past weekend report

fished the upper part of pool 4 this past weekend….me and two other guys limited out on saturday. it seemed like all you needed was half a crawler and find where the current break was and you had fish…the magic number was 7 foot with our fish coming in from 5 to 9 feet…total we caught about 60 fish on saturday. alot of smaller fish were caught so we had to sort through about 3 dinks for every keeper…made a run up to the dam to cast for stripers and ended up catching 3 largemouth…two were around 4 pounds and the third was smaller……i stopped at fleet farm in rochester and bought a thunder stick jr. and love it…well so do the walleye and everything else….these are even cheapre than shad raps…by about 2.50….wow…

on a bad note….isnt it common curtesy if you see people drifting and catching fish to NOT pull up and anchor DIRECTLY in their drift path…..some [censored] in a big lund was anchored in fishermans cut and we were drinfing through there ….welll after about three passes and about 10 fish later he was right in our spot….what a jerk…..i didnt have a problem giving him some extra wake when i went by and i also just kept drifting the same old spot….i dont think he liked me drifting 4 feet from his boat…….what a waste of space….people like that are worthless….lets all try to be a little extra curteous to make up for this jerk

Jerad,

I understand what you’re saying. REALLY. I do. BUT………….(you knew this was coming huh…….) I’m not sure that there’s a rule of courtesy that’s readily available for all of us boaters to go by. Now, I don’t know the whole situation because I wasn’t there but did this guy “know” that you were drifting an area? Typically, the wiser fisherman would see you coming and realize that he should drift too, or at least adjust with the troller. But on the same token, do you suppose he was wondering why you felt the need to drift in the same area he anchored? If he thought for a minute that he was “there first”, he’s possibly home now thinking you’re a jerk. Now, just to repeat, there is the same chance this guy really IS a jerk but in our efforts to interpret courtesy, keep all the possiblities in mind and conduct yourself accordingly. It’s not harmful to approach a situation like this and ask the new arrival “how their doing”, “what are you going for”, and “say, we’ve been drifting this break for an while now and would you mind if we continued? Just wondering because I’m concerned that you might think I’m trying to crowd you”. Courtesy does often require effort so be prepared to work at it, even more so when dealing those that appear to be “less courteous”.

My 2 cents.

Stillakid…..there are jackholes all over the place. A yr ago my bro in law and I were up on Pelican in Brain-dirt and we were drifting a point. A boat full of, well I wont say, pulled up and just sat and watched us. Bro pulled a 23″ eye, so they commenced to backtrolling right in our drift…..had to get out of “their” way for two more drifts…..they pulled 3 nice eyes….I got whizzed off and left……I was only boat on point for 45 mins…..they were the prob…..

fshr

hey.. stillapup!! I hear what your saying too…. but Ive been there all to often down at redwing…. for some reason its a common practice there…. the problem is that some of the people that anchor dont really have a good idea where the fish are…. (because they are not moving the CANT find them)….and they either dont have any boat control skills… or they would rather relax and just sit on a hot spot….. so the common practice is to anchor in an area they know is good.. and fine tune their anchoring locations by watching the vertical jiggers hit fish… you can bet if there is a “spot” thats hot… these guys WILL move onto it….. I myself consider it very rude to steal a spot that was pioneered and being actively fished by someone else…… but it happens all the time…. the greed for fish drives some people to do things they should not……. this is why I have learned numerous techniques, and locations…. so that I can minimize the impact of these guys….. one thing Ive noticed, is that these often are the same guys who are likely to keep over their limit if they can catch them…… so if you keep fishing the area.. just keep an eye on them…. there is the DNR tip line… and Ive spoke with Wardens such as Wisconsins Warden Stone who will respond anytime, 24×7…… maybe the will develop better manners then?….. one hope I have is that through venues such as this board we can get the message out about manners on the water….. at one time there was talk about a hall of shame where pix of boats that exercised poor manners would be posted….. perhaps with dates and notes about their “tactics”….. something that just might deter such behaviour in the future…. hopefully they are good people who have just learned bad manners.. and with some gentle prodding we can guide them to a path that allows everyone to have a good day on the water…… cuz I for one know if you let it, stuff like that can ruin your day…..

I agree with everything said, but lets get back to the weekend report. I am not one to keep secrets, I enjoy telling the world where I catch my fish. Who knows, maybe none of you care where I fish. But, this weekend I just could not tell anyone where I was fishing cause the eddie I was fishing was about 10 feet wide, 30 yds long, and 14 feet deep. Not very big! Any ways, I was up in the Vermillion Sat and Sun. Sat I caught about 15 fish in six hours. Pretty slow, BUT, 5 where from 15 to 20in, 6 where from 22 to 24.5, and 4 where over 26″, biggest being 28″. Wanted to wake up early Sun but a serious headache from the night before kept me in bed till 9:00. Sun, me and a buddy caught just over a dozen fish, all 18-21 or so except one 29.5″. I think that cold front had something to do with the big ones having lock jaw or maybe the fish down there just had sore lips, I never thought such a tiny hole would hold so many large fish. Made it out today and fished the same spot for hours, tried everything, caught one 14 incher and one 18 incher. Water level dropped a lot since Sun so I imagine they are headed towards the sippi. Who knows maybe tommorrow I will catch some, I am going to give that hole about a half hour. Just south of bridge!

JJW

As far as a report goes, I was on Pepin Monday and Tuesday. Monday I was by myself, what a day. It rained and was very rough. I ended up pulling plugs along the rip-rap shorelines on the WI side from bay city south. I caught a lot of small fish, under 14″. I managed to get two eaters out in front of the Motel/Resort in Lake city.

On Tuesday fished much of the same areas, but a little further south. Again, a lot of small fish and silver bass. Managed to get 4 eaters myself and my partner got one. Two of the fish were decent fish, 20 and 21 inches. I couldn’t believe the weight difference these two fish. I bet the 21, which is normally a 3lb fish, was a lot closer to 4+lbs. I didn’t weigh it, but it was huge comared to the 20. My personal slot is 15-20 inches but since I injured the 21 while removing the plug, I kept it. I hated putting the knife to that fish, but the way it was bleeding I’m sure I did the right thing.