Dad and I launched the Lowe for the first fish of the spring. I think we laughed more than we fished! Here’s why!
We started at the crack of noon. That was just for our dry land preparation of the Lowe before we could trailer it to the launch. We were forever trying to remember how all the wires connected to the batteries in the stern of the boat. We kept repeating, “Red goes to positive.”, over and over again. The problem was that there were some wires that were both red and black. There was no ‘saying’ for that and the manuals mentioned nothing about these dual-coloured options. When we brought order to the wires, we had to re-learn how to put on the canopy with its sliders and bolts. A couple of times during this display of modern mechanics, dad mentioned,
I know there was something else I did when I was winterizing the Lowe…
By 1pm, we made our way to the launch. We were the only guys there so backing up the Lowe was very easy. Backing up the trailer is always easier without a crowd. 
Within minutes the Lowe was tied down to the dock in all its glory. We began to load the boat with our gear. I could see the fish we were destined to catch in my mind’s eye. I was in the zone!
I was quickly pulled out of the zone when dad blurted,
The plug, Bill! We forgot the plug! That was what I was talking about earlier! Get the trailer back down here!
Water was flooding into the storage area below the floor of our craft. Like Gilligan, I ran to the truck and backed the trailer into the water to save “the Lowe”! Surprisingly, the boat trailered very easily and we had back up the ramp in no time.
I found the plug in the side storage bay and stopped the leak. We lowered it back off the trailer and into the water and by 1:35pm we were streaking across Hunter’s Bay towards the Big East River mouth.
We scouted out the section of water in front of the river mouth. Shallow, underwater sandbars marked its outlet into Vernon lake. Our fish finder was screaming with a series of beeps and chirps that the fish were suspended at 30 – 40 feet. The schooling was unreal. I took pictures of the screen.
The two us looked at each other and muttered we need to get a downrigger. I twisted on the biggest rubber core sinkers I could find and dropped my blue jointed shad rap over the edge. I hooked dad up with a mepps syclops. Both have been deadly in these waters.
After an hour with no bites, dad suggest we stop and jig when the fish finder was full of fish returns. This way we would know that we were getting our lures down to the depth that the Lakers were suspended. When that happened, dad lowered his syclops into the cold, dark water. I quickly let my dissatisfaction with jigging known and began a search for some Gulp minnows I had.
Suddenly, dad had a fish on! I reached for our 100 year old net held together with duct tape and old fish slime. The relic stayed together long enough to bring in the 2lb Lake Trout. We worked so quickly to get the fish out of the net and back into the water that we forgot to take a picture. There were some interesting comments made about that.
By 6pm and with no further bites, we pulled in our lines and gave up the fight. The fish would not come up above that invisible 30ft depth barrier.
They will. When they do, we’ll be there with all of the glitches from the first fish of the year worked out.
Bill Anderson
Muskoka Outdoors
