7/2-7/4, Fish Are Still Biting

Spent a couple days out on the flats trolling spinners, we did about 45 the first half day, 101 the second day, and only 2 in the couple hours we fished today before leaving. The fish were definitely on the edges of the flats for the most part, we caught a few stragglers on top or out in no man’s land, but basically just working up and down the breaks on the flats yielded the most fish. Most everything was catching, but purple and gold spinners, and plain red hooks were probably the most productive. We mainly used leeches, although a buddy who pulled a crawler harness for awhile did catch a fair few fish. Slip bobbers off sand on the north end got us half of our fish on day 2 (in about two hours at the end of the night), and Jigging Raps were also pretty popular with the fish when we got bored. 27″ was the biggest, with about 20 over 20″ throughout the trip. We did pull cranks for a couple hours today (easier with the south wind), and while we marked fish like crazy, only got one taker. We did see about half a dozen floaters, a couple were pretty big fish. Also saw two 50″ muskies cruising about a foot under the surface, literally right next to the boat (when we noticed them) out on the flats. Overall a pretty good trip!

We (took the old man out) targeted pike over the weekend and were shocked at how many walleye were still shallow. We fished 8-12 FOW, mud with sparse cabbage and caught 4 walleyes before seeing our first pike. In July! I’ve never caught a walleye in that spot before. We ended up with six eyes between 15″ and 20″, and five eater size 22-25″ pike.

The old man cracked me up. He loves walleye fishing but as he’s reeling in the fourth fish he commented, “it’s another stinking walleye.”
I was curious what the limit was on “golden pike” but we didn’t keep any.

The lake is so full of walleye it is ridiculous.

Overall it was a good weekend to get the old man out. He caught small mouth, walleye, pike, and a small musky. Fun times.

They sure are. Friday I took a buddy out to the mud. My first trip to the mud all summer, haven’t needed to go there, but wanted to get at least one trip in before the closure. We had a ball, lot of fish, biggest was 27.5″ and I think 5 26″ or better. It went so well I ran back out there myself on Monday. I had leeches to burn up. It was stupid good again rigging leeches. The spot I was on went from me and another guy to 5 boats in a pretty small area so I let them have those fish. Next spot I went to no one was there, but the fish were. I used up the last of my leeches, then a couple crawlers, then got a couple with jigging raps.

The Friday trip also gave me a first ever. 2 of us rigging on the mud and almost at the same time we both got bit. I hooked my fish and my buddy thought he missed his. Turns out we both had the same fish. Both hooks and lines in the fishes mouth at the same time. Never had that happen before.

Smallies and walleyes were going pretty good on the shallow rocks still also. I had to come back to work for a couple days, but I’ll be back up Thursday evening

sticker wrote:

The Friday trip also gave me a first ever. 2 of us rigging on the mud and almost at the same time we both got bit. I hooked my fish and my buddy thought he missed his. Turns out we both had the same fish. Both hooks and lines in the fishes mouth at the same time. Never had that happen before

That’s funny, the same thing happened to me on Friday while on Mille Lacs. Except I thought I lost the fish and my buddy caught it! Friday was a good time Sticker. I hope it wasn’t the last time. I appreciated the rigging seminar. However, you may have ruined it for me, now I think I will always catch giants when I rig…. I am ruined for life.