My Mom and Aunt were planning on heading into Burlington on Tuesday, so I asked them if they could drop me off at the Burlington Fishing Pier (per FlyPredatorVT’s suggestion). When we arrived, it was a beautiful 50 degrees out with a light southwest breeze. The barometric pressure was on it’s way down before Wednesday’s storm and I had high hopes that the fish would be biting. I jumped into my ice fishing bibs, slid into my winter boots and threw on a jacket. I knew that 50 degrees on shore means more like 40 on the water this time of year, so extra layers were in order. I grabbed my rods, one 6’ 6” Medium action (for big spoons and stickbaits) and a 6’ 9” Medium-Light action (for small spoons and plastics), my tackle bag, and my net and headed for down to the water. I have never fished off from the pier before and was surprised to see that it was a good 8 feet above the surface of the water. Thank goodness I brought our big extendable boat net or I wouldn’t even be able touch the water!
The first lure to take to the air was one of my favorite early season spoons for lakers, a 3/4 ounce red and silver Dardevlet. This would’ve worked great if I wasn’t standing so high above the water. Even if I let it sink almost all the way to the bottom on it’s initial descent, the spoon would work it’s way back up to the surface only 1/3 of the way into the retrieve. I made a couple more casts with the laker slayer, before changing it out for a good ol’ fashioned silver Kastmaster. With the spoons hydrodynamic shape, it would sink rapidly on the pause, allowing me to keep it at a comfortable running depth. After I lost confidence in spoons, I switched to deep diving stickbaits, such as Deep Husky Jerks, to no avail. I had been fishing for two hours now and knew that I needed to make a change.
I had a tube jig all rigged up and ready to go, so I put that on my ML rod to try dragging bottom. Maybe there was a lazy smallmouth just sitting on bottom, waiting for a meal to land right in front of his face. I moved towards shore and directed my casts parallel to the giant steel seawall. The wind ended up taking my first cast right into a tree and as I was attempting to get it out, an older fellow approached me and asked if I had caught anything? “ Nope, just the tree,” I replied as I snapped my rod tip, dislodging the Gamakatsu hook from the branch. The plastic made a SLAP as it shot into the water at high speed. He asked me what I was fishing for and that started our two hour long conversation about our favorite fishing spots and stories. As we talked I continued to make casts, varying my distance away from the wall. My technique was simple, just flick it out there, let it sink to the bottom, and hop it back, making long pauses every so often. While I got hung up a couple times, having the jig head completely surrounded by plastic allowed me to break it free of the snag with just a swift sweep of the rod.
About 30 casts into fishing this spot, I felt my lure stop dead as if it had fallen into another crevice, only this time, the crevice fought back. My hookset was wimpy, I’m not gonna lie. I hadn’t had a fish slam my bait for over 3 months and I acted like I was trying to pin a size 14 hook into the roof of a bluegills mouth. Within seconds my rod was doubled over and the fish started pulling drag with big headshakes. I asked Jay, the gentleman I was conversing with, to go down to the end of the pier and grab my net. My throbbing rod and ticking drag had drawn the attention of two other anglers and they started walking over to see if I needed any help. After a minute of fighting the fish, I saw it’s faint outline in the cold tinted water. With white accents on its fins and a long slender body, I knew that it was a Laker!! Jay returned with my net and reached over the railing. The end of the net just scratched the water, not quite deep enough to safely net the fish. He quickly handed it off to one of the other guys (Kyle) out there who had longer arms. By this time the Laker was tired and was slowly pedaling on top of the water, trying to get away. I gave the line a little tug and turned the fish’s head into the net. The rest of his body flopped into the net once Kyle began lifting him out of the water. I wasn’t able to appreciate the size of the fish until she was hoisted onto the cement pier. She was long, somewhat skinny, and had beautiful coloration on her back. I removed my tape measure from my bibs pocket and laid it on her. Thirty and a quarter inches long! “Thank you God.” I had landed the first Master Angler fish of the year.
A special thanks to Jay and Kyle for aiding in the capture of that fish, I couldn’t have done it without you, especially since the jig popped out in the net! Thank you Kyle for being my photographer and net man! I hope that you enjoyed the fresh caught laker, Jay, and thanks for the company! I hope to see both of you on the water again sometime.
