Last weekend was the third annual camping/fishing trip to the Orr area with my daughter Sharon (“Sharon” here on IDO) and her husband Billy.
I didn’t quite know what to expect with the roller coaster temperatures we’ve had this spring, as well as the early ice out. What we found was very warm water temps…pushing 70 degrees in most places. While we were North of all the rain that came through the state last weekend we did catch quite a bit of the wind swirling off that frontal system. That made boat control interesting at times.
We were targeting the big Crappies and Sunfish that can be found up there. Basically we dropped the trolling motor in and kept moving until we encountered some active fish. What we found was that they were scattered all over the lake. This was much more like a summer pattern especially with the Crappies. One or two here, the next one 50 yards away, that sort of thing. If you liked to anchor up, throw out a bobber and wait for the fish to come through you weren’t going to do very well.
This year we finally decided to avoid the mess and hassle of live bait and stick to artificials. Small jigs, either marabou or tube jigs in the 1/16th or 1/32nd size under a bobber worked very well all weekend. As many of you know I use a fly rod for almost everything I fish and that included last weekend. The first Crappie I caught was just a shade under 15 inches long. The second one broke my flyrod! Fortunately I had a spare or 4 along. I was also very pleased to see Sharon catch her first fish with her new 5 weight, as we found a weed bed full of fish that were hitting poppers and other topwaters voraciously for about half an hour.
A note about lake conditions…..it’s very dry up there still. Most of the area lakes are way down. Many of you I’m sure have fished Myrtle Lake. Well, the public access is about 6 inches away from being useless. Your best bet is to use the electric to get in and out as your outboard will be pumping mud the whole way. The rock on the West end of the lake is a big long rock bar now. It’s strange to look right at something I’ve fished over for 25 years. So be careful!
Another one in the books, another great time spent with family.
Rootski
