one of the many Three Amigos adventures:
Camping by Adirondack lake for lake trout, before Brandon arrives, Nick is scanning the lake and picking apart some good areas that should hold lake trout for tomorrow's fishing adventure.
We wake up and have high hopes, Nick finds fish and we start to jig. But unfortunately, they're picky, sometimes reacting to jigs, often not.
Mark after mark on the fish finder, some big ones, the hours go by and nothing is getting happening. I recall a bite or two.
We take a break and try to regain confidence in shallower water for bass/panfish. Not a lot of bass and we end up just finding Yellow Perch. The size of 3-5 inches.
Out of desperation, I catch and keep a few of these smaller ones into an empty cookie container that we collectively demolished (we love cookies) and filled with water.
The perch are chilling in this container for just a few minutes when we go back out for lakers. Before putting one on a hook, nick is scanning around looking for lake trout to drop on. Moving around so quickly, the jig I had casted out is now essentially trolling at the perfect level and speed, and before I know it I am tight on a fish.
Everyone is going nuts, we finally cracked the code.
And before the fish is even at the boat, I look to the few perch in the cookie container and demand "screw live bait, BE FREE! Perch, you are liberated!" and dumped them back into the lake. We land the fish, and that was the only laker we saw that whole trip. Nothing else worked that day. Maybe the liberated perch would have
This moment was titled the great Perch Liberation of 2021
