The Waconia bass are still biting, and they are still big. I was very fortunate to fish the Fisher’s of Men tournament on Waconia this past saturday with a good friend David Madsen. David really knows his stuff on that lake and when he mentioned fishing this together, I jumped at the chance. During the prefishing time we had, neither one of us had managed to get a good bite going on big fish. My guide trips there had yeilded many fish between 2-3 lbs, but not the 4, 5 and 6lb fish the lake is known for. We made our game plan, and went at it.
Dave put 2 nice 4lb fish in the boat early, allowing me to only get a couple 10" straglers from the reeds behind him. At blast off it appeared the majority of anglers started shallow, with many boats in the reeds. While we found 2 nice fish, we weren’t getting numbers so we moved deep. The day was windy, but Dave was able to keep great boat control and put me in position to boat a 5.25lber that ended up being our big fish. Dave got our next fish we weighed and I managed the last one that went to the scale. Again without Dave’s boat control, there’s no way we would have gotten those fish. The deep fish came out of the milfoil on both jigs and texas rigs. We tried some docks looking for the kicker, but managed nothing. We weighed just shy of 21lbs on 5 fish and ended up 3rd behind a 23 & 22 pound bag.
Sunday our club had a tourny there. I started in the foil and managed 5 fish right away. We tried a stretch of docks and then some reeds with nothing to show for it. We went back to the milfoil and I managed a 3lber. With about an hour to go we hit the same stretch of docks we hit earlier and I manage 2 more 3lb fish.
Congrats goes to Dave for catching 18lbs of 5 fish. He definatly knows that lake. I felt fortunate to get 2nd with just shy of 16lbs. Congrats also goes out to Dan for his big fish of 5lb 13oz!!
Thanks Mike. I always have liked the time on Waconia in the past years. have not been able to get there much this year. You have me dreaming. keep those reports coming.
Jack..
Way to go Mike,your a gifted bass angler dude!!!
Ryan Hale
Mike, I fished the FOM as well, however we were only able to manage about 14 lbs. We did lose one big one right away in the A.M. that would have helped a lot. Ended up battling out the wind the rest of the day. I was out musky fishing on Sunday and my partner boated a 5.6, so they are still biting well. Didn’t find any musky.
as a novice fisher(lady), i was also on waconia on sunday. we launched at the access….is the lake really that shallow at the shore or was my depth finder off? i ended up hitting bottom and nicking the crud out of my prop at 150 yards out. we fished just south and east of the island but didn’t catch a thing. any advice as to where i should go with my sons next time?
It’s pretty shallow a ways out from the public access, I’m guessing if you headed straight west of the access, it’s at least 75 yards before it drops off.
It is shallow out a ways. As far as where to fish, I catch bass out of the reeds and the deep weeds on that lake mainly. The bigger fish seem to come deep.
Mike,
Thanks for your reports, they are always infomative and insightful. I was able to get on Waconia this monday a.m.. and had a very good time with ol bucket mouth. The largest I got was in the reeds (20″) with a white spinner bait but most of my fish (16-19″) came off a main lake reef using plastics. What a lake!