My wonderful wife, Boni, got up with me at o'dark thirty to spend a morning fishing with me at Tye Lake in Monroe. Arrived at the lake at 5:30 AM... already a couple of fishermen making their way down to the shoreline. Temp at the outset was 49 degrees, cloudy with not a hint of a breeze. Water temp at the shoreline was 64 degrees. Started out with nightcrawlers under a float on Boni's rig, Power Eggs on mine... pink on one (4' leader) and chartreuse on the other (6' leader). Ten minutes in, Boni's float began to move to the left... then was violently jerked under the surface... fish on! She reeled in a feisty Rainbow of just a tick under 13". In the next half hour she had a half dozen bites... every cast... and reeled in another Rainbow of 12"... meanwhile I hadn't had a tap on the PE. I may not be the sharpest blade in the drawer, but I can figure out when something is working well. I switched one of my rigs over to a float, and immediately began getting hits too. Tried other PE colors and leader lengths, even Power Dough, but did not have a hit all morning. The nightcrawlers were the choice this day... the trick was hooking the fish as they slurped the worms. Lost literally dozens of fish on the way in. I had a bit more success than Boni, having fished with floats many years, was able to set the hook more adroitly than she. I had my five fish limit by 8:30 and stood by while she finished hers, by 9:30. One of the last she reeled in bore the unmistakable marks of an Osprey's talons on it's sides... lucky to have escaped the Osprey, but fell prey to my wife's angling skills. While I was a bit more successful in landing the Rainbows, for some reason she took the prize in catfish (a.k.a. Brown Bullhead) fishing. I was surprised when, about 8:00 her float slipped under the surface and she reeled in a fine catfish of about 12"... in the next hour she repeated the trick and reeled in two more. I love catfish "fish and chips", but this day we released all three unharmed. Do not know why they targeted her worms and didn't touch mine? We had our limits and were on the way home by 10:00.
All morning, more and more anglers arrived to try their luck. At one point I counted twenty-four fishing the south end of the lake. Saw lots of fish landed, most of them fishing worms under floats... very few caught on Power Baits.
A great morning out with my wife... most of the Rainbows we caught were in the 12" to 13" range, only a couple at 10" to 11". Spent a little time in the kitchen in the afternoon putting together "Tasty Trout Cakes" for dinner... a wonderful way to end an excellent day! PTL!

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