Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Hard Day’s Work

I’ve been a small business commercial lender for almost a year now and Friday had to have been one of the toughest days I’ve had.

A client of mine owns Lake Effect Lures and we’ve become friends. He is a hard working father of 3, a fine Christian man with a love for the outdoors and a generous spirit when it comes to getting others excited about enjoying God’s good creation.

We hit the river I grew up on and had quite a day. We used only his lures, starting with his newly introduced paddle-tail, which turned a couple good fish early, and catching our fish on his finesse 3” “Feisty Fry” in translucent colors that looked quite real in the clear water. I lost an awful lot of lures in the wood but he assured me we had plenty but I swear if I’d have been more cautious in my casting I’d have spent more time with my line in the water and caught more fish. There were plenty to be caught!!

He caught one first as the sun was hitting and warming very cold water:



Next came a hole that was the highlight for the day. Matt caught this beautiful buck as I was tying a new lure on and I heard him hooting and hollering as he got him:



This guy knows this stretch of river, knows where to make his casts, and… this is a key that I needed to get used to… he knows how to keep calm when a big fish flashes and comes for the lure, slowing down to let the fish suck the lure in before setting the hook.

I fished that hole some more and a HUGE hen Matt swore was bigger than that gorgeous buck, came out and hit my offering. I had her for a split second and then she was gone! This was to happen a couple more times… there were a lot of big fish in this stretch and i couldn’t help but yank my lure away from them as they flashed from the deep!

I was finally saved from the skunk when a nice little hen followed my lure as I brought it out of the depths. I love the color of these fish they’re stunning:




I never thought about soft plastics for trout until I met Matt and was a little skeptical but once I gave it some thought it makes a lot of sense. The limitation with all the stuff I’ve always used for trout is the same… rapalas, spinners, spoons… they require speed for action, so rise right out of the strike zone. But these soft plastics are weighted and configured action-wise so you can give them slack line and let the current give them action, leaving them in the strike zone longest.

At any rate I’ve got a tough job I’m sure y’all feel badly for me 🤣 .

Looks like a fun day.

Nice looking fish. Don't appear to be hatchery stock either, as the fins are perfect.

It is hard to not overreact when one sees a monster coming up. Envious here.

Nice trip looks like it was fun. Plastic s are made for a lot of trout fishing. They have eggs to trout worms to a bunch of others.

Plastic has come a long way in trout fishing. Atomic teaser tubes , Berkeley trout worms , Trout magnets and Gulp minnows carch 85% of my trout anymore. Only hard lures I keep in my bag are a couple Joe flies, Rapala countdown, couple small spoons and Super dupers. Good looking browns

Right on Ernie !!!

Whole lot to like there !

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