Pacemaker Fishing Forum

My daughter wanted to up our game and fish at BDR for some bigger fish. Guess she's getting bored with those little smallies at Goose Creek.
Anyway, I purchased a Mad River Adventure 14 canoe and a Malone trailer to haul it.  Today was our maiden voyage.

We got there a little bit after 10am and the parking lot was getting crowded.  Paddled out to the little cove to the right of the launch and my daughter started to cast a crank bait that she left on the rod the last time fishing.  After a couple of cast she blurted out "I think I got something, it just yanked hard", and start reeling in but the line went slack immediately.  She continued to reel it in but the lure was gone, and the next thing we knew a fish jumped out of the water 10ft away.  That thing must have been 2-3#.  She said that's probably the fish that snapped her 4# line and got her lure.  We fished around that cove for a little longer w/o any bite.  We started paddle to another area when my daughter saw her lure floating in the water.  I recovered it from the water and noticed that the knot she tied wasn't strong enough and got pulled off when the fish took it.  I guess that's her lesson learned: need to check the knot often if you're going after big fish  :-)

We fished until just past noon and paddled back to the launch. She caught her first small perch ever today and I got zilch - at least we didn't get skunked.  The canoe handle easily with just me paddling in the back.  I think the trip was success considering we were fishing blindly without a depth finder or knowing where the structures were...