Father/Son Can-Am Trip

[Rob VanGorder]

We got back late last night from the Ray Demers Memorial Can-Am at Lake St. Clair and spent most of the day drying everything out. My son Luke and I fished the event as a team and we had a tremendous time. It was really a first class event the entire weekend and let me say thanks to Manny, Mark, Dennis, Paul, Rick and so many others that put in a lot of hard work to put on a fantastic outing. Despite a couple mishaps in the marina earning Luke the nickname "Splash" and causing me to get a new blackberry today, the weekend was perfect. And the fishing was pretty good too.

Luke and I went 9 for 14 with 2 other solid rips and a 25" walleye kicker. Luke boated 6 of our fish. Unfortunately he lost two back to back and I think one of them was a pretty good fish. I lost two good fish back to back on Friday when John O. joined us for a few hours. One of them is a story for another day (after I edit some video we shot).

To keep it simple, we ran a four rod spread with in-line boards on the outside. The majority of our fish hit the boat rods and we ran mostly new and old style tuff shads. On Sunday it was my turn when a beautiful 50.75" fish hit a hot perch new tuff shad I set deep off the boat rod.

This fish was my first fifty and I couldn't ask for a better scenario than having my 10 year old son as the net man. It was a perfect net job and that's the first muskie he's ever netted unassisted. We had an awesome father/son weekend and even after 18 hard hours on the water, he's begging to go out again soon. The boat is all cleaned and sanitized for some Alum time. I'll see you on the water.

P.S. Enjoy the pics Doug and I hope to see you on the lake soon!