Lake Hubert, MN Bass report

My wife Becky and I made a quick trip up to Lake Hubert near Brainerd for a powder puff bass tournament she wanted to compete in. Last year she won the event with a 5lb 9oz kicker fish she named Herb, which we have a replica on the way for her to put on the wall. This year she wasn’t quite able to get the big fish on tourny day, but she still managed to squeak out another win.

The majority of the fish we caught came Texas rigging a 5" green pumpkin Outkast stickworm. We rigged them weightless on a 3/0 hook. The best area we had for numbers of fish was right in front of the access. There was an area that had scattered weed growing in 3-5′ of water inside of the reeds. These same depths in the rest of the lake were mainly clean with the weeds not starting until 7′ or so. We would make long casts in the crystal clear water and slowly work the bait back to the boat. Most times when you got a bite you would see your line twitch and start to move sideways.

The day before the tournament we were using the same technique, but fishing docks. We managed a few fish, but then had one of the coolest fishing experiences I have ever I. I skipped my bait under the dock and felt a hit right away. I set the hook and could tell it was a small fish. Before I had the fish out from under the dock it got heavy, and then went back to normal. I figure it had temporarily wrapped around a post until I pulled it out into the open. Swimming with the 7" bass I had hooked was anther MONSTER bass. Instantly I told my wife to throw at the big fish to see if we could hook it too. Before she could cast the big bass inhaled my little one. Now I was trying to steer this thing towards the boat and telling Becky to bet the net. The big fish swam under the boat and back out and let go. Now the big bass is sitting 5 feet fom the boat. Again I tell Becky to cast at the fish and again it hits my little bass, but this time she was able to get it in the net. Amazing considering the fish was never hooked. The fished weighed well over 5lbs and was blind in one eye. The people that owned the place we were fishing in front of got to witness the whole thing which made it that much cooler. They thanked us for releasing the fish back under their dock. Later sat we caught another big fish that was between 4.5-5lbs as well in some shallow weeds as well.

There were 2 big differences from last yaer. The first was that the water was quite a bit lower. There were quite a few shallow areas that I didn’t think I was going to make it through. The second was the deep weeds. Last year we caught a lot of nice fish in 18-20′ on the outside edges of the coontail. The same areas this year were bare, with the deepest weed at 16′ and grass. We did managed 1 nice smallie, but not the largies we had before. i also got to meet David and Jason Erlandson at Dave’s Sportland Bait and Tackle. They really know their stuff, and if you plan to fish the Brainerd area, stop in for up to date info.