Found a way again to fish midweek and avoid weekend crowds. Just about perfect today with overcast skies, 60 degrees, calm and glassy for the first hour, then an increasing wind ending with some 1' rollers. Only saw two other boats and it was quiet and peaceful.

Have to interject a family story here. About 40 years ago my dad was very excited that Mom was making him his first homemade potato soup. When she served it, he was SO frustrated because he said, "Darn it Phyllis, when you make BATADA soup, you gotta have BATADAS in it!" It was hysterical. So now, I make killer Indy 500 Hoosier potato salad, but of course we all call it batada salad. Last week, I bought a small container of Kroger/Fred Meyer Southern Style potato salad and it wasn't fit to eat. We three spit and hocked and couldn't throw it away fast enough. I spent two long hours in the kitchen last night making sure we had my homemade potato salad for our boating lunch today. We get on the lake at 11am and someone says something about looking forward to lunch....at which point I had an oh sh** moment, realizing I didn't even bring the potato salad! So the entire day was one joke after the other from all of us about how much better this or that would be if we had BATADA salad, or how that our day was no good because there was no batada salad after all. ROTFL.

Despite the disappointing start, the fish were on. We did the extended trout troll 11am-3pm and caught fish left and right for the three hours. Even had a couple double headers. Wise cracks rolled on that one when someone couldn't net for someone else because their fish was more important! It slowed a little in the last hour but what a good day on the water with 19 fish caught and released. We all had many hits that didn't connect and we all lost fish. Of course my largest trout barely got a photo before he slipped out of my hands so we all had a laugh about that. K had 1 bass and 4 trout over the gunnel, P. had 2 bass and 4 trout and I claimed winner, winner with 8 trout caught and released.

We going home to celebrate and eat batada salad.

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