Weekend

Another fantastic time on the water. Arrived at the lake Friday morning during a good lightening storm. This passed around noon and the wind was really cranking. By 2 it started to calm a bit and we headed out. Decided to run out to the same area as last weekend , the south central gravel. Good choice , the first fish came in the boat within a minute. In the next 5 1/2 hours we proceeded to use a pound of leeches while having the time of our lives. We had 2 slots and the largest was 25 3/4″. I even caught a fish on a hair jig and a purple ringworm.
Saturday the bite was a bit slower than Friday but the same areas were good to us. The largest was 26 1/2″.
We found that leeches on a colored hook worked good and also caught a few fish on spinners and floaters. Crawlers were not as good as I expected so we stayed with the leeches.
Sunday found us giving the walleyes a rest for a while and we switched to trying for northerns and muskies. Did have 1 northern around 5lbs or so hit a spoon. Went to a shallow rock area and worked it for a while. As an experiment , my buddy put a smaller #11 Silver Rap on and caught a slot walleye. After a second fish , I switched to a #12 silver Husky Jerk and caught walleyes also. We even had 2 bonus smallmouth with the larger one about 1 1/2 lbs. Then the sun made an appearance and our shallow bite was done. That was OK because it was time to call it a weekend and head for home.
Friday will not come soon enough!
Dino

I went into the weekend thinking I’d go at it using no live bait. Either cranks or rubber. Found that the fish took a rubber crawler just as well as the real thing! Went through 2 bags of 7 inch power worms this weekend. Was pulling them behind my hand tied crawler harnesses. My wife Jane and I were working the same off shore gravel that Dino was at. (Thanks for the tip) We caught a boatload! The good thing here is we did not have any deep hooked fish and all went back un-injured. Only one slot that I felt sorry for so I tossed him back. Thought he might be the only one left.

J.

jon j or dino,

what depth range did you find most productive? i found fish in the 16-18 foot range that were mostly an inch or two either side of the slot. i slid out farther to 20-24 ft and caught fewer but better fish – the biggest being 25.5 inches.

i will be back up at agate bay on sat afternoon and sunday – any tips to fine tune my depths would be great.

btw – i caught most of my fish just using a jig – which helped get all fish in the lips.

thanks for any help
todd

We were fishing a gravel bar that tops out at around 28′. We were starting a fair distance away from the top. The drift would carry us past this depth out to deeper water , which could be as much as 36’+ , depending on the wind direction. Fish were in all depths and a couple of the larger fish came in the transition from gravel to sand to mud.

thanks for the info. i will have my wife with me this weekend and need all the help i can get. she usually manages to catch the largest fish. good luck!!