It was an angry sea that day my friends…actually there was a
7 mph wind and the only waves on the water were from boat traffic, but I
usually start most of my good fishing trip stories the same way. In every sense of the word, this was a
memorable fishing trip for so many reasons and I am going to struggle to
condense the entire day down to 3-4 paragraphs but here it goes.
My buddy Pat and I met Gary Price of Gary’s Fishing Guide
Service near Truman Lake Resort at 6:30 AM and Gary started to work his
magic. Gary has a host of tricks up his
sleeve that he uses to locate and get fish to bite, but he is best known for
the down-riggers he deploys. Watching
him use his sonar and downriggers is like watching Michelangelo work on a piece
of canvas. He is always checking his fishing
depths, lake location, bait locations, and fish sizes. With that in mind, it would be easy to
imagine a guy that is just calculating a plan behind the wheel of the boat but that
would be an injustice to the type of guide and person Gary is. Gary is a genuine people person and gets more
excited when his clients catch fish than he does when he catches one
himself. Admittedly, I get pretty
excited when I am catching fish and probably seem child-like when I am catching
big fish. It’s what I love to do and I’m
not scared to show how much I love the feeling of hooking into a big, angry fish. With that in mind, I honestly believe that
Gary smiled every bit as much as I did that day and was always there to offer
up a high five that I so sorely wanted after landing an especially feisty or
large fish. If you are looking for an
honest, positive, and passionate fishing guide then you need to hire Gary! I could go on telling you about all of Gary’s
incredible qualities, but it would mean so much more if you just went fishing
with him.
Alright, now let’s get down to the actual fishing. The morning was a little slow possibly due to
the cool temps and large amount of boat traffic. Gary switched up lures and spots until we
started to figure out what was working on this particular day. The first fish that Pat hooked was a MONSTER
walleye that I don’t think anyone was expecting since we were fishing for
wipers/hybrids. Pat got it all the way
to the boat before it got off and I honestly believe that it was an easy seven
pounds. While we were pumped about
getting a fish hooked-up, there was a general feeling of disappointment that we
didn’t get it in the boat. We all agreed
that sometimes this is how fishing goes and we moved on pretty quickly. That feeling was almost replaced with a
feeling of me wetting my pants when a four foot long spoonbill completely
breached about fifteen feet away from the back of the boat. I was watching a seagull dive for shad and
was pretty focused on the bird when the fish jumped right in my line of
sight. It also didn’t take long before
we had a second fish on the line and Pat landed a small hybrid. Again, the positive vibe was on the rise
because now we were catching the species that we were looking for. After this, the fishing got really good,
really fast.
With a lot of boat traffic leaving the lake for lunch, we
found our groove. Gary started to mark
bait balls, single wipers/hybrids, and groups of wipers/hybrids. The first fish that hit was a beautiful six
pound, twenty-three inch hybrid. A
second six pounder followed shortly thereafter for me and Pat caught a carbon
copy just minutes later. We were on the
fish and they were biting regularly.
Gary had put the fishing puzzle together like a surgeon and we were catching
some big, hard-fighting fish. There were
smiles to spare and we were having such a great time that we barely noticed
that we had missed lunch. After Pat caught his second six pound wiper/hybrid,
Gary explained that we had probably found a group of fish that were in the same
age range that might exhibit similar sizes and for the most part he was
right. However, my favorite thing about
fishing is that there is no way for you to know what is going to happen next
and nothing could have compared me for the surprise that laid in store for
me. A rod went off with the strike of a
fish and I started to reel. This bite
felt different than a wiper/hybrid. It
didn’t run or give a violent head shake but instead felt like dead weight and
for a moment I thought I was reeling in a log.
When the unknown assailant got closer to the boat, it suddenly displayed
some legitimate fight and started to thrash.
After advice from Pat, I kept the fish from rising to the surface and
Gary got the landing net deep into the water to try and keep the fish
calm. After he netted the fish and got
it on board, I realized that I had caught the biggest walleye of my life. It was six pound, twenty-six inch walleye and
needless to say, I was ecstatic. I
honestly believe that I probably won’t ever catch a bigger walleye in my life and I am seriously considering
getting a replica mount made sometime in the near future. It was an amazing fish and I think Gary and I
high-fived each other about three times.
Now in my mind, things couldn’t have gotten much
better than that, but mother-nature was being especially generous on this
particular day. Pat caught two more wipers/hybrids
that went about six pounds each and I caught a seven pound, twenty-five inch
wiper that put up an incredible fight and made the reel sing twice even though
it was hooked on twenty pound line. All
in all, Pat caught five wipers/hybrids and I landed 4 as well as an incredible walleye. We only kept the walleye to eat and had not
problems letting the wipers/hybrids go in hopes that next summer they might be
eight to nine pounds.
On this trip Pat caught more wipers/hybrids in a single day than
he ever had in a single day, I caught more wipers/hybrids in a single day than
I ever had, Pat hooked his first walleye, I landed my biggest walleye, and we
drove home happily exhausted. Finally, I
cannot thank Gary enough for taking us out and I cannot say enough good things
about him. It is hard for me to imagine anyone
having any regrets if you book him for a trip and I highly recommend him. If you like hooking fish that are easily in
the six to seven pound range and you like hooking into a multiple fish that have
serious attitude problems, then Gary’s Fishing Guide Service and Truman Lake is
for you. Here’s his link on Facebook:
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| Pat reeling in a hybrid/wiper. |
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| A hybrid/wiper on the line. |
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| My six pound walleye. |
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| A six pound hybrid/wiper. |
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| Gary and I with my seven pound hybrid/wiper. |
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