Friday Night Success?

How did everyone do on Friday night? I was totally pumped for an incredible bite on the north side – but only managed to boat 2 nice eyes and about an 8# pike. I am not sure if it was just me, or if others found the Friday bite quite tough. My kicker decided not to run, so I was forced to troll with my big motor. According to my GPS, I was trolling about 2.2 MPH most of the time. Was this my problem – trolling to fast? My other theory is that with the water warming up like it did, it put the tullibee spawn on hold and they were not in shallow water, or right on the deep weed edges. I talked to a few people at the launch coming off the lake and they also did quite poorly. Was the bite off, or was it just me?

Todd

Friday night went very well for me and my crew… we hit the SW side to stay out of the wind as we had a first time night fishergal on board and didn’t want to make her first night on the lake anything but pleasant. We hit fish right away, 11 in the first trolling pass, and kept right on popping them from there. We ran hj’s in 7′ of water on an inside weedline and kept our trolling speeds down near 1 mph… 1.3 – 1.5 being the best. Better colors were red craw and gold black. I did not make it to the north end at all that night but did so on Saturday with the guide trip give away winner and we boated a 29.5″ BEAST and another 7 Lber in the first pass. There’s a pile of fish on that north end, the average size is on the large side, but they’ve been a bit tough to convince to bite some times.

Fishing for my boat was pretty fair Friday night (Thursday was better). We fished the SW side and netted 25. The bite for us was non-existent after midnight (both nights). For us, fish were tight to the weeds (both tops and edges). The ever changing brightness of the moon resulted in having to change cranks accordingly. Also, rod “pumps or sweeps” resulted in no action. Trolling speed was 2 to 2.4 mph on the GPS.

James,

We fished in the same area as you on Friday (saw you a lot!) and couple of times we were commenting at how fast you were going. Was this just to see if the fish would take? Or, my biggest concern, is that my GPS is off ( I run a 115 Yamaha 4 stroke on a Crestliner TS 172 – no kicker). My speeds were 2 to 2.4 mph. Thoughts?

Jeff

Hmmmm… I may have just been pushing hard to get to a line or something ‘cuz I haven’t trolled that fast in some time. I’m not a patient man when it comes to setting up for a trolling run so maybe I was just trying to get where I needed to be? Or maybe I was throwing in one of those occassional “speed up and check” runs. Not sure. The vast majority of my success is coming at 1.3 – 1.7 MPH.

That must have been when the comment about the net handle came out…… I’ll be in the same boat as you tomorrow night, so you better mind your P’s and Q’s.

I felt for as busy as it was, the trolling runs went pretty good for us. It was pretty obvious when someone was fighting a fish, the boat would turn sideways and everyone would make a wide path around them.

My dad and I caught 20 fish in front of Father Hennipin and on Grassy reef. 9ft of water was our best on the rocky breaks. Firetiger shad raps early and #14 clown husky jerks late.The biggest was 26″. Thanks for the info on colors and depth. Your info has led me to some of the best walleyes of my life since I started following this site. Keep up the great reports. I did get to Hunters point for breakfast on Sat. Later,JD

Friday was pretty good- I fished alone, landed 7. All big, biggest went 28. One tagged fish. HJ12 Firetiger in 7-10 feet, Doe Island area. All speeds under 2 mph. There were six boats on the Doe Island reef all night. I never went out to Big Point but counted 15 boats there.

I guess I just wasn’t holding my mouth right or something – I was using the same baits – Trolling a little fast it sounds like, but doing mainly the same things. I guess that’s why its called fishing. Thanks for all the responses and congrats on some great fish!!

