I went out on a charter trip with A-Able Fishing Charters and Tours with my wife this weekend. We were supposed to fish the afternoon bite for Lake Trout on St. Patrick's day. As we were leaving our motel room to meet Mike, we were greeted by several inches of wet heavy snow that wasn't there when we went to breakfast earlier that morning. Looked like we would be fishing in the snow again as we did last year at this time when we brought our own little boat up for some fishing. Mike called us as we were picking up sandwiches and sodas and said that in 4 hours of fishing they only had 2 fish on the boat and the barometer was still dropping. He offered us the morning trip the next morning or to come tough it out in the snow and the choppy water. We have fished Flathead in the snow and it is wet and cold so we opted for the next morning. Back to town we went for lunch, a movie, dinner and a very nice stay at the Hilton on the south end of town (reasonable prices for a great room.)

We awoke to a cool clear day with the barometer on the rise. Susie and I met Mike at the West Shore State Park ramp at just after 8:30 a.m. where he already had the boat in the water and the cabin warmed up. Mike had Rick, a local free lance writer, with him to do an article on the excellent early spring Lake Trout fishing found on Flathead Lake. In the early spring there is often a chance at a trophy Lake Trout as they wake up from their winter slumber and start feeding heavily on the lakes forage fish. Mike let me help run the deck as the trip was a fishing/teaching trip for Susie and I as we wanted to learn how to fish down riggers as well as how to catch Lake Trout. We fished Worden's Mag Lips in both the "Fin Clipper" and "Winner" colors on the down riggers and then ran a Worden's Flatfish T-50 in Luminous on 30# steel line straight out the back.

It took about a half hour after we got the spread in the water before we had our first take down on one of the down riggers. After that first fish, we had a fairly steady pace of singles and even 3 doubles to keep us busy and laughing while catching our way to a total of 13 fish to the boat and 3 of those released to fight another day. The top fish of 29" and almost 7 pounds was caught by our journalist on the one time I offered to let him fish and have Mike take the pictures. It made my day to see the smile on his face and to send him home with a little meat for the table.

With a total of ten fish cleaned by Mike for the table and the learning experience we got from fishing with A-Able Fishing Charters and Tours http://aablefishing.com/ we were quite impressed with our trip. We can not wait to get back up there again with our boat to try out the techniques we learned and get our chance at the Flathead Monster of A Lifetime!

And Mike, we will be back to fish with you again!

Jay

P.S. We are a little light on photos this trip since we had Rick on board taking lots of pictures of us. Here are a couple for your viewing pleasure and I will post a copy of the article as soon as it is published.

Susie and her first Lake Trout of her life.


My first laker.

[SIZE=4]NICE
Ive only done one charter fishing trip here and had a great time too.[/SIZE]

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Glad you guys had some fun. Let us know how them Lakers Cook up for ya. Stryker

They turned out really good just fried. Not really fishy tasting and really moist. I have 3 to smoke when I get home.

Jay

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Here is where I came There is where I went Home is where I want to be!

Nice lakers!

The wife and I have been up a few times since the start of the tourny, but no luck with the lakers. She caught a 24" bully once, that's been it.


Pyro

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Fishin and Huntin, that's my life.

Pyro