I had a great time this past weekend in the Okoboji area visiting the in-law’s and putting in some time on the water of course.
On Saturday it was rainy, overcast, and windy–perfect walleye weather!! I went out with my father-in-law Scott Berry to Spirit and we started looking for walleyes on weed edges and picked up a few shorties but the bite was slow. We then headed off to the north part of the lake to fish a rock pile in the middle of nowhere in about 21 FOW. Thanks to the GPS, we found the rocks and started to drag bottom bouncers and leeches. We didn’t catch any on the rocks but did find them all over the mud around the rocks. We probably caught 20 fish in the two hours we were there.
I set the hook on one fish and knew it was a good one as it felt solid. It made a couple of real long runs and did not want to come up. I thought I had hooked a nice pike, big smallie, or even my first muskie. After fighting it for several minutes and Scott holding the net up, we had plenty of people watching what was going on. I finally pulled the beast up from the deep to find that it was a 10 lb sheepie! I was disappointed but it was pretty funny to get so excited over the sheepie. It was the only fish of the day we photographed. I’m sure those around us were wondering why the idiots in the big red Skeeter were snapping pic’s of it.
We went out the next day and found the weather to be the opposite of the day before–lots of sun, blue skies, and no wind. The bite on the rocks was real slow so we moved to the weeds and caught two. To try something different, we broke out the lead core and started cranking #5 shad raps in 17-23 feet of water. Picked up a few decent fish that way and were off the water by 9:30 a.m. to do some swimming with the kids on West Lake.
For those of you who have never been to the Okoboji area, you really should make some time to go. There is a little something there for everyone. There are plenty of fish to be caught (eyes, pike, smallies, LM, muskies, panfish) and plenty for the non-fishers to do as well. My wife contributed to the local economy with some shopping and the kids loved going to Arnold’s Park. For those of you who love the night life (I used to , before kids) there are many fun places to go. The traffic on the lake can get a little nuts, but it is fun to be out there.