I started last Monday, getting ready for a 3 night trip to the pond with a buddy who can get a “kitchen pass” about as easy as I do. Come Tuesday, I get a call and he says that he had to cancel. Something about having to re-shingle his house! I spent the rest of Tues. and all of Wed. trying to find a partner to go up with. No takers. I almost canceled myself, but after seeing the fish that were coming in on this site, I said the heck with it and kissed the wife and kids goodbye and headed out alone on Thurs. after work. I managed to get to the hotel, read: ice shack, around 8:00.
Since I am new to this night game and not very comfortable in knowing where the “lower unit eaters” are along the shorelines, I launched at Fishers, and never made it further So. than Agate Bay. Fished the reef and shoreline for around 3 hrs. without a strike. Decided I needed to change something.
Knowing that the wind had been blowing, (and still was!) from the SE, I decided to head to the rocks around the Red Door. Good sized waves, but I was going with them and it wasn’t bad. Started trolling the weed line east of the rocks and it didn’t take to long before I connected with what had to be a “pike” or “ski”. Heavy hit, short but fast burst, head shake, and then bring in the “lure-less” line!! First of many lures to be lost this weekend! Fought the wind and the waves till around 2:00am and decided I needed to head back. That was the fun part. I don’t care what kind of boat you have, when you are quartering 3 to 4 footers, you are going to get pounded and wet!
That was Thurs., Now for Fri. Started out again from Fishers and headed further So. Started trolling before Lakeside Pt. and found one of those “prop eaters” I was worried about. Good thing for SS! I worked that area for about 2 hrs. without a bite and was thinking about moving when the first one hit. 24″er. Time was about 9:00 and that is when the fun started. Working the area from Lakeside to past Hunters Pt., I started to have at least a strike every 20 min. or so. Hunters Pt. seemed to be the best area, but when I would land a fish, turn around and try to go back over the point again, I would get nothing. If I continued my trolling run, I would pick up another in the bays No. and So. of the point, and when I made it back over Hunters, it seemed like it was a fish every time!
The bite seemed, for me anyway, to end around 1:00. I fished for another 2hrs. without a hit, no matter what I threw or speed changes. But from 9:00 till 1:00, I boated 5 fish that were from 24 to 26 inches, lost another nice one at the boat, had 3 or 4 others on for a couple of seconds, and had probably my biggest fish ever on for about 15 seconds. Had to be a huge “ski” or pike! It inhaled completely a 14 HJ. It never stopped pulling drag until it decided to do a head shake and then cut my line like a sissors! Heart stopper!!
I am heading up there again this weekend for the last run of the season. Running out of Vac. and need to start chasing the ducks around!
On a side note, when you are out there alone for 7 to 8 hours, you get a lot of time to think. One thing that I thought about after I brought in the first fish was, what would I do if I was impaled with hooks. These fish seem to be more frisky than normal when you land them at night. Till now, all I carried for hook removal was foreceps. I will now carry a sidecutters with me at all times. I figured that I could still fish with a couple of holes in my skin, but it would be hell to have to drive the boat back to the landing, load it, and drive to the ER with your favorite colored #14HJ stuck in your hand!! Just a thought!

Great report Warrior!!

Friday night we fished Petersen point the one south of old Lakeside Resort. I shared a boat with ecnook and bobber. We decided after schooling ecnook on running the rocks with the big tiller it was his time to drive. Why not I guided wed/thur, Bob took thur/fri so it was only fair that Dave took a shot at fri/sat night and morning. Well to say the least he learned something about trolling with a GPS. His first question after driving a tight circle and running the lines all the way around the boat and damn near running back over his line was, “why can’t I get to the S at the bottom of the screen?” After Bob explained that that is the compass point heading Bob fired him and took over driving, jokingly of course. Dave did a good job learning the ropes, I just think Bob wanted to drive. We ended our shortest night(8pm to 3am) with 14 fish with the biggest being 9 lbs.
I was at hunters for breakfast Saturday morning, I was the guy with the two gals in the corner booth about 9am.

Quote:

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I was the guy with the two gals in the corner booth about 9am.

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If I dood it, I get a whippin’……………….I DOOD IT!!!!!!!

