Been busy unpacking and cleaning so I’m a little late with this report.
Got to spend a week on the North Arm. Weather had one of two patterns with warm being the constant. Calm and sunny in the morning. Some activity with clouds/breeze/possible rain in the afternoon. Then back to calm and sunny in the evening. The other pattern later in the week was just calm and sunny all day.
Fishing wise we spent 80% of our time chasing pike. When talking about quality fish it was definitely fishing not catching. Earlier in the week we had high numbers but almost every fish was the same class 2-3 pounds. Not what we target. Later in the week our numbers went down, found better weeds, and started seeing an occasional bigger fish.
Overall it was pretty disappointing for pike. In prior years we would carry a 5 pound average while our best week have a 7+ average. Will be interesting to see if this year class carries on in the next couple of years. They were everywhere as we ran around to lots of spots and tried multiple different presentations. This trip there was a definite preference for metal. Bucktails and spoons. Early in the week one color and blade mattered quite a bit, it changed a little over time.
The walleye were a different story. The first day we only had a couple hours before sunset. The two of us landed over 40 fish with most being walleyes and not dinks. For at least a little while I though I was the man with BFishin plastics. We came back to that honey hole more than once over the week. Late in the week we saw a drop in our walleye catch rate. Part because we refused to cast anything that wasn’t metal. Part may have been the heat and the dead calm. Also wondering if they weren’t starting to make the transition to main lake points and humps. We fished zero humps and only a few points.
Depth wise most of our walleye came from 1-8fow. One night in camp we could see them up on the gravel in less than a foot of water.
Water temps were all over the board. Started at 63-65. Friday they were in the upper 70s. Saturday had storms that delayed us and surface temps got back down to 65.
Had a couple of really cool things happen. A great northern lights display. Pike hitting walleye multiple times in one day. Bear cub on the shore(not in our camp).
Great week and already looking forward to going back in the fall.
