Hit the water for a half-day excursion yesterday. The water is in MUCH better shape than my previous trip 10 days prior. Still some large woody debris, but much less grass and improved water clarity. Water temps that are 10+ degrees higher also helped the bite.
We caught all of our fish away from the masses….not far away, but far enough to have a relatively unharassed pack of fish that would respond to a well-presented bait. We caught a few pitching plastic, a few pitching jig/minnow, but the best presentation for us (and another boat that kindly clued us in!) was to vertical jig in 8-10 fow with ringies (char/orange core and char/pepper on a 1/4 oz jig) at the tail end of slack water areas. These fish, primarily saugers in the 14-20″ class, were just stacked like cordwood in these areas, and remained minimally responsive to a standard pitching presentation.
If you head out this weekend: fish the trees and slack water, watch out for submerged cans (2nd photo) and be kind to your fellow angler. Everts is completely open for business, with the back 40 now accessible to provide parking for more rigs. In a few more days, we may even be able to use the fish cleaning shack again!
For more pics of submerged navigation cans, check out the link below:
A Humminbird Side Imaging look at submerged navigation “cans”
It seems like this years run took off fast…
