McSteel and I sat down and sipped at our first cups of hot coffee in an effort to make the aftertaste of toothpaste and vodka go away. Checking the radar for wind and precipitation, we ordered the same combinations of eggs, beans and rice, certain that what the coffee couldn't kill, the hot sauce would certainly mask.
The plan was to drive to the "other side" again and see what we could see and to double down on the carp. Mr. T had some family obligations so he planned to follow us and then get dropped off at the dock after an hour or two of nosing around the shallows with us.
We pulled into the launch and I could tell right away that things weren't as we'd hoped. A stiff breeze out of the south and cloud cover...not good for what we wanted to do. Checking the map we reached consensus on a new destination that offered some cover from the wind. In the game of sight fishing you can't control the clouds, but when you are dealing with bays and islands, there are ways to cheat the wind.
It was probably 10 AM before the Yamaha did it's best to push three guys and gear across the bay to the lee side of a point. I'd never fished 2 guys in the Battleskiff, and I figured that one would sit on the cooler in the well while the other stood on the nose gunner's post and fire away. Instead, McSteel and Mr. T each picked up rods and split the deck. It takes two very good casters (both righties) to pull of what they did. It looked like a "A River Run's Through It - The Ballet".
Though the skies were dim we were able to spot a few bass and exactly zero carp.
The wind kicked around and the chop picked up as Mr. T suggested that his allotted time was about up and asked if we'd take him back to the launch.
Though brief, it was good to have him on-board.
McSteel and tied up at the dock and watched the weather. The front moved through and the wind died enough for us to push back out. The rain was feeble so we ignored it. We motored out and began to pole and squint through the gray clouds reflecting off of the water. Within an hour the wind kicked back up and we motored out to an island to wait for it to pass.
By 2 PM we were deep into the shelter of a bay picking smallmouth off the top on gurglers again. The wind was down and the rain was essentially done. The fish were everywhere and McSteel would only accept fish that would take a fly on top. The water clarity allowed us to see everything within 70 yards of the boat, even with full cloud cover. We were back in the game.
The front moved completely through late in the afternoon and though the clouds stayed on, we started poling a stretch of shoreline on the "outside" that gave us the added benefit of a high treeline silhouette on the water. The view was incredible. Spotting fish after fish, casting, twitching and then waiting to see if it would tilt up like a cutthroat or hard charge it like a pike.
What started out as questionable day eventually turned into something quite memorable.
As evening edged toward night, I stepped down from the platform, stowed the push pole and fired up the motor. The ride home was on water that can only be described as textured glass. It's my favorite kind of water to run in.
Back at camp we toasted another successful day and headed out to see what kind of trouble we could get into. The trouble came in the form of Norwegian Festival happening in one of the nearby towns. We sampled some traditional fare and then sought out the beer tent only to find out from the local Lions Club folks that this was a "dry town". (I didn't even know that was a "thing" outside of the Bible Belt). We found a perch on one of the town docks and took in most of the fireworks display before beating a fast retreat ahead of the masses attending the light show.
It was determined only 15 minutes later back at the tents that our camp was decidedly NOT dry.
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