I say take advantage of it. Eat nothing but protein shakes and kale. Get yoked. Don’t have to smell your own protein farts.

As soon as the slot was opened, I didn’t catch another walleye. May, June, and July was the easiest walleye fishing on Mille Lacs I’d seen in a long time.

I stopped at the Casey’s in Ogilvie last weekend and I could swear their pump said 87 non oxy. I thought it strange at the time and wondered if it was a typo or a scam. Now I’m wondering.

Here’s food for thought. Rose had a lifetime ban. His life is over. Was there any mention of a posthumous induction to the hall of fame in the original punishment? As Mr. Jordan stated, baseball is embracing gambling now and it seems hypocritical at best. I believe that had he just admitted to gambling in the beginning, he would be in the HOF now.

I only know him as the Reds manager with a bad haircut so I don’t care either way. But you can’t deny his stats. You also can’t deny that Sosa and McGwire, juiced to the gills, probably saved baseball since the sport was dwindling in popularity after the strike season. How many lives did Lance Armstrong save by selling yellow bracelets for cancer research even though he was 90% EPO at the time? The ethical and moral versus “on field” accomplishments has always been at the forefront of modern sports. We just don’t seem to have any consistency in deciding who gets a pass and who doesn’t.

We ended up taking the docks out this past weekend. Bittersweet. The lake looked like Fourth of July weekend. Swimmers, kayakers, boaters. Insane for this late in the year. I would guess the shallow water on the north end was above 70 degrees. No bibs required this year.

As far as water level, I think it’s down from the spring. I saw a lot of lines in the sand from lower units dragging. I know I made a few as well trying to get out.

Ryan said everything. For my two cents, I would go with Lybacks. He’s providing regular updates on the ice and fishing, very safety conscious with his roads, and all and all runs a tight ship. You can get access to a lot of different structure from down there. And, it’s on the south end cutting your drive time down if you live south. Lastly, you’ll always get out a little earlier on the south end vs. the north. My second would be hunters point just because you can access any kind of structure from there.

Having said that, the last 2 years have been dog$h1t like mentioned before. To much snow or not enough ice really hampered the last tow seasons. We’re on the north end and I don’t think Red Door/Barnacles even opened up to car travel last year, and the year before I believe it was only for season pass holders and that only lasted a short time if I remember right.

I didn’t notice much shoulder over the past weekend.

I was fishing walleyes, yes, but the baitshop said a lot of people had switched to trying to catch smallies. I haven’t heard any reports about that.

Yea you’d think mid to late September the water temps would be much lower, but we’ve had basically August like temps for the past several weeks. Water levels have really gone down as well. I noticed it was down at least 4 inches from mid summer. High temps and no rain…

Went out Sunday morning. The north end was still 68 to 69 degrees. Marked lots of fish, still not much happening. The bait shop lady actively tried to talk us out of fishing lol. Everyone I talked to said the bite is super slow.

I’ve been to Craigs and know others who have used him. He’s legit.

I also had some work done by Matt’s Firearms in Chisago City. Brand new AR would only fire one round then it was done. Something was not in tolerance and he got it squared away.

I still have an A-Team lunch box from when I was a kid, no dividers but it has a pretty sweet Mr. T thermos.

Spinner rig or plain snell work better? That answer will probably answer my next question, but what speed are we thinking?

Appreciate the insights so far.

I was up all last week and the wind kept me off the lake most of the week. The few times I did get out, it was tough going. Pulled lead, fished bobbers, rigs, spinners, everything you could think of, only caught a couple of nice perch and a couple small walleyes. I’ve got a picture on my phone of 50 marks on the Helix, but nothing was biting. Beginning to think those are more perch marks but I marked the same everywhere I went.

I’m thinking 4-8 or 5-7 with a quick glance at the schedule. Not having OSU or Oregon on the schedule helps, but this was a bottom to middle tier Big 10 team before the expansion. I don’t follow Oregon enough to see how they lose Bo Nix and are supposed to be better. OSU returns everyone except their sub par QB. Michigan lost a ton of NFL talent but still look scary good, especially on defense. Penn State looks like a top ten team.

I was at the U of Iowa when adding Notre Dame was the big talk…we’ve added 6 other teams since then from both coasts. Not the Big Ten I grew up with but will be interesting to watch.

We all have to sacrifice. Better add a squatty potty to the end of the dock

Our cabin is on the north end. I’ll whip up some chili for the family and see what I can do.

