Sunday, October 22, 2017

2017 Oct - Last Fishing Trip of the Season

I can't believe it is fall again and time to close up our camp on the lake.  We did have a beautiful weekend and the weather was more like September than October.  We were amazed at how good the fishing was. The warm weather definitely made the fish active again.
Frank with one of his largemouth bass
Esther with her bass
We also caught a few pickerel. 


I saved the best for last and Frank ended the season with a Bang, catching the biggest largemouth bass of the year!
Frank with a 3-1/2 lb largemouth bass

2017 Sept - Bear Spring Camps

We could not resist going back to one of our favorite fishing camps again.  This camp is located on Great Pond in Maine and it gives us the opportunity to catch Pike.  We only stayed for a weekend and the weather predicted a chance of showers everyday.  One day right after a sprinkle we looked out and saw a beautiful rainbow.  I said this was a lucky sign and it was pointing to where the Pike were hiding!
Let's follow the rainbow!
We headed out to that spot but didn't catch any really big pike. Overall we caught a dozen or so medium sized pike.
Esther with one of her pike
Looks like Frank caught the biggest one of the trip.

Frank with one of his pike
On our second day we really wanted to catch a trophy pike, but we had a very unusual day instead.  We had just settled on a weed bed to fish, when we noticed a boat within our sight with many people and they appeared to be swimming.  After awhile we thought we heard something and sure enough, they were trying to get our attention.  We went over to see what was going on. They had caught a rope around one of their propellers and could not get it free.  They also did not have any tools to help and no one else was around on the lake.
Frank did have a tiny 1" pocket knife which they gladly accepted.  It took them a long time because the propellers were under the boat and they had to take turns going under, holding their breath.  In the process, one young man unfortunately stabbed his hand with the knife! They finally cut through all of rope and went on their way home to get their friend's hand bandaged up.
So much time had passed, we decided to move on to another weed bed.  We had no sooner settled in when a speed boat came across the lake and stopped not too far away.  Again we heard "HELP!"
 I looked over and the older man was all alone and he was trying to paddle his large boat. We pulled up anchor and went over to help.  His engines wouldn't start and he was asking us to tow him, which didn't look possible since his boat was much larger.  Frank tried to help him troubleshoot the problem and that was when the older gentleman realized he had gotten a rope around his propeller! He was able to tilt the motor and I freed the rope so no one had to get into the water.
We could not believe our luck. We have never had to rescue anyone and to have 2 incidents in one afternoon was too much to believe!
By now the sun was setting and we hadn't caught any pike.
I guess we will have to come back and try again for that trophy!
Great Pond sunset and end of our fishing trip