Lost an Old Friend Last Night :(

Now that I have a new boat it was time to get rid of the old one. What a great boat. I hope my new boat treats me half as well. I sold her to a nice retired gentleman who says she will spend most of her time relaxing in Nebraska next to Lake McConaughy. Not a bad way to pasture. Diane and I and a friend of mine all caught Colorado master angler Lake Trout from my old boat. Really feel I became a seasoned fisherman with that boat. Bitter sweet day. The saying goes the best days of owning a boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Well those people didn't have this boat, or they would know that saying is only half right.

Finally a keeper Walleye!

The weekend of 6-24 I decided to stay home and fish Chatfield for Walleye. The Walleye bite has been good end of June/early July in the past. Diane decided to stay at home and sleep in for once. Walleye were stacked up on the road bed. I think I caught about 10-12 and 2 big Rainbow Trout as well. One Walleye was 18", just big enough to keep. I also kept one of the trout so we would have enough fish for dinner. I filleted the Walleye and deep fried it. The trout I pan fried in bacon grease from Diane's breakfast. I forgot just how good Walleye is! Going to try for some more soon.

Friday night after work UPS delivered my new 3 bank battery charger. Got it installed. Two banks for the two trolling motor batteries, and one for the starting and fish finder battery.

New Boat!

My 1994 Tracker Pro Deep V 16 has been an amazing boat. I have had my 16' for about 5 years now. Never once did it not start or let me down. The 16' was my first boat to really use a lot. I learned a lot about boating and fishing with this boat. Getting a new boat is bitter sweet. But it is time. My 16' has been going hard for 23 years and deserves a break.. from me anyway hah. The main reason I decided to get a new boat was just to get something wider. The older Tracker boats are kind of narrow. The newer ones are about 8' wide! way more comfortable to fish out of and more stable too.

Friday the 16th I picked up my new 2017 Tracker Pro Guide 175 WT. It's 17 feet long and 97" wide. I upgrade the motor to a 115 Merc. I also had Bass Pro upgrade the trolling motor and fish finder. The boat now has a 24v 80lb Minn Kota Terrova with 60" shaft and a Humminbird Helix 12 with down and side imaging. Within 14 hours of picking up the boat Diane caught the first fish out of it, I followed with the second shortly there after :)

WAT?

Granby 6-9

I feel like ice off and July are big fish months at Granby. This year I can't spend all week at Granby so I'm trying to go up every weekend. Going on the weekend makes it much hard to get a camping spot at Stillwater.. basically impossible. This weekend I tried just finding a spot on the waters edge and camping. This works fine when only fishing for two days as I don't need to charge the trolling motor batteries. I threw all my stuff in the boat and found a nice spot in Grand Bay to camp. I basically just set up my camp stove on the shore and slept in the boat. Sleeping in the boat was awesome. I slept really well. The only downside is waking up at 5 am to go fishing and first thing having to deal with all the bedding and the bimini sides in the boat. Still beats sleeping in a tent on the ground imho.

Saturday was so windy that I only fished from about 7 am to 9 and only caught 3 fish. Then I setup camp and took a nap on the boat till about 1. Fished from the bank for a while and caught my first brown trout from Granby using a husky jerk :). Sunday was better, way less wind and the fish were biting. Nothing huge though :\