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Date: November 13, 2022 Body of Water: Worthley Pond - Peru, Maine Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous Moon; Full plus five days Boat: amybaby22 With: Alone Target: Trout Time: 8 AM - 2 PM Conditions: Fog, mist, drizzle and some rain showers; mild northerly wind and 45 - 50 degrees. Water temperature 51 degrees (+/-). Sure, it was cold and wet; but the wind forecast was mild, and so this trip was a go! Based on my last trip to Worthley, I knew waders were in order. I'd just top them off with my neoprene StormR jacket, and I'd be relatively oblivious to any rain. And that's exactly how conditions played out! I was alone on the lake, and I started in the south basin, where I'd taken three of the four fish a week ago. My initial spread was the flat-lined J9 Rapala in fire-tiger/trout, paired with a small yellow/black "Bumblebee" Michigan Stinger spoon off two colors of lead. I was close to a couple of previous waypoints in just over 20 feet of water when the spoon-rod jumped; an approximate foot-long brown came to hand. I was off to a relatively quick start! When I circled around, I couldn't help but notice all the bottom-hugging fish off this point in 35+ feet of water. After an unproductive pass along the edge, I moved out into this deeper water and replaced the surface flat-line with a copper/watermelon Stinger presented with seven colors of lead. I spent 20 minutes or so in this deeper water, but didn't trigger any bites. When I decided to pull lines, I intentionally retrieved the seven-core one color at a time, with a long pause every 30 feet. This old Lake Michigan trick paid off, as a bonus brown pounced on my spoon. Still, this didn't seem like a winning formula, and so I headed to the north end of the lake, where I picked up the drop and bounced between 12 and 30 feet of water. I was now fishing with a small Wolverine spoon in fire tiger off two colors of lead, and an F7 Rapala in gold/orange. Each rod jumped, but neither hooked up. Fifteen minutes later, I replaced each presentation with an F11 Rapala in blue and a pink/silver DB Smelt off the light two-color rod. With the floating Rapala, I could also edge a bit shallower, as the low-light conditions had me believe that some fish were active somewhere. Pretty quickly, the F11 (125 feet back) was eaten at the edge of some weeds in about 10 feet, and I landed my third brown of the day. When the faithful F11 got hit, again, in a very similar position, I knew I was developing something; but this fish jumped off. I continued to work with the breeze along the eastern shoreline. The spoon rod got slammed a couple of times, inexplicably not hooking up. I repeated this pass again, but now replaced the F11 with a J9 in copper and orange. At the least, I could tell this bait was swimming properly by the throbbing rod tip; plus, this lure has historically been a rainbow killer. Why not give it a shot? This J9 took the next two fish, both rainbows in the 14 - 15 inch range. One of these was at the very tip of a rocky and weedy bar extending from shore into deeper water. This aggressive fish hammered the bait, hard! The other came on the back-side of an active group of fish that I marked in about 25 feet of water. My spoon rod jumped twice here without connecting; but when the trailing J9 entered this zone, an aerial rainbow attacked. Meanwhile, I continued to swim the pink DB Smelt off the light, two-color rig. The swings and misses revealed some fish, but not all of them missed; I caught three additional browns on this setup. They were all about 12 inches; not big, but mean enough to attack and bend my rod. These came from 12 to 30 feet of water, and it does seem that a fair number of strikes on this lake to date have come on baits heading to deeper water from shallower structure and cover. While the northeast portion of the lake had been productive, I decided to continue trolling the eastern shoreline to the south as my clock wound down. After a couple more misses on the DB Smelt, I was pleased to finally hook up; when I landed Trout No. 8 for the day at exactly 2 PM, I decided to call it a day. What do I have to say about this? I enjoyed the solitude and trouty weather. While I am looking for larger fish, I'll take whatever action I can find, and this was a pretty active day. I am sure that obvious hit-and-runs at least equalled the trout I landed. I lost only one, and I made contact with a lot more fish than in recent trips. I need to add another casting rod to my arsenal; those bottom-oriented fish in 35 - 40+ feet might respond to a blade bait, jig or spoon. P.S. This turned out to be the last boating session of 2022. Weather and holiday schedules conspired to convince me to put the boat away. At least I have a couple of improvements planned for amybaby22's 2023 season. Pondering the questions of core essence and finding meaning in unexpected ways
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