Smorgasbord Friday – 19 September

A little bit of everything except eyes. Fished the Stillwater – Bayport area from 12:00pm to 4:30pm. Wind strong from the WNW, air temperature 58, water temp was 68. Wind was rolling whitecaps on the main river with the MN shore the slower lee shore. It was cold until the sun finally burned through. Picked up 1 northern trolling cranks, then drifted fatheads on a Lindy along the MN shore and picked up 7 crappies, 2 small channel cats, and 12 sheepies. Lots of bait fish on the locator with most fish coming in the vicinity of bait fish. Water temp is coming down and it feels like fall today. There has to be eyes out there if you can beat your way through the sheepies. They are really aggressive.

We’ll you did much better than I… I tried trolling various crankbaits in 6 feet to 40 feet (drifted a bit there ) mostly 9-22 feet range, picked up 2 smallies, pound and a half or so and NOTHING else. Fishing really just for the eye’s. I had crawlers, tried a lindy rig setup, and a spinner setup, no luck on either, in fact I didn’t even lose a craweler Tried some Fatheads nothing there either, threw cranks at the riprap, nothing. I could see fish hitting the surface in areas, which appered to be bass and didn’t attempt to fish for them at the surface, it was dark, could not see any bait fish, I assumed there was bait in the area of the jumping fish. Everyone else I talked too didn’t seem to have any luck, 1 group was jigging, the other was trolling, DNR guy at the ramp talking about milfoil and muscles said no one indicated much luck out there (maybe because he was DNR? ) I fished around the kinny area, tried trolling speeds of a bit over 1 mph to 3.5 mph, no water temp indication for me, since my depth finder’s sensor in on the fritz. I assume it didn’t change much if any. Pulled out at 10 pm from bluff’s park, foggy as heck, it was actually getting hard see when going back in, but I had my gps and it wasn’t that bad, at the ramp the temp was in around 42 at the launch when we pulled out.