Today was the last day in the boat chasing bass this season. Caught some nice fish, but one in particular had a very special girth!

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Jon mentioned your mattress as a possible culprit. Case in point: My wife and I were having pretty regular and debilitating back and hip episodes. We decided to try a new mattress as the old one became concave in the middle from years of use. The problems went away almost immediately after getting a new mattress. Definitely was a huge improvement. The 13 inch hybrid bed-in-the-box was the mattress we went with, which is now in all our guest bedrooms both at home and in the cabin.

I don’t hunt, so have no skin in this game. However, I did look-up the annual number of road killed deer after seeing some roadside carnage this weekend. These numbers are estimated by insurance companies since so few are reported to law enforcement.

Minnesota – 40,000
Wisconsin – 70,000

Thought that was interesting. Combined with annual hunter harvest, thats a lot of deer.

PmB wrote:

I caught her again almost 1 year later at the same spot. A little longer and a little lighter

Thats amazing and awesome…and thought-provoking!

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>BrianF wrote:</div>
Got ‘dirty’ today…

That is a Crazy good day. I dream of having a day like that on SM

Yeah, it was a special day for sure. We appreciated every single moment. Well, except when the wind started nuking in the afternoon.

A quick side note… We stumbled across a spot holding a ton of fish early in the morning. We spot-locked there and before you know it, three hours had pased. We never moved the boat. We caught 50 of our 90 fish right there. We had parked right on top of Smallmouth Disneyland!

Got ‘dirty’ today…

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Had a pretty good day yesterday using both plastics and hard baits, though lost a bunch of fish that would’ve made it spectacular. We got 52 fish with ten over 5lbs and two bonus walleyes. Things are just now starting to get good and should only improve as the water continues to cool. It was 55° where we were.

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The water temp was 52 last night where we were.

You guys fishing at night? Sometimes it’s the great equalizer.

Reef W wrote:

Wind looks brutal on Saturday and Sunday. I planned on fishing this weekend but change of plans for me, good luck!

Big weather, big fish.

Definitely a PITA to fish in, but creates opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

Hope they are nibbling. Will be up there from Saturday through Wednesday.

Toad! Congrats on that one!!

What a great idea!

Ordered three 3/4oz MN Mullets from TW today. Needed to replace two hand-tied ones that pike stole last weekend. These may be marketed as bass baits, but the walleyes targeted last weekend were eating them greedily. These big hair jigs seem to select for big fish too – another bonus.

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gimruis wrote:

I can’t believe any fish would bit such a mangled mess of plastic, wire, and metal. Unreal

No kidding, though it looks better when in the water being retrieved.

A-rigs…not my first choice when targeting bass, though
I’ve been in the boat more than once in which it was THE deal. No other presentation even came close. Like most presentations, their success is situational.

Note the missing plastic on some of the ‘dummy’ jigs. They got ripped off by hungry competing bass. Here in MN we are only allowed one hook on A-rigs, so the dummies get attacked mercilessly.

Checked one of my deeper spots while fishing up north this weekend and the smallmouth were loaded on it. Best estimate is there was 100 of them on a spot that was 40 yards x 40 yards – and probably not even that big. Most all of the fish are good ones…3+ pounds. The spot is 16-17 feet deep and breaks right into the deep basin. These fish were tightly grouped up and actively feeding on juvenile Cisco.

Watching 40 smallmouth rise up off the bottom and chase schools of Cisco’s at the surface was pretty amazing. I appreciate FFS for allowing me to witness such behavior. Just fascinating stuff.

The other thing that is amazing about these smallmouth is how quickly they learn to avoid a lure once one or two fish in the school get caught. A presentation change would result in either no fish or a couple more fish before the rest of the school got wise. The schools would rise up and follow these lures but would not eat them once a couple of fish had been caught.

