Until that day, however, I'm stuck going back to Joe's Valley, it seems. I love the place. I should think about relocating to Orangeville, but I sort of have a commitment to Dixie State University, so those plans will have to wait for a while.
Anyways, I made my way out there again this Saturday, this time armed with something different than my usual jigs tipped with plastic minnows setup - I had a Lucky Craft Pointer SP65, in the ghost pattern, with me. The thing cost $16 at Sportsman's Warehouse, and I'd bought one a few weeks ago, only to lose it on the first cast. I wanted to see if these lures were all they're cracked up to be.
Well, first cast I throw that Lucky Craft out there, and I can immediately feel it doing whatever I want through my thin 8-pound fluorocarbon. I jig it, the lure falls, then stops - Lucky Craft pointers are suspending lures, they'll sit still in the water. I got it to swim side-to-side, up, down, everywhere.
And on the very first cast of the day, I got a bite. The thing made two really good runs, ripping line off my drag like no one's business. Finally, I got a really nice hefty splake to hand
Most splake in this size range at Joe's are pretty skinny, but this guy filled my hand up pretty nicely.
I continued fishing with the Lucky Craft, and I was very pleased with it for two reasons: 1), the fish were biting it consistently, and the fight was better on that lure than on a jig. 2), I could make the lure have any presentation I wanted, at any depth, and I love that freedom. Instead of needing to change lures to a more sinking lure, or a lighter one, I could just keep the Lucky Craft on and be good. Oh, and since it's a bigger lure, only bigger fish were biting it, which was great.
Pay close attention to that last picture - the fish had gone after the lure, attacking it sideways, as opposed to grabbing it from behind. These splake are aggressive little fish.
Now, in between this fish and the next one, two things happened. I caught a really, really nice cutthroat, possibly the biggest I've ever caught out of Joe's Valley. The thing was incredibly gorgeous, too. Alas, he flopped back out of my hands and into the water before I could snap a picture of him.
The second thing? I got my Lucky Craft lure snagged on a rock. My line snapped, sentencing my lure to a watery demise, and I sat on the shore cursing because for the second time in 3 weeks I'd lost a $16 lure.
So I went back to the tried-and-true method of jigging a plastic minnow and picked up some more fish.
The first cutthroat I got a picture of during the day.
Really pretty coloration on that last splake there.
And, a really pretty cutthroat.
Now, I did land a sizable fish today. I was fishing in the deepest water you can from shore, against the wind, and I'd tossed my jig about 20 feet straight up the shore from me, maybe all of five or so feet off shore. I had the jig about 2 feet from me when I saw a large dark green back come up and attack my jig.
I set the hook, and the fish took off back into deeper water. However, the waves were really doing a great job of crashing against the rocks and pushing everything back towards me, and I was keeping the fish high in the water, so he just got pushed back. As he was almost into shore and my eagerly waiting hands, he decided he had one more fight left in him, swam off, and jumped straight out of the water twice.
Finally, a few seconds later, I got the fish in and a guy who recognized me from this blog (he was fishing just up shore and had come to see what the ruckus was) came and offered to take pictures of my day's best catch.
19 inches long, 2.5 pounds fat. Not a half bad fish at all.
It was a great Saturday, if an exhausting one. Here's to hoping next week's adventure is just as epic.
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