It finally warmed up enough to venture out an the water for the first time. Warm enough is a relative term. It was 36° when I launched the boat this morning but the promise was for a warm day. Yeah, it warmed up alright...maybe 40° with the wind chill.
Anyway, I launched on the North Channel of the St. Clair River near Algonac.
I headed upstream where other boats were located and set up shop there.
The technique is to vertical jig, bouncing the jig along the river bottom. I used a 1 ounce jig with a rubber "worm", a stinger hook and added a minnow on the jig hook.
It takes a "touch" to get this right and if you're not doing it right, success is limited. I haven't done this in years and was never very adept at it but wanted to give it a try while the river was full of fish. The fishery in the lake doesn't develop quite this early.
It was nice to get on the water again. I passed by Algonac State Park and was surprised at how many campers were there, especially on a Monday.
A few lake freighters passed as well.
Like I said, I'm not the most skilled "jigger" on the planet and my results bare that out. I did get a few and missed a couple. The experienced guys are regularly getting their 6 fish limit.
Nice "eater" walleye. The knife is about 12" long for reference.
So the summer recreation begins. The boat ran well with no problems.
A good beginning. Beats working.
