Santee Lakes Opening Weekend (11/2)

[Latimeria]

Well, I never hit an "Opener" of any sort because it usually gives me anxiety but I'm still looking for employment and I needed to try and do something to keep my mind off of things.  I called up Squatch and he was happy to come down and give it a shot.  The opener was Saturday, but he had a Mead festival to go to and I wanted to see where the fish were being caught before we went.

I took a bike ride around all of the lakes on Saturday and only saw 5 fish caught.  4 were lightning trout that were flossed or snagged by the local trout rats and the place was PACKED!

I got the gear together and met up with Squatch at 5:30 am to hopefully score some Lightning and Steelhead!

I had no idea where to set up except we needed to just get any spot that was close to where they dropped the fish in.

Lets just say it was ssssslllllloooooowwwwwwww....

It was super fun hanging out with Steve again and shooting the breeze.  We finally had a shot when they moved through, and we either couldn't get the hook to set or just have them unbutton in the thick grass.  Well, I had one on that only made it halfway in.  In other words, we were 0 for 5... Squatch was 0 for 3 so he won that battle.  hahaha 

He was getting hangry so he rolled up and got a piping hot and fresh burrito from the grill.



Basically, we stayed until 11:00 and didn't get squat.  We didn't even see a fish caught except for two people that walked by with one fish on their stringer each.  I did find someone down the lake that was hiding his two steelhead however and figured I would head to his spot in the afternoon if it was open.

Squatch cruised by the house and checked out the new Fossil Shed.  I would have had a beer with him, but I quit drinking, so he headed back to the dense jungles of Vista.

.. forward to 3:30pm.

Lakes were crowded as sh!t still!  WTF?!?!

Luckily the spot I wanted to hit was open.  The spot where Steve and I were fishing in the morning were nuts to butts and no one had a single fish on a stringer.

I was texting Steve when I had a few hits.  My worm was getting crushed or cut up.  I didn't see any turtles but was trying to figure out what was chewing it up.



I then see the rod bend over.  No drag being taken, but the strike indicator was floating in the water so It should be a fish.  I kept the rod low and acted like I was stuck in weeds.  I started to think I had a big turtle on when I saw a bright flash of yellow!  I had it close enough and I think it didn't even know it was hooked because it never threw any water but lazily swam in a half circle.  I crouched down and slid the net to the water's edge and got the net around him.  I instantly stood up and walked to the back of the truck for a quick picture and stuff him into the cooler as not to alert anyone.

I didn't have a scale but was probably 4.5 pounds (or more).  I originally thought 4, but realized it was bigger than I realized in all the secrecy.



I walked back down and recast. Soon as I looked up, I saw a dude staring right at me and didn't stop staring.  f@ck, I know he saw me.  I could tell he wanted to walk over, but he had a lot of sh!t with him and I think he just stayed because he had too much crap to move.

Every person walking by asked if I caught anything and kept saying "Nope, not today. Slow day for sure".  That one dude down the way kept looking over, but the clock was ticking and they were going to throw everyone out at 5:00 anyway, so I was feeling pretty good.  I made sure to text Squatch a pic. 

Well, it was time to go and apparently that one guy wasn't the only person to see me catch it.  Long story short, but I had an "Even-Steven" day and everything evened out in the end!  I know where I'm fishing in the morning...

[jrodda]

Sasquatch sighting....nice lightning to open things up! Still another month before any plants around here.

[sasquatch]

I had a great day despite the slow fishing. It was great to hang out with you again.
The museum is impressive.