I called BillBob and asked him if he wanted to fishing at his favorite lake in Indiana and he accepted so we agreed to me at Catarrac Lake in Western Central Indiana at 8 am but had a stipulation. We had to fish out of his boat of which I agreed as he hadn't gotten his boat out this year to run and check it out. Having
never seen his boat, I thought what the heck. It couldn't hurt. He had no Attachment 264880problems getting in the boat, and so I launched him. After parking the car, and waiting on the dock for him to pick me up..I questioned why he was more interested in getting into his tackle so I waited and finally got in his boat. Something told me he was pretty excited in fishing, but I shrugged it off.
Temp on the lake water was 64.7 starting out. lake rising tenth of a foot per day, extreme high pressure system with blue bird sunny day 2 days after a severe cold front going thru, very stained water in middle lake area, Lake was down 4 ft from summer pool, but coming up about a Little breeze, and I told BillBob, we could fish any way he wanted to as I was more interested in getting him out for his first day of fishing in Indiana . Anyhow, after finally getting in his boat, off we go to his first spot, and he wanted to jig and "feel the thump" so he finds a old stump bed from long ago, and he puts the Ulterra trolling motor in the water and after making a few casts each, no fish, we move and begin to check out several spots with BillBob finally catching our first crappie. It was about a 9" so we released it and off we go to another spot. Fishing was slow, and in watching the few other boats fishing, we didn't see any other fishermen setting the world on fire, so we decided to try trolling cranks for a hour or so, ended up with only landing a small bass. We decided to go back to jigging/casting and over the years, Billbob has filled this lake with hundreds of christmas trees and stake beds, but over the years they have also vanished, however stumpbeds still exist, and laydowns are scattered and it was such a nice morning, we just hammered away with Billbob catching a crappie here and a crappie there. I have to say, his eye on the Lowrance HD 12" dept finder is keen as he was quick to pick out fish in cover for us to jig. Attachment 264883Attachment 264884Attachment 264885Attachment 264886
We fished a few more hours, and every time we stopped at some cover with fish on it, BillBob would lower the Ulterra Trolling motor after throwing a marker out over the spot to fish and I began to notice, with him running the Ulterra on spot lock, every time I cast towards our marker,,the front of the boat would move me and I would be off the mark by several feet with my cast, but his cast was always near perfect and he would catch 2 to 3 fish more than me. Now I have never fished out a boat with a spot lock trolling motor so I will have to investigate this more, as I am thinking to myself, if this is possible, I may have to get one of these trolling motors with spot lock, as we all love to catch fish. All in all though, it we called it a good day, only catching and releasing maybe 2 dozen crappies on this blue bird sunny spring day, and will come back another day and I will have to pay more attention to that trolling motor to see what he is doing when he has that control in his hands. Word to the wise tho, in our chatting,, over the next week or so, BillBob is heading out on a fishing expedition to visit some of you..I would hesitate to let him run your boat, especially if it has a spot lock type trolling motor on it. He is liable to put it on you like he just did me! :Rofl
