Accomplishing a Long Standing Fishing Goal

For me, one of the most appealing aspects of fishing is the fact that there is really no end to what you can learn, attempt or achieve. There is always a new technique to try or spot to fish. There are species of fish you've never caught or size class accomplishments to pursue.

My list of fishing goals is substantial and every time I think about it, something new seems to be added to it.

I haven't really had a chance to catch my first musky, arctic char or inconnu; fish species at the top of my North American freshwater bucket list. Just recently I boated my first lake trout. Even though it was just pan-sized by laker standards, finally striking the species off my list felt pretty good.

My fishing bucket list also has many size targets for fish I'm familiar with catching. I would love an opportunity to land a northern pike over 20 pounds or a walleye over 10. Hell, how awesome would it be to haul a 2 pound perch out of the water?

Sometimes, my fishing goals are very personal and related directly to things that only I seem to have trouble doing or are specific goals for specific places. 

My very first Bow River brown trout. Reached two goals that day!

One such goal was catching a walleye, of any size, on the lake where my wife's family cottage is located. This lake is supposed to have a decent walleye population but I have never been able to catch one.

And believe me, it's not because I didn't try. Over the past 7 years I had tried everything from bottom bouncing spinner and crawler rigs, trolling crank baits, casting swim baits, slow death rolled worms to jigging weed edges and even drop shotting minnow imitators and swimming buck tail jigs in likely looking spots. You name it, I tried it. The only reason I was sure there were actually walleye in the lake was a dead walleye fry I found while swimming one afternoon and a walleye skull a bird had left on a rock near the cottage.

Well guess what. Last week I finally caught not one but two walleye and one was of pretty decent size! 

I wish I could say I was out targeting them but my friend and I were drop shotting plastic minnows around a mid-lake weed hump that often gives up big bass. A big group of fish showed up on my fish finder so I dropped the rig down vertically on a prayer and immediately got bit. I readied myself to land a big bass but I damn near jumped out of the boat when I caught a glimpse of a big walleye before it barrelled straight back toward the bottom. A couple minutes later I was giddily holding my first walleye out of our little cottage lake.

My first cottage lake walleye

My second ever cottage lake walleye. Not a trophy but
more memorable than the big bass we were catching!

We managed to catch a bunch of decent bass that afternoon, but I really can't remember much about any of them, my memory blurred by the excitement of achieving one of my longest standing personal fishing goals.

A nice largemouth...that I almost forgot about