Another cool weekend on tap….

It looks like Canada has sprung another leak and will be dumping some more cool air on us this weekend . How do people approach these deep frontal conditions and reliably put fish in the boat? My inclinitation would be to find a stained body of water, fish slow, fish deep weeds, and emphasize live bait. My family has a place on Spider Lake near Hayward, which is quite clear and relatively deep. Last weekend, Spider seemed a lot like the Dead Sea . Any ideas about how to avoid a repeat performance ??

Id like to know the same thing. With all this cold weather, the fish have been passing everything up that I throw out

One thing I’m going to try to do is call in sick tomorrow afternoon (cough cough ) and try to beat the cold front. Maybe the impending change will trigger a reasonable bite. That won’t help me over the weekend, however, as the pressure will be on from my in-laws to keep the net wet.

I’ll be on the Chip Flowage this weekend also. Fishing Sunday and Monday hard. If the front hits up there today I’m hoping it will stabilize and fish will adjust after 3 or 4 days of cool weather. If we keep getting front after front it’s going to be trouble. They are only forecasting a high of 57 degrees on Monday. Cripes!

I would say downsize, slow down and use live bait.

Good tips guys, you are on the right track. Look deep and downsize your offering for eyes. If your targeting bass- look for suspended fish.

Last weekend the water temps on Spider struggled to hit 70. That was down ~ 6-7 degrees from the previous weekend, and at least 10 degrees cooler than this time last year. Hayward is looking for patchy frost tonight with lows in the upper 30s , so the water will keep on cooling down.

Don,
trolling is not permitted on the Flowage. How would you target the suspended bass. That’s going to be my main quarry with Muskie running second and walleye third.

bt,
check the weather again. sounds like it may be nicer than we thought. the high for Monday now are supposed to be around 70 degrees. this morning weather.com was saying highs of 57

Is this August 18 or October 18? Frost advisory in Hayward tonight ! Here’s the 5pm NWS forecast:

Tonight: Widespread frost after 8pm. Low near 36.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, high 69.

Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, lo 43.

Friday: Partly cloudy, high 67.

Friday Night: Partly cloudy, low 37.

Saturday: Mostly sunny, high 66.

Saturday Night: Mostly clear, low 46.

Sunday: Partly cloudy, high 69.

My guess is that water temps will be in the low to mid 60s this weekend. Sounds like we’re due to get a reinforcing shot of cold air on Friday. It’s going to shape up to be a good weekend to soak leeches on deep structure , or explore waters for when the weather turns more favorable, or .

Yeeaahh……… I dont think fish action will be too good

SteveO, after marking fish that are suspended one of our favorite producing tactics is drifting. if the wind conditions are suitable we slow drift using light weight tubes or jigs like flu flu’s. Downsizing in this situation really pays off. The pike like em to. If drifting is not an option I would try plastic swimbaits or slow rolling beetlespins dressed with tubes. The above presentations work well for us.

I’ll be top watering for bass up by Webster. I can deal with low temps just not wind.

SteveO, how did the weekend fishing go?

I’m anxious to hear how SteveO did on the Flowage as well. Things were slow on Spider but not silent. We managed some half-way decent daytime bass action by slow-rolling spinnerbaits in scattered weeds in 4-10 FOW. Had one musky on during the day on Sunday but lost it due to a poor hookset. The dusk/after-dark action was decent, but no ‘skis, only bass. We did have several bass bust topwaters or take big black spinnerbaits worked shallow after dark. It’s fun to hear the big splash and feel the initial tug, but a 15″ largemouth runs out of gas pretty fast when it’s pulling against a 7’10” heavy action rod and 45 lb test musky line! The scene goes something like: chug…chug…chug…KER-SPLASH…”Fish”…”Net”…..”Oh, wait a minute, just a bass”. Hopefully SteveO did better.

Oh yeah, Spider’s water temps were 64-67 degrees.

Sounds like you had some action anyway. Thanks for the update.

had some nice smallie action. went up the river and stayed off the flowage for the most part. WINDY and my wife was with me
I just tried to find current and boulders and drifted crawlers on slip bobbers. plastics were not the ticket. did not target walleye and didn’t move a single muskie.
not great but not horrible either

We couldn’t buy a bass on topwater in the lake I was staying on. Got a few on plastic and spinner bait. Enough for me to win the first and biggest bet 2 days! Caught a small Muskie and walleye on Yellow. Finished the weekend out just trolling spinner baits for pike and caught about 12 or so between two of us Sunday morning. Tons of action but no size. Still fun when they hit. BAM.

You got that right Suzuki, they are fun when they hit, no matter the size.