Portage Mixed Bag 6-29,30,7-1

Steelie Don · Post by **Steelie Don** » Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:53 pm

Came up for few days to fish with one of my very good friends Jim Gentry and show him a little bit of big lake trolling. Things started off on the wrong foot Tuesday morning when we left at 3am to be there by 8. Stopped for diesel in Terre Haute and realized I managed to forget my wallet which of course held every thing valuable. Talk about embarrassing. Drove hour and a half back home and got my wallet. Now it’s a 8 hr drive up. Launched the boat about 1pm and fished till about 7 pm. Jim got to catch a nice steelhead that after noon. We had other bites but could not net them.
Day 2 “ One More Time” and “Sea Ya” jumped on board for a good trip that was a lot of fun. Rainy and cloudy we got into the steelhead on the setup. We ran spoons and j-13’s in the spread. Ran riggers, dipsies, 3,5 color lead cores, and 100,150 coppers. Dipsies and the long lines were hot. The riggers were near silent. By 11:30 or so we went 5 for 11 I think plus all the ‘goos you could want. We took Mike and Rick back in to the marina and went perching for a while. Thanks to “Fishers of Men” for the left over minnows and advice at the ramp. We caught 10 nice perch in a couple of hours. 14ft of water west of the ditch was where. Went back to trolling and went 2 for 3 on the steelhead and called it a night.
We decided to stay one more night and chance a trolling trip today. Rick came back out with us into the 2 and 3 footers. We knew better not to stick our noses out there but we did. Had hook ups on the set up again. Nothing landed and the waves made setting up tough. Trolled to the number 4 into the waves. Jim was getting sick and threw up and I wanted to. But we stuck it out long enough for another landed steelhead and a broken line miss and a couple landed goos by Rick. I called it and we bounced our way back to the ditch.
Jim got to experience the good, bad, and the ugly of the lake. He is probably the finest outdoorsman I know but can’t take getting bounced around much. I hope he comes back to see the lake again. Mike and Rick made him feel welcome and he really enjoyed the give and take he got from those two.
Here is a few pics. Even a bag shot for Bro Nature.

Deadeer · Post by **Deadeer** » Thu Jul 01, 2021 10:15 pm

Way to stay with it. The big lake is not for sissies!

Lickety-Split · Post by **Lickety-Split** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 6:22 am

Nice Job Don!!!!!

Pikesmith · Post by **Pikesmith** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 6:34 am

Great work! Thanks for the report.

Post by **Tmik34** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 8:04 am

Nice work Don and some nice fish! Glad you were able to get out, those steelies in close like that are sure a lot of fun.

Fish head · Post by **Fish head** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 8:32 am

Thanks for report,glad you caught fish

Steelie Don · Post by **Steelie Don** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 8:41 am

[quote="Tmik34 post=31982 userid=722"]Nice work Don and some nice fish! Glad you were able to get out, those steelies in close like that are sure a lot of fun.

You are right Tim they are fun. They are also a wrecking crew on your equipment. Had 2 spoons hook stripped. My top producer and a Dreamweaver custom made spoon was lost on the last day to break off. Had 3 rod holder plastic tube ends pulled off and lost from pulling rods out on the strike. I even had a rod guide pulled off the rod. One side tore up and the other pulled out. A Church tx 12 planner board was lost on a fish fight also close to the number four. The plastic pin I am sure failed on that one.
[/quote]

Post by **bob** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 8:47 am

Way to go Don

Post by **Dirty** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 9:06 am

Nice work Don - Sorry to hear about all the equipment issues!

Post by **Tmik34** » Fri Jul 02, 2021 9:43 am

Dang Don! They can destroy equipment your right. I remember when we hit all those Skams a couple years ago on Jeff's boat they bent a stinger straight after 2 fish.

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