Bad fishing can be a tough pill to swallow, especially if it happens on a trip you’ve been looking forward to for about 364 days.
In 2011, Anthony DeiCicchi and I made our first trip to the Quabbin Reservoir and had such a great time trolling up lake trout and land-locked salmon, we vowed to make it a yearly tradition. This year, family obligations prevented us from making the Saturday opener, but we made an eleventh-hour call to fish it on Sunday. We gathered our gear and left the Cape at 2:30 AM to get there by 5:00 and secure a rental boat.
In our hurried packing, I left behind my favorite spoons and Anthony left behind his common sense appropriate clothing for the conditions, packing along only a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of old waders-turned bibs. Nevertheless, visions of leaping landlocks and bull-dogging lakers buoyed our spirits as we fired up the outboard in the 16-foot aluminum rental boat and headed for open water.
I’ll spare you the details. The fishing was bad and the weather worse. Howling winds and 2- to 3-foot seas (are they called “seas” on freshwater?) made trolling, specifically keeping the lines clear of each other, a challenge. When we finally had a knockdown, our four lines were so hopelessly tangled that I didn’t know if the fish had taken a lure or been snared by the rat’s nest we were dragging through the water column. Just whose spoon enticed the lake trout is still a matter of debate, but Anthony is claiming credit since he hand-lined the fish to the boat.
But without the bad days the good days wouldn’t seem as good, and fishermen get over their disappointments pretty quickly. On the ride home from the Quabbin Sunday night, both of us swore off the place, saying we weren’t sure we even wanted to bother fishing there next year. Today, guess who’s planning an assault on the Q next Sunday?
FYI – wearing waders in a boat is super dangerous.