Fished mainly morning hours 6:30-10, Sat, Sun, Mon.
Water temp ran 49-51. 28 Walleyes for the weekend with one at 28.5(released). 3 slot fish and many 22-25. 16-20 ft was the ticket for us with a very slow offering which wasnt a problem due to calm conditions. All fish where caught pulling a leech behind a 5ft snell. It was fun, and keeping from freezing wasnt a problem for once.
We were up over the weekend and were able to boat 40+ walleyes with 3 below the slot, 0 in the slot and more 20-22 inch fish than you can shake a stick at. I’ve read all of the griping about the slot and how difficult people have been finding it to take a little lunch home with them, but as a pure catch and release guy I can’t say enough good things about what the slot has done to the quality of fish being caught in the lake right now. I shutter to think what the “meat hogs” would be doing to this fishery if these fish weren’t protected right now. Assuming the DNR and fisheries management can effectively manage the predation levels of the lake, I hope the slot sticks around for the foreseeable future. Get out and enjoy catching the fish (isn’t that what it’s all about anyhow?)…..stop at McDonalds in Garrison for a fish sandwich if you have the urge for a shore lunch.
One additional note….I boated an 18″ smallmouth up by Myr Mar that looked so much like a football I had to check it for Paul Tagliabue’s signature. The belly of that fish had to be 5″ across. I guess that speaks to the water temp and the status of the smallmouth spawn schedule. What I wouldn’t give to spend a day fighting a mess of smallies if they were all like that.
Can’t wait to get back….11 days and counting.
We had a fairly decent weekend of fishing. It was nice fishing without serious warm weather gear for a change. Starting on Friday evening with a good rock bite and ending yesterday with a fun morning out on the mud , we found fish. For my boat we ended up with 67 fish. Most of the time there were 2 of us in the boat , but we took 2 of the kids out with us for the evening bobber bite. We did end up with 23 slots for the weekend. Our largest was 25″ and we had 5 that were in the 24’s.
My brother-in-law and his son had a bit better luck with larger fish. Instead of fishing away from the crowd , they joined it up by Lakeside and had a 29 1/2″ for the big one. They did a CPR on this one because it had the big head/skinny body look. They also had a 27 1/2″ on Saturday. All of our fish were strong and healthy. We did see a few rock bass show up while bobber fishing but no perch. Are there any left in the lake???
Dino
I spent yesterday morning with my face in the snorkle of my underwater camera and never saw a perch. I haven’t seen any all spring with the camera and thats about 3 hours of scouting with it. We caught a rock bass corking also. I wonder if anything eats them?
How were the flats going?
We hit the Gravel in the morning.
We spent 6 hours working a couple of flats and pulled 16 fish for our effort. The smallest was 10″ and the largest was the 25″. We also lost too many bites/fish when we had a poor hookset. For the first 3 hours we were alone and then a couple of boats joined us. The fish seemed to turn on around 8:30 and we had 2 true doubles to add to the fun.
Dino
Fished the north sand on Sunday and boated about 15 eyes myself. It seemed as though most of the bigger fish had left the areas I was fishing since the majority of my fish were < 17", with quite a few in the 12-13" range. Should prove to be another healthy year class for next year's slot range. It was a great weekend to be on the water weatherwise and the bite was an added plus!
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