First Starvation trip of the year.

Well this marked our first trip to Starvation this year.  Jason, Scott and myself have been planning a trip for this week for a while.  We were hopeful that the weather would offer us an opportunity to hit Starvation and things worked out in our favor.  So we got up early enough to make it to Starvation today and be there near time for the sunrise.  Specifically we hit rabbit gulch.

We had Scott worried about temps as we pass Strawberry along the way with all the mist over the lake in the pre-dawn light and temps showing in the upper 30s.  Though as we made it to Starvation air temps were much better and less worrisome.  Anyway Jason ended up being both first on the water and also taking the first fish jinx....  As the day progressed it became very clear what the 'jinx' had in store for Jason... ;)  His cell phone would not stop ringing with calls from work and the bigger fish he had on his line either gave him their middle fin as they surfaced or as they flopped out of his control before he could get them in the basket.  He did end up landing a fair basket of eater perch though nothing as big as the 'one that got away' from him today.

This was Scott's first tube trip ever.  We had a nice opportunity to adopt a caddis round tube for him with the cost of a new inner tube and along with that he had a new pole and tackle bag (with goodies) to head out on his inaugural voyage.  Scott used a second set of fins I had and some other items to round out his gear and we got him on the water without incident!

I was really lazy with the pics today so I only got a few in the first bit of time out on the water...  Anyway here they are:

So as Jason took care of the jinx as mentioned above, Scott and I started to work and see what we could produce.  We worked the area between where the old highway runs into the lake and the shallow rock wall where the buoys are lined up to get things started.  Both Scott and I managed to get a few dink perch to play with us and to get our hopes up high.  As we managed to get caught up with Jason near the rock wall and buoys all of us had managed to put at least one fish in our baskets worth taking home for table fair.

I managed a nice rainbow for my basket and Scott caught his first ever small mouth.  Jason opted to head across the bay to see what he could catch as he crossed, looking for rainbows or browns, and also to see what he might find near the far side.  Scott and I continued to work the rock wall and buoys area.  Well to speed up the story we all caught a few more fish over the next couple hours.  It was not gangbusters at any time really but never too long of a dry spell between fish.  The perch were not showing up in large groups on the bottom so we found them one here and one there, the small mouth were mostly around the rocks as one might expect, and the rainbows were active deep and shallow with many jumping around us as we fished.  The rainbows also were in full acrobatic form today for all those that we had on line.  I think every one jump for us, though many were using that jump to fling our jig back at us.  In the end I think we took home about a dozen and a half eater perch, 3 very nice rainbows, 1 walleye, and a lone small mouth bass.

At one point as all 3of us were near the far side of the bay we had a fellow on his boat, apparently with his wife, decide that he needed to vocally share with the entire population in rabbit gulch his displeasure with how his wife was participating in their fishing adventure.  The whole speech was filled with colorful adjectives for all to.... endure...  Really was poor form on his part to be so loud, profane, and derogatory in my opinion.  That really proved to be the only poor part of the day, well save the few free man made tidal waves a few boats felt they needed to make for us as they sped past our tubes on the water.

I did have one catch that made me laugh...  I was working my jig line near the bottom around some rocks where I had landed a few eater perch.  I had just re applied worms to the jig tips and right as my jig hit the bottom I got an 'odd' tug.  I set the hook and reeled in the line.  Not a fish, but a crayfish was on line.  The surprise was not that it had been interested in my worm sweetened jig but that it had grabbed on so quickly as my jig hit bottom.  I guess that and that hit hung on for the ride up.  I let it ride around in my basket most of the day but chose to set it back as taking one crawdad home just seemed more work then it would justify.

Anyway, it was not the spectacular jumbo perch day that maybe we had hoped for, but it was still an amazing day out on the water.  Scott reported that he had a lot of fun and that was part of the goal for today so a fine and successful day for sure!