Aitkin county

Made my fall trip up to Aitkin this weekend to check on the Miss. walleyes up there. Same bite as last year. A little over 2 hours put a dozen eyes in the boat. They where running a bit smaller this year. 10″ to 18″. Most of them in the 15″ range. Last year they where up to 23″ with 18″ being the average. No pictures on this trip since I was by myself.
# 5 shad raps where the hot bait. The eyes liked the darker colors and the northerns liked the bright colors.
The river is still way down up there. I will be sending in the motor to the repair shop this week to check on a crack I put in the lower unit. Good thing there is a second boat in the garage and I might have to try it again next week. With the low clear water I also found a sunken wood boat. That was neat to check out.

They river is very clear up there also. The main channel you can see almost 2 feet down. The water coming out of the willow river into the Miss. was so clear I could easy see better than 3′.
What a great trip up north.

Got to spend one more weekend on the river up in Aitkin county this past weekend. The fish where on a tear on saturday. Spent about 2 hours fishing with my uncle. A guy that I must give some credit to for getting me hooked on fishing as a kid. We managed about 18 eyes and 6 Northerns in those 2 hours. Most of the eyes in the 15″ range. We also kept one large pike due to the way it swallowed the crank bait. The pike taped out at 33″. Trolling crank baits was the ticket and we caught at least one fish on what ever we put in the water.
The river is still extremely low and clear. Kicking myself for not bringing the camera. In the main channel you could make out the bottom in nearly 3′ of water. The river decided to claim a nice chunk of my prop on saturday. Must have been payment for the nice fish it gave us.
Sunday was spent with a good friend of my. The fish where still there but a little picky at what they wanted. Blue cranks turned out to be the ticket. Nate was 6 fish ahead of me before I decided to put something blue on. Three different body styles of blue put the fish in the boat. 0 on any other color.
Tried pitching some plastics on sunday also. This worked for fish also. The walleyes had no problem taking a ringworm down and the northerns didnt mind either. I am going to spend a little more time pitching jigs in this area next year.
Sundays total was about 28 eyes and and about 18 northerns. It did take us about 5 hours to get them on sunday.
Hear goes a try on a couple of pictures of the fish we kept on saturday. They are great tasting fish up there and this is some of the first I have kept all year.

I will try the pictures again

And one more

Same photo. 2nd try.

Same photo, 3rd try

Same photo, 3rd try.

Good job Mike. That is one fat pike.

Gator Hunter

It had the remains of what looked to be a about a 15″ eye in it.

I give up.

Nice Mike.
looks like some good eaters. we need to hit Pool 4 again one of these days. My rig, you can bring the beverages! Plastics should be the ticket pretty soon.