I couldn’t wait to guide Granny to my old smallmouth bass water this morning out from our family camp here on New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. But all night long I could hear the west wind picking up speed. At 5 AM, the normally placid Wolfeboro Bay was covered in whitecaps.
I pressed some coffee and got Granny in my canoe by 5:30 anyhow, rigged with a popper on my 5-weight. My top smallie spots are outside Wolfeboro Bay towards the broads but as we rounded the point the wind spun my Old Town canoe out of control. It didn’t matter how hard I dug, there was no way we were continuing. We paddled chaotically back to camp disappointed.
Even the protected Back Bay was screwed by high wind. By mid morning wind gusts were reported up to 30 MPH. There was no sense in trying to fish from the canoe anywhere. We hopped in my dads old F350 with my sister Becky and drove to several small ponds looking for crappie and pickerel. After hours of trying various spots, all we caught were some tiny bluegill and baby largemouth. Serious angling wasn’t in the cards today.
My sister’s family lives in Wolfeboro near my folks. My niece Sierra got out of school at 3. Sierra has been on the blog many times catching fish on her pink Ross Youth Outfit (today she had the luxury of using my 4-weight Winston LS). After a visit with her I could see she was anxious to wet a line so I took her down to the Back Bay docks where we’d be protected from wind.
The Back Bay docks of Wolfeboro hold heaps of warmwater fish species. If you ever find yourself here and you’re without a boat, don’t hesitate to hit these docks. I put on a Chernobyl Ant for young Sierra and watched her go to work.
Sierra quickly figured out casting wasn’t necessary and she dapped her fly off each and every dock. If you want to get a kid into fishing, this is the way to do it because with a set of polarized glasses they can see each fish coming for the fly. And the smaller sunfish species are relentless. Most come until they are caught. Sierra landed a bunch of the non native rock bass that have taken over Wolfeboro and some bluegill and pumpkinseed sunfish.
We salvaged today. The wind was extremely bad. Not only that but temps have dropped to the 60°s. We can only hope that conditions improve tomorrow so Granny and I can get the canoe back out on the water.
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