One Bite, One Fish at Lake Eaton

It's Monday, September 13, 2021, and here was our chance to do some fishing in the Adirondacks near Indian Lake.  Weather has not been overly kind to us, and we've had to pay close attention to temperature, warmth and wind in planning our fishing and paddling outings.  Today was to be our last chance at this stay.

Kathy did the research and found the most likely candidate.  Lake Eaton was well-stocked with trout in the Spring, is not too large a lake, and does not appear to be as heavily fished as other Adirondack lakes.  Happily, it is only a half hour's drive from our campground.  So, after gearing up, off we drove.

While there is a state park at Lake Eaton and the campground is full, the boat ramp and lake were not heavily populated.  We spotted one or two other fishermen, and a pair of kayakers, as well as a couple of scullers sharing a racing shell (more on that later).

It was a chilly but sunny morning, and, layered up, we put our kayaks in the water with great anticipation.  Here is Kathy setting out from a small beach we selected for our boat ramp: 

Lake Eaton is not developed commercially, although we could see campsites along the lakeshore to the north of where we put our kayaks in the water:

The boat ramp had several small boats resting on the shoreline, waiting for their turn in the water:

The sun and clouds spread glimmerglass across the water:

It was much windier than we would have liked.  As we paddled out into the middle of the lake, we found that we had to deal with the wind and waves more than we wanted.  This interfered with our casting and made it difficult to focus on our fishing.

Neverthless, soon after we headed out onto the water, as we were talking about the waves and weather, David got a bite!  It was a large fish that fought hard, and strong enough that it certainly could have broken the line, and perhaps even have overcome David's rod.  But he played the fish long enough to get it into the net and on the boat:

Once David had landed the fish, it was almost lunchtime, so we decided to take the finny one back to shore to measure and clean it.  As we examined the fish, we realized that it was not a trout, or a landlocked salmon, or a bullhead.  We were not sure what species it was, but it measured over 14 inches long!  Some research later showed that it was a smallmouth bass -- large for this type of fish.

We cleaned the fish, washed up, and found a picnic table near the beach to eat our sandwiches.  While we were eating, a woman rowed her scull up to the shore and met her male partner.  They discussed the rowing, and she mentioned that she had seen eight loons on the other side of the lake.  We were jealous!

Having finished lunch, we set out on the lake again.  The wind had calmed, but we decided nevertheless to paddle across the lake this time and let the wind blow us back toward this beach.  In this way, we could focus on our fishing, rather than paddling to fight the breeze.  As we neared a point midway across the lake, we spotted this man putting his kayak onto shore behind some water grasses:

Color is starting to show in the trees along the shore:

The fall colors are even gracing the water grasses, which glowed yellow, green and orange between the water and the shore:

The pastel colors gracing some of the deciduous trees made a pleasing landscape with the varied greens still surviving from summer and the blue and white of the sky:

Kathy led the way past the near point, toward the opposite shore:

We reached the other shore and let the wind push us back across the lake as we cast and changed flies, hoping to get a little more luck in our afternoon fishing session.  It was not to be.  After an hour-and-a-half or so drifting across the lake, and changing flies three times, we called it a day.

An unusual day it was for fishing.  Between us we got one bite, and it resulted in one fish caught -- and not a trout.  When we got home, Kathy eagerly prepared the fish and put it in brine for smoking tomorrow.  We'll report to you how smoked bass tastes once we've smoked and tasted it!

EPILOGUE

Well, here is the bass, all filleted and smoked, ready for finishing by pan-frying on the stove:

Kathy served it pan-fried, with no spice other than alder smoke, and it was delicious!