Seems to me there’s 3 sides to every story. In THIS case there’s Hooks’s, the witnesses, and then there’s the truth. Let’s just say that the only truth here is that Hooks was indeed in the corner booth. What would be your explaination for this “truth”?

I’ll let these prime the pump and get us started:

That’s great! Too bad they were obligated by relation!

Timing is everything……………the busser was cleaning the table just as the waitress brought his check back!

All was going great until they found out he wasn’t James!

I wouldn’t suggest referring to Dave and Bob as “girls”!

Okay……….okay…………that’s enough………………….from me, that is! At the end of this little ordeal, we can vote on the “best truth” and the winner gets 2 new Rapalas of their choice!

Feel free to chime in here Hooks! It’s all for chuckles!

Alright, alright………it was completely innocent. But it will be interesting to see what some of these people think. We were carboing up (is that a word) for ditch duty that Bob just happened to get out of. It was well worth it though, the Ladies found $312 bucks in the ditch before we were done! CASH

Hooks,

That was my cash, remember when I said i was going to wing a can at you….Well I felt sorry for the crew so I thought I would throw out a $10.00 bill, but must have mistaken it for my $312.00 bill. Can I get a refund???

You can take it up with the gals, But I bet you don’t get very far. Sympathy for us guy’s is something they just don’t have when it comes to fishing, hunting or carousing around, after all “your out there having fun”.
It appeared to of been there awhile it was awfully clean money, spread out over about 20 ft. of ditch.

Ok now I know that I will never get to the “S” on the GPS.. If any of you know me you should know I’ll take an opening and run with it…And when I told them that I can’t seem to get the arrow all the way to the “S” mark on the GPS at the bottom you should have seen the look I got from Bobber lol

I did get a lesson in fishing with a gps and I think I’ve got a lot to learn…thanks for your patience with me guys…I really hope we can do it again…

Hey Dave…………..I’ve seen that look before too! It’s a moment I’ll probably never get on film, but it says it all don’t it?! Now that I know I’m not alone, I think we can make Bob famous for “the look”!

I don’t understand what happend to Mille Lacs on the north side. Over the years, we have absolutely slaughtered the fish up there out of Garrison Creek break line. Last year, it sucked………this year…it sucked. We trolled it hard Friday and Saturday night. I didn’t see really anyone boating alot of fish like we used to do.

We trolled slow, fast, jerks, floaters, every color from red craw, clown, rainbow, black, blue, firetiger, longlines even out to 150 feet in case the fish were that spooky……..nothing. Hooked 2 eyes friday night and 2 eyes saturday night.

I’m starting to think that the fish have changed there ways a little bit and aren’t on that break line like they used to be.

Again, 2 years ago, all the way back to 7 years ago, we used to boat 40 walleyes a night, with fish hitting the 10lb mark. I don’t know what happened up there, but now I wish I would of worked the reefs.

In fact, we did troll the Myr Mar rock pile a little bit, but with 20+ boats working that little rock pile, I started to feel sorry for all the walleyes dodging all those cranks that were being zipped by their heads. We hooked nothing there.

Basically, it sucked. We couldn’t even troll up a musky.

Next fall, I’m hooking up with James for a little 101 training……..

Gary

Gary. If it makes you feel any better Jon J and I are wondering where our east side fish have gone. The best bite has been on the west and southwest the last 2 years. We did get fish but nothing close to the numbers we hear about from the “pro’s”. I guess that is why I need to keep my day job a few more years.
Dino

Yea, it sure was strange.
With that south wind, pounding waves into the north side, I thought we were in for a bite of our life.

4 years ago, we had the same wind and we couldn’t keep the fish off our lines. It was incredible.

Then 3 years ago, it was dead calm. The lake was like glass, almost creepy. We dropped the electric trolling motor and creeped along and again, it was incredible.

Those fish have thrown us a slider and a curve ball…….I’m starting to feel like the cubs and red sox……..