One to throw back

Fishing opener 2009.
Finds us, (me and my partner Joel) on Comfort Lake at 5:30 am. For once the weather was clear and the sun coming up was a welcome sight. Temp was hovering right around the 40 degree mark, which meant cold fingers for the unprepared (me). Was it worth it? OH yea!!! by 6:30 am we boated 11 walleyes. Awesome!!!! too bad they were all 12"- 14". oh well action was good. By 7:30 we had boated an additional 2 northern pike.
One of which was a aprox 36" er, a good fish. The interesting thing about this fish is that it had been bit by something.......something that thought a 36" pike would make a great meal!!!
We fished till noon with no additional success so we broke for lunch and a opportunity to stretch our legs. We returned to the lake to hit it hard for the the afternoon. The sky had clouded up a bit and the temp was at 50 degrees. Nothing was biting.......But the DNR man. He stopped us to check us out. OOPS! now where did that throwable PFD go, and why did I have 08 tabs on the boat? SHIT!!!!! I felt like a freaking IDIOT! I told him Andrew had taken the throwable out to play in a sailboat in Wisconsin the weekend before and the 2009 tabs were hanging on my cork board in our dining room. He calls in the tabs and verifies that I had in fact had purchased my 09 tabs. Whew! He writes me a warning for no throwable, pulls away and we were back to fishing. A little while later we see Mr DNR man working his way along a stretch of water where I happen to Know it is rather shallow and felt a need to tell him so. So, at the top of my lungs I shouted something to the fact that he should NOT be tearing up the vegetation. He responded that he didn't realize it was that shallow. Not 10 seconds later a loon pops up 10 feet in front of his boat. I couldn't resist in pointing out, (again at the top of my lungs) that HE should not be harassing the wildlife, especially loons.
He laughed, nothing else he could do. It WAS a funny circumstance I had to take advantage of.
Opportunity knocked again a few minutes later when we saw him drifting in the middle of the lake. "Don't tell me you need help"! I shouted. " Yea I think so", he replied. We reeled in and went to lend assistance. His engine had overheated, so we threw him a line and towed him to shore. Along the way, I asked Joel to take the wheel. What you gonna do? Joel asked. Just drive I said as I jumped up on the bow of the boat. I spun around with camera to eye and shouted "Hey You" and promptly hit the shutter capturing or biggest catch of the day. We dropped him off at the boat launch and with a "thanks" from our friendly conservation officer we were once back to fishing. The walleyes started to bite again about 3:00, nothing had changed, all small.
All totaled we caught 15 walleye, 2 northern pike and one conservation officer. All in all it was a GREAT opener. Earlier we had shown him (DNR) the picture of the chewed up northern pike.
His reply was something I will always remember and use as "drive" when I spend endless hours casting or trolling. His response was "Imagine the size of the fish that saw that 36" northern pike
as its food item, its prey".




Check out the teeth marks on this pike.

Joel with his big pike.