It was a pleasant surprise when I arrived at the Roche Lake West and found only 1 boat and camper in the campground. A mid-summer campfire ban seems to have put the damper on the weekend campers. There were only a handful of fishermen on the lake, including my friend KJ, who arrived earlier in the day.

I took my time gearing up, knowing that I had plenty of time to get down to the south end for the minor feed at 4:03pm. I ran into some trouble getting my gas engine started so I had to go back and get the electric motor. Once that was accomplished I made a quick run out to Monster Bay before I put a line in. KJ was lurking around and drifted over to fill me in on his day. He had already caught 4 fish, with a nice one topping out at 20.5", on a sedge pattern no less. He caught all his fish near the island near the south end of the lake.

We took our time getting down to the south end, especially past the island. One of my favorite things to do is to stand up in the boat peering into the shallows looking for fish. This day there was a light chop on the water that made it a little harder to spot the fish. About the last 1/3 of the drift the water flattened out and the fish started to appear.

We took up anchor on the edge of the shallow weed beds as the minor solunar feed period approached. There were some fish rising and rolling so I threw out a premeditated shrimp pattern on my dry line. It took a few casts then I started getting some taps on the retrieve. A small 13" fish was the first to take. I love fishing in this shallow water because when the fish are on the line they circle the boat or jump, they can't go down.

I laid my next cast about 10ft behind KJ's boat, got a hefty pull after a couple of seconds. I lifted my line and out of the water came a whopper nearly splashing KJ before beginning his multiple runs around the shallows. When I finally got it in, it weighed in at 5lbs even and 23 inches long.

I caught 3 more fish, none like the big one, all on a hyalella shrimp in the south end except my last fish, which was caught in Monster Bay on a micro-leech. KJ also finished off his afternoon on a roll. He landed 3 more fish, 2 in the 20" mark as he too went to a shrimp like pattern.

Not a bad day. It won't be long until the flight of water boatman takes place and the fall frenzy will start on the lake. The fish will have a smorgasbord of insects to feed on and the crowds will come.

Let the campfire ban continue.