I use the same setup on my bobber rod, but maybe consider using a drop shot. Several advantages include you’re always off the bottom as long as you keep the line tight, you can change how far you’re off the bottom in seconds, you can actually feel a bite rather than just watching a bobber go down, and you can retrieve/walk it back to you to cover a little more ground. I have a buddy that fishes exclusively this way both open water and ice, and I’m just getting used to it, especially walking it back to the boat, but it’s effective. It also allows me to fish sharp breaks without having to worry about casting too far on top of the break. Even if you’re 3 feet off the bottom with a bobber, sharp enough break could be more than 3 feet of depth change in 20 yards distance. Plenty of videos out there on how to do it.

Well apparently there are multiple Master Angler lists out there. This is what I was looking at.

Master Angler Qualifying Fish

I noticed there must be a difference when Gimris mentioned the difference between large and smallmouth. This list has them the same.

As I go down the list that I posted, I’ve done the walleye several times, bluegill once, pike once, and largemouth once. But like I said before, I don’t think you could ever achieve the perch master anlger status from this list in MN. Possibly on a private farm pond somewhere…which is how I caught a 21 inch largemouth, or LOW. But I feel these need to be difficult yes, but attainable.

I found no luck on the flats this past week. I did do well on the deeper sand breaks though. I actually caught 6 perch over 11 inches, one of them was 12. I haven’t caught a perch out there in several years. I didn’t keep any, mostly because I didn’t believe I would catch another. I would have had a nice fish fry had I done so. Walleyes were all cookie cutter 16 or 18 inch fish, but we caught too many to keep track. It’s by no means 90 fish days out there, but 30 fish days are pretty easy to do.

I took some nubbies fishing on Saturday morning with bobbers. I set one of them up, set my rod up, and still had 2 rods to go by the time the first rod had a fish on it. I’m running up front to help with that as I look back to see my rod loaded and precariously balancing on the railing. Luckily a cousin grabbed it before it went in the drink. We had 2 bites in less than 2 minutes. I think we caught a dozen in an hours time. Everybody caught 1 at least so it was a successful guide.

Real anchor. Family cabin pontoon so no spot lock and trolling motor.

I have found the slip bobber is producing far and away better than anything else out there. I try rigging, mark the fish that didn’t bite, go back with a bobber and bomb them. I’ve caught a handful on spinner rigs this year, but nothing compared to slip bobber and leech.

I was out on Saturday morning, stupidly, and lost an anchor in the wind and waves. Lesson learned.

I had the same issue. I played around with a couple of different sized drift socks until I got it right. Have never had to use both though.

Lac Seul can offer you 100 walleye days and fish over 30 inches as well. If you’re looking for seclusion, I’ve fished out of Lost Island Lodge. They will meet you at the dock and transport your gear to the lodge if it all won’t fit in your boat. There are 6 or 7 cabins on a small island. Can catch walleyes from shore.

When I was a kid we stayed at Father Hennepin and there was a kid fishing from the road into the slew or backwater coming off the main lake. No idea if it’s even allowed anymore, but that kid would always have a stringer full of walleyes and northerns and never fished the main lake. We tried it one day and caught some huge pike out of there. Might be worth trying since you’ll already have a state park pass and you’re on shore. Otherwise, one of the main lake’s numerous launches can get you on fish quickly if you’re just looking to feel a tug on the line and not keep anything.

Did this occur on Friday night? I was detoured just south of St. Francis by a couple of squad cars while northbound on 47. Was curious as to what happened but hadn’t heard anything. Glad everyone is ok.

I was on the phone with a friend as he was asking about the bite, I caught 6 while on speaker with him. Nothing big, but it’s Canada like fishing right now.

Saturday night I caught 20-25 on the NW sand with a bobber and a leech from 7:30 to 9:30. They didn’t want anything else. Pulled some rigs through the same area and only caught one. Fished the rocks in the morning and pulled 4 out in an hour, one over 20, again bobber and a leech. It’s terrible but I’m getting tired of bobber fishing, but that seems to be the method that puts the most numbers in the boat.

I know a lot of people fish black duck for sunnies. It’s also a good walleye lake for what it’s worth. You’re less than an hour from some of the best lakes in the state, one of them has to have a non windy shoreline you can fish.

Between the lift settling in the sand and the water levels coming up due to the rain, I went from 3 inches of clearance under the pontoon to about a foot while putting it on the lift on opener. I’m guessing it’s even deeper now with the rain this week. We just need continuous rain throughout the summer. Last summer and 3 summers ago we got good rain through May, then it was dry as hell for the rest of the summer.

After reading all of the above, I feel like I know next to nothing with props. This is going back a ways when my dad owned a Trophy 170 with a 90 on it, we switched to a stainless steel prop and it was like night and day. Hole shot was crazy good, we could pull two skiiers out of the water easier than my friends boat could pull one, and it had a 115. We also gained easily 5 mph top end. But I was just a stupid teen and didn’t pay attention to the prop angle or anything like that. But in the long run, for us, it was better in every aspect to have the stainless steel prop.