Two of us were up for Thurs. Fri. & Sat. night cranking. Let’s start with Thurs. Got to the north side just at sundown. And following what info I found on this forum last week, I put on a #12 firetiger HJ and started trolling under 2mph. It didn’t take long and I had the first fish. A fat 23″er. About then, my buddy lost his HJ in the rocks. Somehow, I didn’t have a duplicate in all the cranks I carry, so he went experimenting. Meanwhile, I continued to catch the next 4 fish. They only wanted that #12! No matter what else my buddy put on, he would not get bit! Tried #10s and 14s, in Firetiger, but is seemed that the 12’s were what they were looking for. And man , were they hammering it! One 21″er, that went in the box, hit it so hard that the back end of the plug was sticking out through his gill! The bite was consistant from the time we got out there till 10:00 when I lost all 12V power in my boat. With no running lights, and being 7 miles from the landing,I reluctantly headed in. I was really waiting for the “Big” bite later in the evening, that I read about here last week. Ended up with two in the box, and 23″, 24″, and the fattest 25″ I have ever seen!
Since the wind didn’t let up at all on Fri. I had a lot of time to figure out what happened to the 12V power. When I launched the boat, and rev’ed it in reverse, I must have shot crap into the intake for the front livewell. With the main motor and stereo going, I didn’t hear the pump laboring, and the damn thing took out my 20 amp fuse! Live and learn, the hard way!
Since we were not able to get out Fri., we decided to try it during the day. A couple of people were getting them on cranks, using lead line. Well, we tried during the entire Gophers game, (bummer!) and then some, with no luck. Went in, and came back out, after the Yank’s tied it up, (another bummer!)to try the same spot as Thurs. When we got out there, there were a couple of boats, in the same area. We had some luck on the smaller fish, boating four in the first 2 hours or so. Saw one other guy out there doing about the same. Picture flashes and headgear lights were the give-away! After 9:30, we never got another hit. Even when we had the place to ourselves, nothing. We called it quits at 1:30, because I was so tired and couldn’t stay on line anymore. Watching the GPS and depth finder was taking it’s toll. I was sleeping with my eye’s open!
We left Sun. morning, with 6 fish to take home, (most ever for me on that lake. Thank you 22″ limit!)Some cool pictures, (someday I will learn how to post them here!), and my share of the fish sure tasted good last night when I got home. Sure was better than the chicken the better half was planning! Don’t worry, I know she won’t be reading this!!!
??? I got out on the lake Sunday morning right at day break. Trolled a few passes searching for eyes. I was graphing a few in 10 -14 FOW on the East side Rocks. The water temp was @ 55 degrees. My girlfriend landed her biggest pike to date. She just started to really fish this Summer. This thing was a healthy fish and weighed in @ 7.9 lbs. Really thick and definitley on the feed bag. Couldn’t get the eyes to bite. Tried a few different baits, colors and tried speeds between 1.4 to 2.0 mph. No such luck 
. With the wind starting to whip and the rollers starting to grow, we made a run for the North Sand to try some rigging? Had a hard time finding fish, but eventually found some around 20′. Tried large leeches that I had stockpiled from early September (in the past this was the trick for rigging in October, large leeches). Also had crawlers, but could get nothing to bite???? Think I might have seen Jon J up there??? Hey Jon was that you???? I was in the black/tan Crestliner??? With a list of things to do before the best 30 days of the year starts (October 15 – November 15 
), we got off the lake @ 11 am with only one fish, Stacies nice Pike! I will post a pic later!
