Again...with back-up.

With the bite as hot as it was last night I shot a few messages out to guys I know that like to catch fish.  I've tried and failed to share this local fishing bonanza with others in the past but I have always been cursed with a shift in the weather that leaves me scratching my head and my guest wondering if I'm nuts. 

Tonight, EB and TP made the drive wadered up and joined the stake out.  These two guys have never met, but with nothing more in common than the fact that the both had fly rods and were sharing the same water, they seemed to get along swimmingly.

The sun was going down fast and there were no fish showing.  The midges were hatching as scheduled but the rising fish of the prevoius night were absent.  The curse was happening again.  Luckily I teased one up with a white gurgler which made me feel a little better.  Fly lines sent flies out and fingers pulled flies back with only a few short strikes and half-hearted rises to show for it.

I was thinking about how things shut down last night at 10:00 pm and decided to wade a little further east thinking that maybe they were congregating at the outflow of the lake where the midges were more condensed and channeled.

And that's where they were.

Streamers and gurglers were eaten and it kept going well after 10.

At one point a boater and his wife in a 16' fishing boat trolled nearby and seemed to be heading into dangerous territory....without giving away landmarks and allowing anyone to deduce our location, let me just say that there was an audible "CRUNCH" when this guy pulled a really stupid move that could have easily cost the two their lives.  We hollered out to them to see if we could assist and got a muffled response.  We yelled that he might consider starting his outboard and gunning the motor in reverse before the current pinned, capsized and killed them.  He followed these obvious instructions and made it out of the jam safely and then proceeded to put his tail between his legs and motor slowly away.  It became obvious from his actions and the ensuing dialogue between him and his wife that drinking was involved.  (And that, children, is how people die in boats.)

We managed to pull a fish out until almost 11:00 pm.  On what was to be my last cast of the night, my Deceiver found it's way past the teeth and into the throat of an 18" walleye.  It was obviously not a white bass since it kept it's head down.  I landed it, threw it into the stripping basket and after a few pics...called it a night.

Success.

Midges

TP, in the thick of it.

Deceived

Never "Lip" a walleye...here's why.