"if you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much room"

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

something sounds a little "fishy" to me

Wow, another work week down here in the Black Hills. Monday, our first day off, we were invited to go on another ride with Doug, Rand, Fred and Jan. The weather sounded a little iffy with rain and storms predicted but we are all true "bikers" and wont let a little rain stop us. :-)
We rode for most of the day ending up back in Keystone, SD for some ice cream. We never got wet and had a great time with our new friends.


Tuesday we decided to launch our Sea Eagle Kayak. I wanted to try my luck fishing again and decided that Center Lake in Custer State Park would be the perfect place. Once we got the boat inflated and launched Rudee paddled us around while I was busy casting for our dinner. Unfortunately my luck was all bad and after a couple of hours of no bites we decided to just paddle around the lake and enjoy the view.
We  got the boat wiped down, deflated and back into it's carry bag and we were both getting hungry. On the way out of the park we stopped at Legion Lake Restaurant and had a quick snack of a plate of Nachos. They have a small gift shop attached to the restaurant and they sell some fishing bait and tackle. I found some Berkley Dough Bait for Trout and decided to try that since nothing else seemed to be working for me.
We stopped at Bismark Lake, which is a National Forest Recreation Area that is inside Custer State Park. I had no idea if the fishing was good or bad in this lake but what did I have to lose? :-)
We decided to not launch the boat and fish from the bank instead. They have a nice board walk that extends around part of the lake and have a couple of fishing piers connected to it. There was no one else around and I was beginning to think my bad fishing luck would continue.
I rigged one pole up with a bobber so I could try using my remaining night crawlers and rigged another one up for trout fishing.
Once I got both lines in the water the action started! I was catching Perch like crazy using the night crawlers. They were all small ones though and I threw them all back. Eventually the trout started biting and I got a couple of nice strikes on the other pole. They stole my bait a few times until I hooked and landed a nice size Rainbow. Now that is what we have been looking for! I put the trout on my stringer and quickly re-baited the hook. I needed at least one more so Rudee could eat too. :-)
I kept catching and releasing the perch and finally just before we were ready to pack it in I hooked another Rainbow. Now we can both eat!
Here is the "catch of the day"


Once we got back to the motor home I cleaned the fish and took a quick shower. We had been invited to go out to dinner with our "biker buddies". We met them at the Bull and Bugle in Custer where we sat on the deck overlooking the highway. We had a great meal and enjoyed swapping stories. Fred and Jan will be leaving later this week for their trip home to Texas. We enjoyed meeting them and sharing the highway with them on our rides. Have a safe trip home guys! I'll keep you posted.

4 comments:

  1. Gee, Phil! You are a lucky man to have Rudee paddle you around in the Sea Eagle while you fish. I will have to make sure Maxine reads your blog. I have been trying to get her to paddle me around in ours while I fish ever since we started on the road. No dice! I even told her that if she would paddle one stroke every 3 seconds that it was a perfect trolling speed. Glad you were able to catch a few.

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  2. Glad you had another nice ride.

    I wish you had posted pictures of the Sea Eagle. We are planning to order one. Which do you have? Did you get the high back stiff seats? Any back problems?

    Good to see Rudee will get to eat as well:)

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    Replies
    1. John and Pam,

      If you go to my post prior to this one there are photos of our boat. We did get the high back seats and like them a lot.

      Phil

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    2. Sure is good to hear Rudee got to eat too!.

      Thinking about a Sea Eagle, how long have you hade it and how compact does it get when packed up? Weight?

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