Norman John Westerhold has fished every year on the Chairman II since 1987. Norm missed last year dealing with leukemia. Norm’s group is here for another Rainy Lake fishing trip. Unfortunately, Norm did not win his battle with cancer. I will write about Norm on my Rainy lake Houseboat Blog.
It has been tradition that a computer made fishing schedule was made each year pairing different members of the group each morning and afternoon and rotating guides also. Joey Dougherty was paired with Doc and Jim; Jon Balaski with Jeff and Scotty, Billy Dougherty had Duke and Jay.
We use both spinning gear and some fly rods on this trip. Mayflies were hatching and bass were gobbling them up in about four feet of water right where the rock meets the clay and gravel bottoms. They were not real interested in flies on the calm shore but hit Rapala Tail Dancers and #3 gold Mepps Aglia spinners with no hair. The Mepps has always been a great smallmouth lure but even more effective during may fly season. Joey moved further from shore so the flies were landing in the four and five foot areas. This worked as Jim caught a19 ½” be-moth.
I fished islands on the windy side with mayflies hatching and carcasses floating everywhere. Duke was fishing a Mepps and Jay a Clackin Rap. The first island was maybe 50 yds. long it took us an hour to fish it. We caught bass, walleyes, and northern pike. There were four more small islands and every one of them had bass, walleyes, and pike going. The Clackin’ Rap was unreal until Jay lost the bait (I won’t say how). We caught up with Joey and he happened to have a couple that he was willing to let us use. Jay was right back at it. It was amazing how the walleyes hit the bait. They never stopped all afternoon.
Jon Fished another bay that did not have a hatch going. Fishing was tougher. Scotty like all Jon’s spots, so much so that he tried to anchor Jon’s boat on each spot with his Mepps!
Mayflies continued to hatch heavy every day. Some areas had a topwater bite going, others it was definitely below the surface. Mepps spinners, tube jigs, Clackin Raps, Tail Dancers all worked well. Bass were using weed rock areas, shoreline between the rock and weeds, points, and saddles.
On Sunday we met at 11:45 and spread Norm’s ashes on the same island as George Schaefer’s. George and Norm used to tease each other about who was going to be in the tackle box first. They are both there now and we miss them dearly.
We fished hard for four days and caught a lot of bass but surprisingly we caught many walleyes on Mepps, tube jigs, and Clackin Raps. Walleyes were in cabbage on points, islands and rock piles. Generally surrounding water was no deeper than 15 feet and most of the time 7-12 feet.