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Date: November 12, 2023 Body of Water: Sebago Lake - Maine Boat: amybaby22 With: Alone Target: Togue (Lake Trout) Time: 9:30 AM - 3:00 PM Moon Phase: New moon minus one day; waning crescent Conditions: Clear and bright; northerly, double-digit wind calming over course of day and swinging to WNW; 33 - 38 degrees. Water temperatures 47 - 49 degrees F (+/-) . Could I have possibly screwed myself over again? I arrived at the Standish ramp at Sebago's south end only to stare into the teeth of a stiff and long-fetched north wind. This was way stronger than forecast, and so I was a bit disappointed that I would be struggling with the wind again. Still, it looked to be safe and quite possibly, fishable. I had all day in front of me, so I headed north from the ramp. I decided to go as far north as possible to allow myself to ride the wind back and cover as much new water as possible. I'd at least learn during this trip! Mid-way up the lake, a view directly to Mount Washington opened up. On such a clear day, it was a beautiful reminder that I now have the good fortune of living in northern New England! I continued north, until I reached the shallow bar that separates Frye Island from the wester shoreline and that defines the extent of the northern Great Basin from the southern end of the lake. Here, I set my initial spread (full core of ten colors and a downrigger) and started the day's explorations. The graph was relatively devoid of targets as I trolled over new-to-me water. I focused on 55 - 85 foot depths and paralleled a sunken hump topping out at 55 feet. As I crossed the southern extent of this bar and entered deeper water (105 feet), my lure trailing 350 feet back got smacked. The lure was probably over 80 feet of water when it got hit. Unfortunately, the hooks immediately pulled, but this was still a hopeful start to the day. I ended up doing a completed circuit around this bar and repeating this pass before moseying off to the east, but I found no other willing fish. The wind looked to be relaxing and the familiar waters north end of Frye Island weren't too far away, so I pulled lines and headed that way. I set the same spread in about 130 feet of water as I trolled south, over the extent of the sunken bar and through some familiar waypoints in 70 - 80 feet. These didn't pay off, but I continued my meanderings and hooked up (finally), once again over about 100 feet of water with my lure coming across 70 to 80-foot depths. After landing this 20-incher, I replaced my downrigger with the 150 Copper equipped with a white/Bloody Nose spoon. The lead core produced another (small!) togue in similar water, while the copper rig went untouched over the next hour or so. I made the 4-mile run to the Northwest River humps for my final explorations of the day. I reverted back to using the downrigger, but of course the Easter Egg spoon still continued to tail far behind ten colors of lead line. My pass through the entire stretch of waypoints along these humps produced minimal action. The full core went untouched, while I picked up another small togue on the rigger. This fish might have hitch-hiked a ride for a bit as it did not pull the release, but I generally tried to keep the ball 5 - 10 feet off bottom; I had increased the leader length from the ball to about 30 feet. At 3 PM, I was through my waypoints and had a 20-minute run to the ramp in front of me. I pulled lines, perhaps for the last time in 2023. What do I have to say about this? While the fishing wasn't great (was I stuck on previous patterns due to a modicum of positive feedback? Had I not searched shallow waters enough, or indeed, fished shallow enough?), this had been a pleasant-enough session while I soaked in the sunshine. The run back to the ramp was downright fun in glass-calm water, and back at the ramp, I was stricken by an awareness of why it had been such a relaxing day; other than the sporadic call from a loon or gull, it was dead quiet. There was so little human-made noise. I wasn't too far from home, but at this time of year and with Mount Washington looming, this was approaching a true wilderness experience! Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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