ShawnLittle  04/11/2005 - 07:48  Trip Reports  Impoundments    Had already went out 4 times before yesterday with nothing to show for it and was starting to doubt myself and my gear. Went to Loch Raven Resovoir to fish , which is my favorite impoundment to fish early in the year. My fishing buddy and I arrive at 6:00 am in the water and 6:15 we are on the way to our Loch Raven pattern. about halfway to the first spot I look back and I see my buddy fiddling with the trolling motor and the battery. I knew he had to rewire the trolling motor because of some reverse polarization or something like that. Not real sure because I'm not a trolling motor mechanic. Didn't think anything of it until I look again and I see a shower of sparks everytime he tries to connect the cables back to the battery. I started seeing sustained sparks and was wondering if I'm going to have to start picking and choosing what gear I can swim with and make it to shore. One last spark and he looks at me and says trolling motor is fried. After a couple of "Are you kidding me?" We had to row back to the Fishing Center and rent a trolling motor. So that took a complete hour and half of our fishing time. Nevertheless we got the trolling motor, plugged on and around 10:30 my fishing buddy boats a nice pickerel, then about 11:00 I pull a 12 incher Large Mouth, my first one of the year so I could care less about the size. Then I pulled a nice pickerel and a small pickerel and my buddy pulled out a small largemouth. All in all not a great fishing day but I have my first fish of the year and have got that confidence back in my tacklebox. For those of you who don't fish Loch Raven Resovoir, from here on out the fishing just gets insane. Yesterday the water was completely stained which is very unusual for that place because it takes a serious amount of rain to even slightly change the visibility. However, starting in about a week maybe 10 days, that place will be crazy and you don't have to work hard at all to get fish.