with Lightning Trout and no one was there.  Actually Lake 2 had all of the fishermen since that lake was kicking out the most fish.  I picked a lake and started soaking my secret baits soaked in secret dip.

45 minutes in and I get a good bite!  Damn, it dropped it as I was grabbing the rod.  Crapola...  I hope this wasn't my only chance.

Rebaited and put the rod out again.

20 minutes later and the strike indicator drops... Trout on!  f@cking Pelicans swooped in trying to steal it and walkers were surrounding me at this point so it wasn't a very fun fight having all of these obstacles, but I managed to land a nice 2.75# rainbow.  Definitely Mt Lassen.



I only have less than an hour so rebait and get back out there.  I see a trout swimming in close, but I couldn't catch that thing with my leader so I bombed out on the next two casts.  Then I see the bobber drop and then go flying up to the guide!  Second trout on!  Once again, the pelicans were swarming in through the air and it was a battle to keep them away until I finally got it into the net.  Totally different looking trout.  Silvery and very little spots.  Definitely a Jess's Ranch trout from the previous stock. 2.5# model.



My wife comes walking by with her friend as they were on a walk around the puddles and took a quick picture before heading towards the gate since they close in 10 minutes.
I rebait and get one more cast out as the Ranger was driving around telling everyone to get out.

I started packing my gear and still had one rod in the water when I saw pelicans flying towards me.  I look down to see a trout splashing at the surface and realize it was on my line!  I took the strike indicator off to pack away so never noticed the hit but got to the rod before the pelicans got my 3rd bow!

Fun scrappy fight and get him on the stringer.



Rod gets thrown in the truck and I'm out.  Not bad work for two hours of fishing.





I get home to fillet the fish really fast and what the hell?  This time the Mt Lassen fish had a big pebble in the belly?  WTF is going on here?  The other two trout were empty but another rock in a trout stomach..



Well, I'll insert pictures later, but I have a complete load for the smoker now.  Time to fire it up this weekend!

Thanks for reading.

[Tim524]

The backyard is going to stink good with a load of Trout in the smoker

[sasquatch]

Did I read that right? The bobber went up? Weird.