Back on the pontoon

I know you wanted to hear about Rattlesnake Lake again, right? Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway! After a few outings on foot at Rattlesnake, I decided to spend this afternoon/evening on the pontoon. I was on the water around 3:30-ish, just when the wind was picking up. JOY. A weather front was moving in. Screw it -- I decided I was going to make this a solid outing. Let's just say that I saw ALL the different faces of Rattlesnake Lake. It started out with a medium breeze, sunny and warm. The water was a bit choppy, so I started trolling the G-Willie. A bit of a slow start, but ended up landing a couple of 12 inchers. I switched up to a bugger and landed a couple more in the 12" range. By this time the hurricane arrived, and the sun slowly dissappeared. I hunkered down and circled a small area for a bit, trying to weather the storm, in hopes of calmer water. The rain came, but the water started to calm. The rest of the time it pretty much switched between a light chop on the watter to periods of glass. In hopes of the calm, I already was headed to my favorite spot on on the lake looking for some rises. Still a light chop when I arrived, but, sure as shit, I could still see risers. Never fails at this location. This is definitely my favorite spot on the lake thus far. I won't go into detail here, but I'll give the skinny in person. I tied on my go-to dry fly and started casting away. The water turned to glass for nice long stretch, and there were risers, but nothing taking my fly. I was lulled to sleep by the quiet water and surroundings and I missed the first take at my fly. I saw the next fish slap at my fly, but it missed, or I tried to set the hook prematurely. Hmmm... I wondered if I was going to get one today. There was a hog cruising and rising in the area. This got me focused quickly again. I looked to my right and another bastard jumped clear out of the water. He was at least 18" easy. I casted out. Waited for what seemed like an eternity. Then, I witnessed what was one of the most subtle takes that I've ever seen. It was more like a soft slurp. Luckily I decided to set the hook, because I almost didn't. He felt pretty heavy. He did a lot of head shaking at first, but then... HOLY-CRAP! A firecraker must have went off in his ass because he went flippin crazy. He was taking line off my reel with ease. ZZZZZZZZ....ZZZZZZZ! God, I love hearing the reel sing. Ok, we have a problem. While I was enjoying hearing the reel sing, I neglected to see the stump he was heading directly towards. I immediately said to myself, "You better not hang a left around that stump, you little bastard". Sure enough, he hung a left. CRAP. I kicked as hard as I could to try to get out of the line of the stump, but my line was already leaning against it. Then, everything stopped. No shaking, no pulling line. He must of tangled in the stump, because my line still had tension. Then, nevermind, the second firecracker went off in his ass, and he started ripping line again and I could see smoke starting to form where my line was rubbing against the damn stump. By this time he's taken a good 30 feet of line from me. Fortunately, he went far enough beyond the stump that I could direct him away from it. WHEW! I moved him to open water and made sure there were no more fireworks. He mesured a solid 19" on the measure net. I proceeded to land 2 other trout on the dry, both in the 12-14" range. After that, I was pretty much spent. A nice well-rounded day that contained sun, rain, hurricane-force winds, perfectly calm water, and a little adventure! 'Till next time, -Josh