Anyone been out lately? Will be going tonight or tomm. Sometime and just seeing if anyone has picked any up and where finding them. Got a backwater on north side of river that might be good if the sun gets out I might try on the seams.
(sigh) In my dreams. 
Just working 1/2 days at the bait shop this weekend. Hopefully I’ll be able to see if the boat still floats in one or both afternoons….if it’s not snowing.
Still a little cold for me. Oh well, get some house chores done this weekend so I can free up the nicer days to come.
Planning to go today. Didn’t make it out over the weekend as we had a basket ball tournament. The river sure looks good, can’t wait to get out there. 
Maybe…
Rub it in will ya.
You’ve been awful quiet lately. Now I see why.
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Still a little cold for me.
If the forecast holds true, this should be the last week of winter
Jakob that looks yummy 
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Maybe…
How’s the Boat working Now that it’s finished? Looked great! 
Water tested great – first big trip is Rainy River tomorrow!! I will post some pics to that thread once we get back!
Got out for a bit tonight, other than being extremely annoyed with the beavers constantly going under my line and slapping their tails scaring everything within quarter mile had no action whatsoever. Wish I had some cutbait but nobody by me is carrying suckers right now, so tried liver and worms and those dumb lil preserved crawfish. Way too much crap flowing through right now north of SAF #1 line was constantly making a muck ball with my bait. Oh well better luck next time.
If there are any trappers in the metro area who wants some tips on where to get some beavers and mink shoot me PM and we can take care of these things on the DL. 
Got to love spring when you have to reel in every 5 – 10 minutes.
If you can’t get a hold of suckers, try stringing 3-4 fatheads on the hook.
Three of us went out last Saturday on Lake Mendota.
The day started out pretty cold and windy but as the day progressed, nothing changed. I was the captain, Ken was the mate and my neighbor Kim was along to catch the fish.
As we were cruising, I was watching the Side Imaging and saying there are fish everywhere, so we stopped, anchored up and started fishing. Water was 5 feet deep, 40 degrees and murky. Didn’t take long…maybe 5 minutes. Kim was hooked up. It put up a good fight and when we got it in the boat we realized we might be in for a pretty good day.
This guy was 37″ long. We could only guess the weight as I didn’t have a scale in the boat. We guessed somewhere over 20 pounds, maybe 22.
Not bad for the first fish of the day. Ken was up next and we guessed this one to be just shy of 20 pounds but might have hit the 20 pound mark.
Here’s a big one that I caught towards the end of the day. We’re guessing around 20 again…it measured 34″.
We caught a bunch that were between 15 and 18 pounds. Here are some of them.
Here’s a Quadruple that we got.
We ended with somewhere over 50 fish for the day. we guessed 3-4 at or over 20 pounds, 15 or so between 15 and 18 pounds and a bunch in the 9-12 pound range. I did catch the smallest ones, 5 that were less than 8 pounds but who’s counting.
Overall a very successful day on the water, albeit cold and windy, but those seem like the best days to catch the big one, and catch the big ones we did.
Thats awesome. I can only hope for days like that.
Very nice Jerry!
Way to kick off the 2013 Season!
Nice catch Guys!! Sounds like the cats are on a feeding frenzy 
Good post Jerry. I had a blast out there. I’ll be back for more too. I just want the weather to straighten out some.
L8R…Ken
Nice looking fish,I bet that was a blast. Just curious what is your bait of choice early in the year like this?
We were using fresh cut gills and suckers. Those cats in Mendota seem to like the fresh bloody cut baits rather than a dead one that’s been laying around for a while, so we keep them alive until we cut them. And that ‘frenzy’ lasts a couple of months.
L8R…Ken
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Good post Jerry. I had a blast out there. I’ll be back for more too. I just want the weather to straighten out some.
L8R…Ken
Yeah that weather was brutal last Saturday. Just think of it as ice fishing out of a boat. 
I also did my best impression of John Gilespie cheering on Kim when he caught a big one and we had Johnsonville brats for lunch in the boat. 
Those Johnsonvilles were pretty dang tasty…fish slime and all. That was a good call to get that little stove…you can probably keep it right in the boat…you know, right next to the FISH SCALE 
See you in a couple weeks…Ken
Ooooooo low blow. Well next time the scale will be right there in the boat along with my little stove burner. For those that don’t know what we’re talking about I bought a little 15000 BTU butane stove burner to use for camping or out in the boat. It worked great. I had to shield it from the wind though. But it doubled as a hand warmer as I was cooking the brats. 
Nice fish Jerry. That 37 was every bit of 25 lbs may 27. Might be time to get out.
Thanks for that input Kevin…that is reassuring . But now you’re going to make Jerry even more mad because he didn’t have his scale along. He might not be able to sit for a week…after kicking himself in the butt so much 
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I was really fun and yes, you should get out there and nab some of those ‘easy’ ones.
Hope to see you on the water sometime…Ken
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