What a difference a week makes. Steve and I went fishing on Spednic Lake on July 4th. We fished the American and Canadian shores and caught a dozen small mouth bass using top water lures. None were much more than 12 inches long but they were very fat. We went fishing on Spednic again yesterday, July 10th, and had a very different experience.
I fished on top or just below the surface and caught nothing. Cast, reel. Cast, reel. Nothing. Steve quickly switched to a bottom bait and started catching big small mouth bass immediately, probably on the first cast. I changed lures, choosing for color, noise, action in the water, surface, down a foot, anything I could think of. I don’t like fishing the bottom because I get hung up all the time. If there’s a tree at the bottom of the lake, I’ll find and hook it. We spend more time with the trolling motor idling while I fight with an unseen object at the bottom of the lake than we do fishing.
It’s not discouraging to fish for hours and not catch anything. Being out in the boat on a beautiful lake is its own reward. I cast a lot to keep up with the years of practicing I did as a kid. I cast my weighted plug into a Hula Hoop, then a big basket and then a bowl for hours. We watched two American Bald Eagles fly along the shoreline, just above the tree line. Another Bald Eagle flew almost directly over our heads. I didn’t have the camera with me, darn it. While the motor was idling and Steve was reeling in an 18 inch fish last night, a Bald Eagle flew overhead, went about 50 feet past us and turned back to swoop down on a bass that it plucked from the water and landed in a dead tree to eat. You don’t get to see such things often.
