He was out on the lake the night before with Hockey friends and as always, he waits his turn on the rod knowing guests go first. He wasn’t in bed until 10:00 pm well past his normal bed time and I said to him, “We are registered in a small derby tomorrow (talking about today) if we win, you can take half the money. Your choice; we can sleep in and we can go fishing late morning, or we can leave first thing in the morning to try the early bite.”. His response was quick, educated and surprising. He said “Lets go early to catch the big one!”
5:00 am we get up and charge out of the house down to the boat and leave dock at first light and still ½ before the sun made the horizon. Aidan was excited knowing it was just him and I that will take turns on the rods and have an opportunity to enter a fish in the derby. He is competitive in nature, but it didn’t dawn on me that by suggesting we were in this small one day derby, would bring out his competitive side.
I coached him with strategy and explained the need for us to work as a team. It was a great moment when he realized that he was an important part of our mornings fishing accomplishments and that together we will bring fish in, maybe lose a fish, but know we did it together.
We ran out to in front of Beamsville where we left off from last night. We put down two down riggers with Purple SpinDoctor and a new Purple MCRocket that Aidan named, Purple Nurple and the other downrigger with a Yeck 88 NBK spoon. Then two wire divers with SpinDoctors and Flys. One was set on 3 and out 200 and the other set on 3 out 185. One combo that has been best on the boat for nearly two weeks. Mark Penner calls it 7 o’clock, because he ran it from dawn to 7 or from 7 to dusk. But it’s been good all day, so it goes out for the day. It is a Green/Glow/Black SpinDoctor with a Glow Frog Fly with everything pulled behind a Glow Grog 107 diver. The other diver was Green dolphin 107 pulling a Mountain dew NBK SpinDoctor and a CrazyBitch fly.
Aidan is now getting used to the routine of setting rods and I have him doing things like letting divers out and having them engage at the right numbers on the line counters.
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We set rods targeting the kings at deeper sets then where the numerous rainbows resided. The first half an hour we missed two fish on the rigger with the spoon, but then the starboard side wire diver rod starts with the ringing of the drag as line was ripping off the reel on a good fish. I grab the rod and simply held the rod at a consistent bend while the king motors towards Jordon Harbour. It pulled 500 feet of line off the reel on a steady powerful run. Then it stopped. I placed the rod in the rod holder for Aidan to crank away while I turn the boat to help Aidan gain line and prepare the boat to net the fish down the centre out the back. Aidan cranked away but was tiring after reeling in 200 feet of the line on an obviously heavy salmon. I took over and reeled some of the line until it was within 50 feet where I then had Aidan back to reeling the rest of the way and I grabbed the net, slowed the boat to a slow crawl and then manoeuvred the boat and with some luck that kept the fish down the centre of the back of the boat and straight into the net. Aidan was excited and we gave high fives and big hugs after the fish hit the boat’s floor. We didn’t weigh it, just put it in the box and set back up.
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Then the next two hours we caught a hand full of other smaller Chinook Salmon on up to 15 lbs, but it was the case where the clear skys, calm lake was likely chasing those kings deeper off the Beamsville reef’s structure we call “The Nose”. We trolled off the tip of the nose over 150 to 170 feet of water and I noted our down speed show significant currents at depth. Where at one point we were crawling at 1.8 miles per hour on the GPS we were trolling 2.7 mph on the Fish Hawk Probe down 100 feet. Aidan’s so called, Purple Nurple hits a fish. The fish is heavy and again pulling significant line off the reel and was clearly another great fish, but the shear power of the fish the hooks pulled out in the middle of the run. Aidan was upset, but I reassured him we found the fish we need to catch.
So we worked the tip back and forth for the last half hour catching a 10 lbs king on a diver and then we turned back towards the west to do it again and that was when we doubled up. Both divers. One out 325 on 3 setting and the other out 280 on 3 setting. Bother were bigger fish, I pull my fish in rather quickly at it weighs roughly 15 lbs and I toss it back to help Aidan with his bigger fish. Aidan manages to bring the fish in all on his own and I just steered and cleared the rest of the rods knowing we were packing it up once we were finished with this fish. We get it to the met and it’s a fish around 20 lbs.
I said we have a bigger fish in the box, but he insisted on weighing in this fish as well. He wanted to feel like he accomplished this fish on his own and brought something to the scales. So in the box it went.
We docked the boat and loaded the fish in the cooler and made our way to Grimsby Tackle to weigh them in. They already have a leader at 24 lbs 8 oz, so we first take Aidan’s fish and put it on the scales. It pulls the scale down to 20 lbs, and the guys gave Aidan the high fives after I told them it was 100% Aidan to reeled that fish in. The bigger fish we caught first thing that morning was then put on the scales and we looked closely at the needle as the Ahhs came from everyone watching. “Almost! It’s 24 lbs 6 oz- shy by 2 ozs”. Aidan had a long face, but I told him next time we will do it.
Then the guys from Reel Wild fishing Charters pulled up. They had a big fish, Aidan watched in amazement. They put the fish on the scale and it was 30 lbs. The clients they had on the boat cheered and Aidan too was happy to see them enjoying themselves.
We got beat out in the little derby, but we won as the best fishing team in the competition! Thanks for the day little buddy!
Shane Thombs
www.FINtasticSportfishing.com
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