and there it is……Determination and Preparation.

Do your homework, talk to other fisherman/guides, scout spots off the beaten path, fish off peak times, eat/sleep/breathe/dream muskies, take time off work, buy the latest color, biggest net, sweetest boat, graph, rod, reel, electronics, and watch some yahoo stick a fish 20′ from your bow. Honestly I agree with all of this helping your ODDS, but there HAS to be a spot left for luckyassdudes who dont know jack about squat. SO I wont disagree with you but I will add on to your comment:

Luck is preparation and determination and LUCK!!!!!

“The truth is……….. if they’re better than you, you’ll watch them net a fish.”

I have to disagree with this statement, on any lake other than Mille Lacs I would agree, but you arent going to convince me that anyone who can cast a double bladed cowgirl is “better” than anyone else who can cast and reel a showgirl. Mille Lacs is all luck when it comes to casting in the dark or joining the line dance on the North end. I see all kinds of rookie status up there hooking up practicing CTR and all over Mille Lacs. It isnt cuz they are good, trust me, 4 guys in a 78 Crestliner cranking Skynard drinking beers zinging cowgirls WILL catch fish the same as the “better” guy in a fancy boat. It’s all luck, muskie fishing is mostly luck…..

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I still think that this could be prevented by simply closing the lake to swimming. We have public pools to swim in. It does not sound as though this person was within the marked swimming area. What needs to be done out there is to post a full time officer there and ticket/fine heavily anyone found in the water outside of the marked swimming area.

While the article says nothing about it and may not even be a factor here, I also feel that NO alcohol should be allowed in city parks and that ANY recreation where water is involved have a zero tolerance for alcohol use. Past drownings have been attributed to boozing out there.

Indeed this is sad. BUT, it is entirely preventable. I guess all the sludge the city dumped in there was put in the wrong place,eh?

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Yes, save me from myself please….

very sad, prayers for the family and friends

Bob is right on, if you can get an Abu 7000 thats what most guys I know are using to reel that bait. Unless you have forearms like Popeye or dont plan on casting for more than a couple hours you are going to want the right reel.

I personally know of only a few guys who have caught legit 30+”s from Mille Lacs. Myself NOT included

I would think that one of many reasons may be pressure on those fish that dont make it past the 28-29″ mark due to harvest, tullibee population seems to be low, and the excessive heat may have caused some of the old fish to die off.

I know of some dang good sticks out there that havent got one over 30″

People started measuring!!!

Sorry Steve, but that isnt normal. Normal is having the tools needed at hand. I sure hope you dont ride em like a bull on the floor of your boat. Bad things can and will happen, thats not the point, if people are that worried about hurting fish then DONT FISH. I am not one of those. But if you dont see this as a “what not to do” routine…..

I won a cabelas gift card last year and it was burning a hole in my wallet so I went there and walked around looking for something that I normally wouldnt “test” my own money on. I ended up at the knife counter and saw they had a couple fancy looking fillet knifes. That got me thinking about how many Rapala knives I have burned through in my life and I did the math and knew that I was wasting money on those things. The quality of the steel they use is schwag, you can get them sharp, then literally peel off the strip of metal that you just sharpened. Yes, I do own several quality knife sharpeners and know how to use them properly. Its just the quality of steel that Rapala uses (or whomever makes those) is inferior.

Anyway I looked at one of the Gerbers and wasnt happy with the flexibility, steel was quality, but it wouldnt be too good for cleaning fish, especially skinning them. I then asked to look at the Wustof knife, good flexibility, nice long narrow point, quality handle, awesome steel. I think it was around 80 bucks. Its cleaned hundreds of perch, walleye, and crappie and it keeps the edge nice. It will get dull as all knives do but the difference is it will get sharp again and stay sharp longer. I havent mentioned the best part yet, it has Cabelas name on it so if it ever gets mutilated its going right back for full replacement!!!!

my .02 cents

Fished Vinland last Saturday and saw zip. Buddy caught 1 pike about 35 inches. About a half dozen boats muskie fishing. Some hot stable weather is needed. Saw someone break out the big net on Sunday, not sure if it was pike or ski, but it didnt look very big.

Carp are thick, anyone into bowfishing should be heading to the lake now. I bet some of the ones we saw pushed 30 pounds.

northeast corner of the southwest side just east of the southern most west shore.

There are people that were for the cancellation, but in talking with lots of people over the last few days this is the only place I found them. Right call or wrong call, it doesnt really matter, but for the sake of this tournament I would hope that next year they implement a rule change allowing an extra day for adverse weather. Oh and by the way I dont buy the lodging argument, or the work on Friday thing. If the “vote” that was made was decided on lodging/work, I would bet that the majority of fisherman had Friday off and could have found a place to stay if need be.

Still a couple good weights put together and overall a decent tournament. I was really excited to see how day 2 would have panned out as I am sure others were too.

