10_11_13 Pigeon w Bly

[bassnass]

Alright, so I'm trying to get into the swing of things here. This report is going up in chronological order (as related to the previous, and the next...) and is in slightly more timely fashion than my first bloody attempt! This time... I'M GONNA TRY PITCHERS!!! - I mean, pictures.

 

As a non-boater, I'm always looking for opportunities to fill a spot in a boat, and the OFC community afforded me that opportunity. Bly saw my desperate pleas to go fishing and o-'bly'-dged me with a day of fishing on Pigeon - targeting some big toothy critters! This was much appreciated, as I had had plans to fish BOQuinte all w/e that had fallen through (I was thoroughly depressed, as a result!)

 

I met up with Bly early in the mornin and we hopped in her van and headed northward. It was a BEAUTIFUL mornin' - especially being the middle of November!

 

 

It was a little nipply, in the mornin' but we were bundled up.

 

 

We got launched, got to the first spot and started to beat the water.

 

 

 

No follows, no action, we started fishing our way from south to north and made it all the way to top of Boyd - where, in the middle of NOVEMBER it was getting warm - warm enough for an algae bloom!

 

 

 

Up at the North end was where we encountered the only action to that point in the day - saw a couple of big fish jump. Don't know what they were. Never found out. We weren't getting any follows. I thought maybe we were fishin' to fast - calm, bright day... so were tried to slow down a bit as we started to fish our way South again.

 

 

We decided to head way South amd hit a couple more spots before the end of the day - I fired up the big motor and started to cruise down the lake. Suddenly, the motor started to sputter a bit. I looked at Bly and asked if that was normal - she said 'No...don't kill it!'. Still more sputtering, and now the motor was enveloped in wisps of smoke. Bly asked, 'Is it pissin'?' And it wasn't. Before Bly could even say, I shut 'er down and we were a dead duck in the water. Awesome. Bly was already makin her way back and I let her at it.

 

 

There was no obvious blockage at the intake, so Bly made a couple calls. Not much we could do in the middle (we could not have been further from shore in any direction) of the lake. Plunked in the trolling motor and started to crawl back to shore (with intermittent short bursts from the main motor, until it got hot to the touch). Our original plan was to head toward the launch, but it soon became evident that fighting our way into the (albeit light) breeze with ever-decreasing juice was a fool's errand. We made the call to head directly for shore - the nearest and lee. And were hopin to be lucky enough to make that! Makin' the best of the worst, we embraced the luck of the amazing weather and dragged a couple of lines. We must have been doin' one mile an hour and our 'slow down' theory must have bee right. Bly hooked a decent little musky! Lost it boat side.

 

 

So, cool(!), a bit of excitement. Another little ray of light.

 

After a bit longer, I stopped draggin' my musky bait - thought it was slowin' us down! So we were both draggin wee baits now, but there was no more action to be had before we finally made land at Pigeon Lake resort.

 

And a bit more luck - there was a fella on shore willing to give me a lift back to Bly's van. He was doin' some lake-side chores and it just so happened that paddlin over in our boat, we could aid him better than what he was able to do from shore. We gave him a hand, and he gave me a lift back to the van, whilst Bly paddled over to the beach. Yes, beach. We had bone-dry batteries and didn't want to try paddling to launches we were 'told' were there. Apparently, we were right between two. Of course. Anyway, I made it back, and made it back, and backed into the beach until the muffler bubbled and waded in to the nice warm water to hook up the boat.

 

Bly encouraged me by strippin' again. Fishin' with girls is better than fishin with guys, a lot of the time.

 

 

At least Julie was having a wonderful day.

 

So, this amazing beach had a patch of grass...I thought 'Great - maybe traction.' The beach also had a one foot lip. Trippin' hazard while swimmin', vehicle trap when towing. Nice. I put a couple rocks down to ramp the lip - 'cool, let's try this'. Didn't matter. We just about bottomed out LONG before we got the lip. Not wanting to rest the van completely on the axles, I stopped muckin' about, and again, called on the aid of strangers. Luckily, there were shore-homey's there, so I called out "ANY OF YOU GUYS HAVE A TOW STRAP?!!" (Like my Lloyd-style yelling?). They seemed hesitant at first, but it was just that they were baked (I realized later ) - things were just takin' a minute to process. One of the dudes sauntered over and said he'd bust open his emergency kit for the first time. Boom. Tow strap. It was cheap, and I was worried, but it would have to work. I guide him back (no jokes please) and bent down to hook up (again, save the comments). I removed my glasses and blutooth and set them on a patch of grass - didn't want the stuff fallin in the sand - I HATE scratched glasses, and sand and electronics seldom mix well. Strapped on now (shut it) we hopped in our respective vehicles and miracle of miracles pulled on outta there! Momentary scare when dude (unfortunately did not catch friend's name) got confused about which peddle to use - no harm though, just really took up some slack fast, instead of stopping.

 

Great. We're out - thanks to a little help from our friends.

 

Strap the boat down.

 

Pack up.

 

Go back to grab my glasses and blutooth.

 

 

Perfect. I was so careful to protect my schtuff...careful to somehow run the schtuff ova.

 

Ah well, it was a beautiful day.

 

 

And the fishin'? Just the one that got away...

 

 

All in all, it really wasn't a terrible day. Just eventful. And educational (experience IS the best teacher, no?) My blutooth actually still worked - Jawbone - buy one. Later I went to replace my $50 shades, and managed to get two more pair for free! Karma...it pays.

 

Bly was a pleasure to fish with - great company - a new friend - and she's quite knowledgeable - taught me a thing or two about fishin' in the dark from shore - THANKS CAROLE! Perfect cap on a way-less-than-perfect day!

 

[bassnass]

Well that sucks. The titles I put on the pix in photobook...sorry, photobucket, didn't come up in the report. How do you get the captions on the pix in this report. argh.

Edited November 25, 2010 by LincolnG

[Headhunter]

Good report Lincoln... and it appears as though no pigeons were harmed in the making of this report!

HH

[Bly]

Nice write up Lincoln...I will have to be more careful about taking layers off when you are around with your camera LOL Despite the motor trouble, it was a nice day out with good company. Perhaps next time we will have more fish pictures.

[bassnass]

I like that idea!

[Joey]

Well that was an entertaining report. Glad to see you both made it out and looks like a new friendship has been made. That's more important than anything else

 

Joey

[bassnass]

Thanks Joey - and Joe, yeah, no - no pigeons hurt a Pigeon. Wrong weekend ;P

[spincast]

That actually sounds like a great day - you guys will be laughing and telling that story for years - as friends.... It aint about the fish we (don't)catch - it's the fishin'

[glen]

Thanks for the report. So it was pretty uneventful then.

[bassnass]

Thanks!

 

So - seriously...photo captions - how does that work?

[Roy]

Thanks for the great report! As for the captions, you add them to the pics in the thread that you post.

[bassnass]

How?