Walleye

I had the opportunity to spend a few hours below the Dickson Dam rooting around looking for walleye. It was an overcast day with a bit of wind. Perfect. The walleye were definitely active. My balanced silver minnow was definitely working. Well I lasted close to three hours. I was dressed for the weather but the wind was cutting right through my double jacket system. Once the cloud cover pulled off, I called it a day. I did manage to connect with several larger walleye! That made me smile in between shivers.

 

Oh Oh the Water Temperature!

I got a text from Rick saying that West Lake was fishing well and fire orange blobs were working well. A few days back, we used biscuit blobs but today, the best colour definitely was orange. 

The water temperature at West Lake (Fish and Game Pond at the Habitat Land) was getting down to that point where it will freeze over very soon. Another chinook was hovering over Central Alberta but the wind was bone chilling! Karen, Doug and I had to bundle up. Karen wore my extra winter coat just to stay warm. 

We found some active fish. Once we got the rainbows to the net, we just popped them off and sent them on their way. Nobody wanted to get their hands wet. The freezing temperatures made wet hands frigid in seconds. 

Rick did remind us that casting and retrieving blobs is also a great strategy not just hanging blobs below an indicator.

 

Bonus Day on the Water

Chinook! Looks like we have a bonus day out on the water. As I drove out to the lake to meet my buddy Doug, the thermometer climbed to 14C on my truck and the chinook arch filled the western sky. That is crazy for November. Well Doug already had the boat launched so we tied on blobs, specifically Biscutt Blobs. We were both into rainbow trout right away! The interesting thing for me was using blobs in shallow water. We used our blobs from 4 feet to 10 feet below a strike indicator. We had a lot of success in the morning although the hook ups in the afternoon definitely slowed.

What were the rainbows eating? Not surprisingly the trout were dining on daphnia, tiny immature damsels and shrimp. 

As I headed home, the mercury climbed to 16C. Crazy weather but the pleasant temperature allowed Doug and I a bonus day of fly fishing!