I awoke on 4/24/04 at about 5:30am anxious to hit Blue Lake on the opener. My friend from the coast came over for the same reason but, to my dismay when I woke him up he insisted on taking a shower before we left (what a Nancy boy!!).
Eventually we left, (locking a considerable amount of our gear in the house along with our celebratory cigars!). Driving my noble steed "Old Yeller" with the "Mighty Defiant" in tow, we sped from Moses Lake to meet our destiny.
Finding out when we arrived that the resort launch was closed to the public we headed over to the public boat launch from hell on the east side of the lake. Struggling for about 20 min we finally laked the Defiant.
Shortly after I boated the first fish, a healthy 15" trout and promptly put it on the stringer then proceeded to throw the fish and stringer in to the lake, neglecting to tie it to the boat.
After "Nancy Boy" stopped laughing we fashioned a stringer out of available materials. (after all we ware both ex-Boy Scouts)
A short while later I caught another then another. My buddy wasn't catching anything suddenly he noticed that he hadn't set his drag. Upon further investigation Nancy's gear was hopelessly snagged (Karma for taking that shower). After re-rigging, my partner finally managed to boat a small planter. That was when I noticed (much to my amusement) that he had his trolling gear on backwards!! He quickly rectified this situation, which improved his catch ratio substantially!
A short while later It was Steve's turn to run the trolling motor. Then Bang I hooked into a real lunker. Definitely the biggest trout I had ever hooked in this lake. After a good fight virtue once again triumphed over evil!! It was a Monster Rainbow!! We took it to the Blue Lake Resort and it turned to be the biggest fish of the day so far!! (22"/3lb.9oz.)So they took a picture and hung it up on the wall for all to see.
We picked up my lovely wife and youngest daughter at the rest area on hwy 17 near the lake. She brought us lunch (And our gear that we had left behind.) She is a lovely woman!!
We went back out and finished off our limits and the ladies also, caught limits as well.
After dragging the Defiant out at that !@$#%&*! public launch we went by the resort and my record was still standing!
By the way we used small trolling gear followed by a wedding ring and tipped with a night crawler, but they were biting on everything you could imagine. (even backwards trolling gear HA HA!!)
Good Luck and Tight Lines To All!!
Blain
P.S.
Use the launch at the resort it's only $3 or so. A deal at twice the price!!
B P

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