Elk/Torch – Day 1
Expecting a cluster at the ramp we dumped in immediately when we got there. I think a lot of people may have learned it’s not always best to linger around in the parking lot with the boat on the trailer. At blast off there were still boats launching when we left and we were the 2nd to the last boat to go out.
Calm conditions and a poor number along with the uncertainty of a good spot on Elk led us to call an audible. Instead of starting deep we were going to go throw big topwaters in Skeg wherever we could fit in. It definitely wasn’t going to be the community hole stumps because they were loaded with boats when we got there. We picked an area and started chucking. It took awhile for anything to happen but we were 0-4 on blowups to start the day. Then we caught the next 3, as fast as it started it quit. I was surprised as this time of year they should be munching on topwater all day long. We kept at it and eventually bailed to Elk in hopes some fish were sitting on our good looking areas.
It lead to many hours of what seemed like fishing the dead sea. We ran most of it and finally connected with keeper number 4 in 30 feet on a crib. It felt good to catch one on the dropshot like I anticipated before the trip. We felt it was time to head back to Skeg and find one more. I hoped we could get into the stumps this time. We mixed it up between topwater and a hair jig. It didn’t take long to get keeper number 5 on the hair. Every time I would see a fish it would be similar sized so we decided to go exploring throughout the rest of the lake. We kept a big topwater in our hands but never got another blow up. Back to Elk we went to continue fishing deep but all we could come up with was one more short fish.
We at least had our 5 and hopefully had survived to fish tomorrow. Our 13lbs would put us in 22nd place and we had a lot of confidence heading into the next day. I anticipated there would definitely be some flip flopping on the leaderboard with such a tough bite. We had the added benefit of being the 4th boat out the next morning which was hopefully going to get us off to a quick start.
We had the high hopes of getting out of the weigh in quickly and doing some more fishing on Grand Traverse Bay. However I acquired a screw in my rear truck tire and it needed changing. Huge thanks to everyone who offered help, impacts, and jacks. I had my own 1/2 inch impact for a situation like this and a block in case it was boat tire. I didn’t have a floor jack and we all know bottle jacks can be a pain. Luckily both Niel and Shane had a floor jack and it made my life a lot easier (I’ll definitely be adding one to the truck). We lost some time but did make it to the bay for some fishing. I’m just grateful it was at the boat ramp and not on the side of the road.
