NWJ
Norman
John Westerhold has fished every year on the Chairman II since 1987. Norm
missed last year dealing with leukemia. Norm’s group is here for another Rainy
Lake fishing trip. Unfortunately Norm did not win his battle with cancer. I will write about Norm on my Rainy lake Houseboat Blog.
It
has been tradition that a computer made fishing schedule was made each year
pairing different members of the group each morning and afternoon and rotating
guides also. Joey Dougherty was paired with Doc and Jim; Jon Balaski with Jeff
and Scotty, Billy Dougherty had Duke and Jay.
We
use both spinning gear and some fly rods on this trip. Mayflies were hatching
and bass were gobbling them up in about four feet of water right where the rock
meets the clay and gravel bottoms. They were not real interested in flies on
the calm shore but hit Rapala Tail Dancers and #3 gold Mepps Aglia spinners
with no hair. The Mepps has always been a great smallmouth lure but even more
effective during may fly season. Joey moved further from shore so the flies were
landing in the four and five foot areas. This worked as Jim caught a19 ½”
be-moth.
I
fished islands on the windy side with mayflies hatching and carcasses floating
everywhere. Duke was fishing a Mepps and Jay a Clackin Rap. The first island was maybe 50 yds. long it
took us an hour to fish it. We caught bass, walleyes, and northern pike. There
were four more small islands and every one of them had bass, walleyes, and pike
going. The Clackin’ Rap was unreal until Jay lost the bait (I won’t say how). We
caught up with Joey and he happened to have a couple that he was willing to let
us use. Jay was right back at it. It was amazing how the walleyes hit the bait.
They never stopped all afternoon.
Jon
Fished another bay that did not have a hatch going. Fishing was tougher. Scotty like all Jon’s spots, so much so that
he tried to anchor Jon’s boat on each spot with his Mepps!
Mayflies
continued to hatch heavy every day. Some areas had a topwater bite going,
others it was definitely below the surface. Mepps spinners, tube jigs, Clackin
Raps, Tail Dancers all worked well. Bass were using weed rock areas, shoreline
between the rock and weeds, points, and saddles.
On
Sunday we met at 11:45 and spread Norm’s ashes on the same island as George
Schaefer’s. George and Norm used to tease each other about who was going to be
in the tackle box first. They are both there now and we miss them dearly.
We
fished hard for four days and caught a lot of bass but surprisingly we caught
many walleyes on Mepps, tube jigs, and Clackin Raps. Walleyes were in cabbage
on points, islands and rock piles. Generally surrounding water was no deeper
than 15 feet and most of the time 7-12 feet.