After working the school over pretty good with a number of different presentations – and the fish quickly learning not to eat them – I took the time to rig up a special new bait. Since the fish were chasing balls of juvenile Cisco, I rigged up a Stealth Rig picked-up from Tacklewarehouse a couple weeks ago. With the fish having been completely shut down for a half an hour, that Stealth Rig got bit on four of the first five cast. Upon first seeing it, 30 to 40 fish rose up quickly from the bottom to chase it. They got wise to this lure pretty quickly as well but I think I caught another seven or eight before they learned to avoid this bait like all the rest. Still, it was unquestionably the MVP of the morning and quite an eye-opening experience.

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Youbetcha wrote:

Anyone been out to vermilion recently? We leave Tuesday and it looks like a solid south wind leading up to the trip and the majority of the time. Should be a somid north side bite i am guessing

I’m fishing a bass tournament on Mille Lacs Saturday and then heading straight to Vermilion from there through Tuesday. Muskies are definitely on the agenda. The approaching full moon will make things interesting.

gimruis wrote:

How do you know they weren’t there? Just because they didn’t follow your lure, bite, or you didn’t visually spot them, that doesn’t mean they weren’t there anymore. There’s lots of places even for a sizable fish to hide. They coulda just had a case of lock jaw. That happens more often than not when muskie fishing.

That’s fair. Let’s just say they weren’t as readily apparent as the night before when I threw at seven of them in a 200 yard stretch. The presence of fish notwithstanding, the results on that spot were the same on both nights…nada.

Got a 48.5″ thick one last night. That thing ate a beaver at my rod tip shortly after dark. Unfortunately, I was solo and wasn’t wearing my headlamp. There was quite a scramble to find one in my glove box in the darkness while fighting this fish. All is well that ends well?

Interestingly, the water temp rose 2° yesterday with the sun/warmth and all the fish I had found the night before were gone. Everything had changed.

The hummers at our cabin in Northern MN have left, but the Northern Flickers have arrived like every fall to eat the ants in the lawn. There are still a couple hummers at the feeder in the Twin Cities, fattening up for the big migration. They’ll be gone any day now. Gonna miss those little guys. They’ve been ever-present at the feeders since May.

Minn Kota DC charger (lead acid) or Power Pole Charge system (lithium) depending on the type of batteries you are installing – and your budget. Charge your trolling motor batts on-the-fly. I’ve had both and they are excellent.

walleyesforme wrote:

I’ve also heard from a very reliable source that there is a very good shallow bite going on. I was told 4 feet of water pulling shallow running cranks.

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You’re talking walleyes, right? Saw it firsthand last weekend, but they were all small. For us anyway. The larger walleyes we saw were in deeper mud.

big_g wrote:

Sorry but, if you go to the State Fair and over pay to eat Corn on the Cob, French Fries or Chocolate Chip cookies… your weird.

Going Friday. Those three items are on our ‘eat these’ list. I knew I was weird…

Interesting…

With all that rain yesterday, the lake is now nearly a foot above last year’s level on the same date, and .34′ above The historical median.

We’re talking walleyes, right? My advice is to bring live bait. I stubbornly refuse to use it and have been getting ‘it’ handed to me consistently; so much so that I’m chasing muskies more these days. Atleast with muskies, a skunk can be justifiable.

I just checked the water level gauge out of curiosity. The lake is about a half a foot higher than last year on this same date and just slightly under the historical median. Good numbers!

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The length of those fish is astonishing, even if this tourney has been held on the great lakes. Congrats to all the top teams! Those are eye-popping stringers for sure.

Ripjiggen wrote:

The science of how many predatory fish see suggests that they don’t see well enough close in to be turned off by a tiny section of wire near your lure.

Rip, do you have any links that can be shared to read this science/research? That kind of stuff can be fascinating to us fishheads and can change the way we rig our presentations.

Double Pitzen aka Shaw Grigsby knot. Problem solved.

Got a 49.5″ and 48.5″ last night after dark with that big moon out. The 48.5 ate at the rod tip in the second turn of the ‘8’. Pretty exciting. Another solo trip, so no pics, though I tried. Nine of my last 10 have been while fishing solo!