Sometimes the fishing is hard. You use all your skills, favorite lures, hit the best holes, everything that has worked before, and you catch nothing.

Last summer was that way. I had a great spring trout fishing and early season bass was productive, but by mid-June, not much was being caught by anybody I knew. The weather had cooled down and the patterns were crazy.

The last week of June, we rented a pontoon boat with extended family, 9 people tooling about East Twin Lake in Lewiston. It was a beautiful day, albeit cool. We had spin rods and my fly rod, night-crawlers, jigs, poppers and Clouser minnow patterns. Beyond a couple of perch, nothing much was happening anywhere – not deep, shallow, docks, or shore cover.

Towards dinner time, we just let the boat drift and it headed into the shallows. I had seen some fish tailing up in the shallows, but not regularly. There was not much cover, algae, or a major drop off.

I saw one tail about 50′ off the bow. I started my false casts and let it drop – 10′ short. But from experience I have learned that you strip anyway – you never know what may hit. Two strips in and something hit.

As he flew out of the water on a jump, everybody in the boat sat up to watch. Fishing my 6 wt, I could not horse him in, which made for a fun fight. Lipped him to the deck so we could get this photo.

21″ of beauty on a slow day. I can’t complain about that.

And my wife’s comment? “Wow, you really do catch big fish!”

But even without that fish, I spent time with family relaxing on the water. Sometimes it really is more about the fishing than the actual catching.

* Green Sunfish Deceiver from Lost Angler http://www.lostangler.com/blog/?page_id=451