I’ve seen a few strange things happen to other anglers while out fishing on the Prairie Provinces, but on this particular day, little did I know that something strange would happen to me.
We were fishing a tournament up at Slave Lake a few years back and catching the odd walleye here and there but it by no means was fast action. The area we were fishing was a long steady drop off from 12 to 30 feet of water and was about 3 miles long.
My partner Sean set the hook on what looked to be a smaller walleye, and being the good partner that I was, I grabbed the net and proceeded to net his fish.
My first mistake was that I set my Berkley rod and Shimano reel down inside the boat with my line still in the water. After I netted Sean’s fish turned to grab my rod and continue fishing, but to my amazement all I had seen was the back section of my rod and reel being pulled into the lake.
Desperately marking the area with a GPS and dragging heavy cicada lures on the bottom to try to catch the line came with no success. We did catch a few walleye dragging for the rod and reel with the cicada lures but we could not catch any part of the set-up.
I had pretty much given up hope in catching the outfit and proceeded to keep fishing for big walleye instead of a hopelessly lost rod and reel.
Five hours later and towards the end of the fishing day for the tournament Sean sets the hook on what appears to be another small walleye and I again proceed to net the fish. As Sean gets the fish to the boat I scoop it with the net and as I lifted the fish into the boat both Sean and myself noticed that the fish had line tangled around its body. I excitedly grab the extra line and noticed there was an extra set of hooks in the small walleye mouth. So I started pulling line in from the lake and a few seconds later up came my Berkley rod and my Shimano reel on the end of it.
At the time I was grateful to get my rod and reel back but was disappointed that the walleye was not ten pounds instead of 2.
Did we win the tournament, No! But we did have a great time and lady luck was on our side in one form or another. And I still sit back and think about the strange thing that happened to me that day.
Good Luck and Good Fishin’'!!