Summer fishing ended after driving 2910 km's for 9 days, 62 hours on the water, a warm monsoon before a cold frost, big winds & waves, starry campfires, a cozy sleeping bag & miles upon miles of hunting for speckled trout.
A report not forgotten, this merely took awhile to get around to. Truth is, play, work, tagged fish and a giant best muskie kinda slowed things some. Not planning to ramble on as much this time, I will say my buddy Mike and I returned to the Nip later in the summer for a second round of fishing there. Mike had his first taste in 2012 and was eager to try the specks again, and I on the other hand was looking to have a very different kind of trip than that which friend Len, my daughter Leah and I enjoyed earlier in the season.
Weather was a real mixed bag this year, to a point that my buddy Stevie later on during the trip opted out on driving from Mattice to join us for the final days. Being just Mike and I we risked getting sick of one another, but that never happened. Speck obsessed, eager as I to fish, helpful, outdoors and fishing experienced, and happy to be aboard the Lund, partnering up with Mike simply makes good sense. He's a good soul. We have fun, keeping things mildly competitive (me more so probably) yet always supportive. Days fly by and this trip especially, as the speckle fishing went beyond.
76 speckled trout with 11 over 6-pounds, 10 over 24 inches and every one of them released. An unforgettable time. One sunny afternoon after morning thunderstorms we boated 25 fish, incredible moments to share. We kept a running fish tally as we went and I pretty well dragged behind the entire time. Trying to close the gap near the end I couldn't, and Mike stayed up 39 to 37 for the trip catching the fattest and heaviest fish by 0.1 of a pound, yet leaving me the only angler to catch any specks over 25 inches. Again though, no matter how we added it all together, it was truly great fishing for us both. Our best 5-fish bag weighed in at 32.9 pounds... that's SPECKLED TROUT!!!
During our tour we also caught and released four tagged fish. After waiting some time to contact the MNR to report on these specks, I was promptly phoned back and had a great chat with a local C.O. who kindly passed along the information on the fish we had released. Below are our measurements for 2013, and also the MNR's in 2012 as, all fish had been caught, aged, measured and tagged then.
Speck 1. Tag #07920. Male age 5. 2013 - 24.5 X 14in. 2012 - 21.9 X 13in.
Speck 2. Tag #07750. Female age 5. 2013 - 20.75 X 11.5in. 2012 - 18.8 X 9.8in.
Speck 3. Tag #07828. Male age 6. 2013 - 23.5 X 13in. 2012 - 20.9 X 12.2in.
Speck 4. Tag #05026. Male age 5. 2013 - 22 X ???in. 2012 - 19.7 X 10.8in. (tag fell out in net and is a souvenir now)
Cool thing is, after talking with the Ministry last week it was reported that tagged fish 07920 and 07828 had been caught and released again afterwards. And, an angler I know had tagged and twice released 05026 in two very different and somewhat distant places from where I had caught it a third time. How I ended up catching this fish is a mystery, but the tag does in fact rest infront of me as I type this.
I have wanted to visit several other speckled trout fisheries over the years, and I probably will. But, being an absolute fish nut who's always hungry to chase the biggest fish of any species, it's hard to argue that any more beautiful and bigger blue halo'd specks could be found more plentiful anywhere else in this world.
Anyways, here's a fish porn load of pics from our trip. Enjoy.
Good Fishin!!!
Bunk.
I'm game at my place... maybe next weekend???
