Blind Fishing Boat

I recently had the pleasure of spending the day Bass fishing on Constance Lake with J.P. Ostiguy.  Our ride was a Ranger bass boat from Lake and Trail Marina rigged with a 250 Mercury Optimax — man, what a day – what a ride!

Of course, we started off the day with a test run of the Ranger and the 250 OptiMax.  Out of the whole like a shot and before I could count to 10, JP let me know we reached 75 mph.  Being 6-foot 4-inches tall, I had to take off my hat and squish down in the passenger seat to get out of the wind being deflected over the wind screen. 

We started the day’s fishing by pitching some tubes along the shore line, around docks and over some rocky points.  I was using a 6.6 spincast medium action rod with an Abumatic spin cast reel with 14 lb FireWire, and found the combination to be sensitive enough to determine the nature of the bottom structure while at the same time firm enough to plant the hook.  Pitching like this required good feedback from JP on where to position my casts and a consistent casting technique so that JP could properly line me up with the various structures along the shoreline.  Without the feedback, I would have been casting into the trees or out into open water. 

The bite was slow and the on-shore wind fast, which didn’t make for ideal pitching, so we set off for the other side of the lake.  I switched rods to a 6-foot light action rod with a Daiwa spincast reel loaded with 6lb test.  Several casts later the disadvantage of lighter lines on this lake revealed itself when I experienced line separation from what must have been a Pike.  Back to the 6.6 rod and the FireWire, only this time I was pitching a Senko. 

Again, we moved down the shore line pitching into the substantial tree cover due to high water levels.  Lots of Perch showed interest in the Senko, but not much else. 

We worked our way down to the end of the lake that had significant Lilly Pad growth and we switched to frogs.  I switched rods again to a 8.6 pitching rod with a medium-heavy action and an older Abumatic spincast loaded up with 20 lb Strenn.  I had the 30-+ year old reel recently refurbished by Reel-to-Reel in Stitsville, and did they ever do a nice job. 

I had tied on a 1oz frog that literally crashed into the water like a downed float plane on each cast.  Not sure why, but the Bass still seemed to find it tempting enough to boil up under it; however, instincts ruled over intelligence and I kept trying to set the hook before the Bass actually managed to zero in on the frog.  It just seems to run counter-intuitive to leave the frog in place when Bass are boiling up all around it.  You would think that my not being able to see the boil-ups would be half the battle, but nope, hearing alone can precipitate premature hook-setting behavior. 

Lunch time saw us back at the dock for lunch served on the outdoor patio over-looking the docs and lake.  The wind died off a bit after lunch and the sun broke through so we switched to cruising some of the less weedy shoreline while casting Northam spinner baits.  Did the fish ever turn on to these beauties.  Before long we had five decent sized Largies resting comfortably in their climate-controlled Ranger live well, and a mess of other various sized Pikes ranging in size from 6” to 26” hooked and released over the side.  The drag on my newer Abumatic seemed a bit over-sensitive and easily miss-adjusted with the large adjustment ring situated just behind the spool cover.  Like most spincast reels, one had to pump the rod to take back line as these reels just don’t have anything close to direct drive. 

The older Abumatics had a drag feature that allowed the angler to adjust the drag quite tight using the star drag, and to then slack off the drag by simply reeling backwards a quarter turn.  Boy, do I wish someone would start manufacturing spincast reels with this fighting drag option again. 

When working jigs or plastics, I got into the habit quite some time back of using spincast gear as it allowed me to palm the reel and run the line between my thumb and forefinger.  This gave me the ability to feel the line when working tubes and jigs along the bottom.  I tried baitcasts long ago but my backlashes from miss-judging my casts just weren’t worth the added benefit of their obvious strengths.  Maybe baitcasters have improved since, but I’m not sure if I want to invest the type of cash needed to purchase one of the nicer outfits just to be disappointed again. 

New super light weight and extra smooth and sensitive spinning gear is also now available at reasonable prices and I’m looking forward to trying some of it out next year.  While the looping  action of the line at the reel  face when retrieving makes it near impossible to run the line through the fingers of your rod hand, for retrieving crank and spinner baits, it isn’t an issue and their  strengths over spincast gear in terms of drag make them superior. 

JP passed on a bunch of great tips that day.  I think one of the more interesting things I learned was how to tell living bodies of water from dead by smell.  I had commented how the lake smelled so rich and green, and JP said that a “mossy” smell was the sign of truly healthy water, where as a “fishy” smell was a sign of decomposing plant matter, which can give off toxins in the water detrimental to healthy fish populations. 

Big thanks to JP for the day’s adventure and fishing tips, and to Lake and Trail Marina for the fine ride.