What time was this pic taken?

I guess I should lighten up a bit. But I am sure there are some guys in this event that are very unhappy. 10th through 147th caught better slots than 9th(8.49#’s with out the over fish), and those guys pulling 11, 12, 13#s with 6 slots not getting another day of those numbers and a chance at an over fish…..I dont know, take a look and do the math, I will shut up before this gets ugly, I am obviously on my own. I suppose I should add that I dont personally know anyone in this tournament, purely an opinion based argument here.

Yes, and everyone had a chance day two for 1 over 28, some would have and some would not have, but not given the opportunity. Tell me how that is fair….I am not against postponing for safety reasons, but cancelled….just doesnt seem right.

All I know is if I paid that kind of money to not get a chance at 1 over 28 the second day…..we all know thats what it takes to win any of these Mille Lacs events at least until the slot expands. There would be a foul taste in my mouth to say the least. Good for some lucky guys who got into the 1 over 28, but not a good representation of finding out who the best really is.

I was wondering your thoughts on postponing such event as the “Wave Wacker”, I know its all about safety, but tourney fishing is usually tough. There has to be SOMEWHERE you can fish, and the champion of the WaveWacker and winner of 75,000 bucks should be the best angler able to ADAPT to the changing conditions. I am just a little disappointed that they pulled the plug on this.

I was wondering your thoughts on canceling such event as the “Wave Wacker”, I know its all about safety, but tourney fishing is usually tough. There has to be SOMEWHERE you can fish, and the champion of the WaveWacker and winner of 75,000 bucks should be the best angler able to ADAPT to the changing conditions. I know its about safety and feel free to rip into me on this one. I am just a little disappointed that they pulled the plug on this.

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Thanks, like I need any more distractions at work. Pretty cool!

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Exactly what I was thinking…..pure torture!!

where did I go wrong?

“The past 2 seasons I felt as though some of the flight moved east. Is there anyone that would agree?”

We could only hope Chriss!! My money is on global warming

I have been waiting patiently for someone to crawl under the Dakotas and pull the plug. My guess as to why the mergies and buffies are nesting in MN has got to be the welfare system. It only makes sense….

“The past 2 seasons I felt as though some of the flight moved east. Is there anyone that would agree?”

We could only hope Chriss!! My money is on global warming

I have been waiting patiently for someone to crawl under the Dakotas and pull the plug. My guess as to why the mergies and buffies are nesting in MN has got to be the welfare system. It only makes sense….

This is not good. It will make things pretty interesting for us, hopefully they will have some cleaned up by this weekend.

The wind was about a week early this year, hopefully it wont be blowing like it did the last few days. Anyone else having trouble sleeping??

Usually we limit out at night, tie one on, sleep one off. I really wasnt seeing all the fish caught that people were claiming, at least not by where we were. Anyways maybe bump into you guys at Zorbas. Good luck.

We had a slower opener than years past. The wind was brutal, and I think there was some hangovers that affected motivation. I didnt see many fish caught where we at during the day, our fish came at night up shallow.

Staying at 3 Seasons. Definetly making a trip to Zorbas. Where is Otter Bar?? Sounds like a place we could close down.

Hey Bongers, how did you do last opener?

I too find this unacceptable…

History will repeat itself. I wonder what “limits” have been discussed, and if there is/was talk about not using certain techniques like gillnets.

I wonder how the “media” will cover this……

are there adjustments that can be made on the trailer that make it harder to engage the surge breaks? I do agree that Ford is ridiculous for leaving out that part..and I also might add uhhummmchevyurrrmm

The lake is on there, it happens after it locks in and reads the chip it will just blank out, make some cool noises like I mentioned and blank no contours and generic road maps. Then it will lock in and work for 10 seconds then blank out. I think they have a problem with the internal antenna. I can run the H20 and the GPSMAP76S side by side (and do often) and the Garmin locks in within 40 seconds, sometimes quicker and the lowrance with the same view of the sky takes several minutes up to 10 sometimes, to the point where I just shut the dang thing off.

Dude, I have been having a hell of a time with this unit going in and out of signal, not showing contours (reading chip), taking FOREVER to lock in, jumping positions to where I fished the day before.

Making all kinds of cool noises though. Blip, Bleep-bloop, brriiipp, blop SO I got that going for me which is good.

I think I need to hook up to Lowrance and get a more current version from thier site. I still love my Garmin GPSMAP76S, that thing is solid, but no bottom contours…yet.

Flasher all the way. Cameras in my opinion are way over-rated…except for perch fishing where they have proven to be the way to go.

Night fishing- flasher
stained water – flasher
walleyes – IMO hate cameras
25 ft of cord in hole – sucks

Also just watching the camera is like putting on horse blinders.

Obviously the best is BOTH!! but if I could only pick one…Vexilar FL-18

hmmmmm

thanks