There’s No Better Feeling: The First Fishing Trip After A Long Winter

The forecast had looked good for the weekend ever since we first checked it Monday morning. It stayed that way, day after day, as Saturday approached. Sunny, 17 degrees and minimal wind – the kind of weather combination that is rare during the month of April. It always seems like you might jinx the day if you make solid plans, but we risked it anyways and planned to meet up with family at the boat launch early Saturday morning.

Like all good plans, there’s going to be a kink somewhere in the day. After we just about called the day off due to an electrical issue (our fault, easy fix) before we even got the boat out of the shed, we made it to the launch only a few minutes behind schedule.

After launching near the middle of Francois Lake, we headed as far east as we could. There was still ice near Uncha Creek, so that’s where we fished – what a nice change to be fishing alongside the ice rather than on it. The sun was shining, the lake reflecting a perfect mirror image of the shoreline; for mid-April, you really could not ask for a better day.

The fishing started off a little slow, so we fired up the Sea-B-Que and grilled up some moose burgers (a side note that I’ve said multiple times and I’ll say it again: a meal cooked outside, whether on the barbeque or camp stove, has no comparison to food cooked at home. So. Much. Better.) The last bites of the burger were interrupted by that tell-tale tick of the rod – tick, tick, tick… but, we weren’t quite fast enough! That’s all right, we’ll redeem ourselves on the second chance. Oh, scratch that. Line snapped.

They do say that the third time’s the charm, and that was what happened. I reeled in a nice lake trout, not very big but perfect eating for dinner, with some left to share and some to put in the freezer for future meals. There was one more bite after that, but that fish lived to see another day.

A beautiful day of fishing, and a perfect way to get back out on the water after a long winter. The paddy wagon FST and blue apex attracted a lot of attention underwater for an eventful afternoon of fishing, and we headed back to the launch full of ideas. How long would it be before we get back on the water again? When will the ice clear all the lakes in the area so we can explore some of the smaller ones? One thing is for certain, we came home feeling very lucky to live where there are so many different opportunities for fishing at our fingertips. There’s no better feeling than that.