Nice view, Nick!
We arrived shortly after noon on Saturday, got things squared away and I went fishing Saturday evening. I wanted to run some weedlines and find a walleye or two. While I was out I met another guy (local fella) that was trolling the same weedline I was. He has a home on the south end of the lake but was fishing "up north" due to an algae bloom which had the lake looking like a slime pit. He said he thought we were trolling what he judged to be the best area for the conditions (lucky guess on my part I suppose). Anyway, I caught one walleye, which was the only one I saw all weekend! I also caught about a dozen little smallmouth, some small yellow perch and about a million white perch.
Sunday morning I decided to fish another area. I did get a few more lil smallmouth, a few yellow perch, and a bunch more white perch. It was apparent I needed to get away from the algae if I could. It wasn't as bad in the areas I'd been fishing, but was still nasty. Sunday afternoon the whole family went running around and shopping. While up in Mayville, I noticed the water looked to be in better shape than it was a few miles south. So, Sunday evening I made the four or five mile run north and found 'em! Nice yellow perch and smallmouth...the main reason I went to Chautauqua! I caught the majority of them on a blade bait while vertical jiggin. I switched over to that hoping to catch bigger perch, or none at all, and I could cover water and find 'em. It worked fairly well, but eventually the wind switched, and the pleasure boaters decided they needed to continue buzzing by and turning circles right where I was fishing....I coulda shot every stinking one of them! I folded up shop and finished the evening in fairly calm water after running over the the east side.
Monday morning I figured I'd kill a couple hours before the tribe woke up, so I ran back up to Mayville. I found the weedline I'd fished the evening before and dropped the VibeE. Soon as I pulled it I felt a fish hit it. It was a smallmouth of about 10-12 inches. SOB had the bait half-way to his tail, bleeding all over the dang boat. I dug the bait out of his guts and through him in the livewell... I'm a lawbreaker, but the thing was dead anyway. After that, it was all yellow perch. I kept 35 of them. Not bad considering I only fished for an hour and a half!
I had the boat out of the lake by 10am, and heading home by 11. Shortly after getting everything unloaded, Mason started in about going dove hunting, so we did that. He shot the first bird to pass at about 40-50 yards, and I killed the one flying behind it. They were the first and last birds we had shots at. Had a couple phesants feeding out in front of us so that made it a pretty good evening.
Not a bad weekend at all!
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Kids with bluegills = fun. Kids with smallmouth = really fun!
