July 16th, 2012: Record setting temperatures and record setting fishing!! It’s been really hot lately and I don’t just mean the weather! Just to put things into perspective, our last group of 20 guests had 30 trophies including a few 29 inch Walleye, a 22 inch Brook Trout, a 38 inch Lake Trout and a 46 inch Pike!!! It’s really makes my day when our guests have the fishing that I know is possible on our lakes and they come back with huge smiles and great stories of the day!
I guided for a couple of days for Brook Trout early in the week, we landed 10-12 Brook Trout both days and combined for 4 trophies including a real nice 21.5 inch Brookie. The water is very high on the river and the current is extra strong so it’s tough compared to most years but with skilled anglers and a realistic attitude towards any kind of fishing really makes a difference. All too often I’ve seen anglers loose faith and give up before every method or spot has been tried. One fish can make a huge difference in a day when it helps define what the fish are doing and how to catch the next bunch. I was really happy to have the right anglers with me for Brook Trout, they were happy with one beautiful Brook Trout and over the moon with the 20 plus that we caught in the 2 days on the river.
I spent another 4 days guiding on Bolton Lake with another group of anglers who had some of the best fishing of their lives! One of my guests has been fishing for 70 years and he landed his biggest Pike ever this past week, we were all very excited when that big Pike got close to the boat! It was nice to be out on the lake with the extra hot temperatures, any time we wanted to cool down a bit, we just changed spots. We’re not used to seeing temperatures in the 90’s up here so I think it was felt by my staff and I more than our guests.
Specialty Sports Tours (a fishing group from the Chicago area) has been fishing with us since 1995 had an incredible week this year! The group of 20 anglers had 30 trophies which we’re sure is their best week ever! Another true testament to catch and release fishing, I guarantee if we were killing our trophies over the past 20 years there is no way this group could say that the fishing is better this year than it was back in the mid 90’s!
Again, almost all the following pictures are from Bolton Lake over the past week to 10 days, there are a few from Aswap and Joint Lake plus a few from a bit earlier in the season that have been emailed to me more recently.
