Sharing a Day On the Water

A few months back, I had the opportunity to meet some fine folks at a "Fishing Rodeo" at Cook's Pond in Canton. It was a two day catfish derby. One day for senior citizens, the next for kids. Everyone had a great time, even though the fishing wasn't the best. But, with fishing, it's not about catching, it's the whole experience. There was a young man there, James Tabler. He was one of the volunteers who shared his passion for fishing and the outdoors with me. I told him then, that I'd take him out with me sometime this Summer, and the opportunity presented itself a couple weeks ago. I picked him up in Canton, and we headed, along with my son Nick, to Portage Lakes. It was "one of those days" that you have once in awhile. Fishing was tough. Very hot weather, lots of boat traffic, and the fish weren't active at all.

The day started off with a boat safety check at the Old State Park ramp. Everyone should get their boat checked and get their safety sticker. It's imperitive you stay safe on the water, especially with kids on the boat. Everything went well, except for one thing. I couldn't find my boat registration card. I thought I put it in my wallet, but I have so much junk in there, it got buried! I went through it 3 times, then finally found the fold between the business cards and old reciepts where that rascal was hiding. Finally, we got launched and on our way. I also wanted to thank the gentleman from the Coast Guard Auxilliary for his patience with me.

We started off fishing a weedy flat with Texas-rigged plastic worms. The only thing hitting the ribbon tail worms was the numerous bluegill and redears that like the action of the tails. We casted and casted, changed water depth, worm color. We fished boat docks, drop offs. All with no bass. I figured the heat and bright sun had the fish in TIGHT to cover, so I made our way to a lily pad covered shoreline. I also rigged up one of my favorite weedless topwater baits. The ZOOM Super Fluke.

We proceeded to cast the shorelines, right in the middle of the pads. The boys were using weedless plastic frogs, against my suggestion, but the action was great, even though it was too fast. I was twitching the fluke slowly through the pads, and as it hit the small openings in between them, I'd stop the bait and let it slowly sink. Over one of those spots, the water exploded. It was a nice 2 1/2 lb bass. Nothing like catching a fish in the front of the boat to get the guys in the back to change baits. We ended up catching 4 bass all together, and both James and Nick had some action, but lost the fish in the lily pads. It's tough to get them out of there sometimes.

We also tried to get some panfish. James' grandmother is a big fan of fresh fish, and from what James tells me, he brings a few home with him when he has the opportunity to get out. He's quite the fisherman, that's for sure. Even though we didn't catch a bunch, we did get 10 for grandma's fry pan. We also had a great time watching the ospreys hover and dive-bomb fish, we saw a juvenile bald eagle getting harrassed by some red winged black birds, and we saw a big snapping turtle that looked like an underwater Volkswagon. James is a seasoned shore fisherman and this was only his second boat trip. It was a pleasure having him along. I wish the fishing would have been better, but the trip, when taken as a whole, was a big success. And that's what it's all about.

WKYC OUTDOORS UPDATE

Everything is going well with the website(www.wkyc.com/outdoors) and we've got a busy month of September coming up. Small game hunting will be starting up, the fishing is going to get HOT, both inland as well as on Lake Erie. And speaking of Lake Erie, we'll be out at the Vermilion Hawgfest OPEN walleye tournament September 22, and the week after, we'll be in downtown Cleveland with the FLW Tour's PWT Championship. For details you can check out www.vermilionhawgfest.com and www.walleyetour.flwoutdoors.com respectively.

If you have any questions, comments, story suggestions, whatever, please send me an email at cbachtel@wkyc.com and I'll get back with you. I'm Carl "Big Daddy" Bachtel. Thanks for stopping by.