The bass fishin still remains to be very good on Minnetonka. I’ve been forunate to spend many days guiding out there, and there has been plenty of fish for everyone. Adam caught this beauty on the 1st. He actully saw the fish hanging out at the end of a dock with lots of scattered weed around it. He threw a 4" watermelon/red flake stickworm from Outkast Tackle texas rigged weightless to her and she ate it. He and Fred did this all day long and had a blast "hunting" bass. The key was to see the fish before they saw you and spooked. Make a long cast in front of them, and you had them.
Fri Mike and I spent a half day chasing bass. We concentrated on main lake inside weedlines. We caught lots of fish, with most around 2lbs. We had a couple nicer fish, but this proved to be more of a numbers trip. Here is Mike with one of the avereage fish for the day. We were using 4" stickworms again, junebug this time, but had them rigged on a 3/32 oz Outkast Money Jig. It worked best to hold the bow of the boat on the inside edge and make long casts paralell to the weeds. As each day goes by the fish seem to get more aggressive.
I also managed to do a little smallie fishing. Minnetonka holds a decent population that you can key in on early and late in the season. We found a few fish on beds, but not the numbers we expected. I think the higher than normal water that was a bit off colored made the biggest difference. This fish came off a sparse inside weededge where we could not see the bottom. She was the biggest of 4 we caught in one small area.
As I said, it seems as though the fish are getting more aggressive. We have managed a few fish on cranks as well as a few out deep. If you can get out on the water early, now is the time to do it!
Mike,
thanks for the great report, need to get over there soon.
Jack..
Nice looking fish Mike!
How long does this particular bite last? I would imagine pitching those docks is an all summer long technique on Tonka?
Hello Mike, curious if you are seeing any ski’s while bassing. Haven’t hit Tonk as of yet this year
, still getting my fix from fishing another little Metro jem.
Thanks
Thanks for the report! You just made the lake decision for tonight easy.
Get anything going on Topwater? Also what are the delths taht you you keying in on?
Thanks
Mike,
I agree, there is a great bite on Minnetonka, and well any lake that you have somewhat of a clue on how to fish bass. A buddy and I beat all the boats on the water last Saturday for that Bass Tourney that was going on and we only fished from 5am until 10:30am and I had caught a fat 15″, 2 16-16.5″, and a healthy 17″ bass, my buddy caught a nice 18″ bass, a 17″er, and some other quality 15-16″ bass. We had a great 5 hours of fishing, and the biggest came on a 4″ senko on the backside of a dock about 15 feet from shore. All of my bass came on my secret grub-like soft-plastic that catch all of my biggest bass on any given lake, smallmouth or largemouth.
I also hammered the bass on Lake Minnewaska over the bass opener. I caught approx 50-60 bass and My father-in-law probably caught 30-40 that weekend also, they were on fire, with the 2 biggest at 17.5″ and a fat spawning female at 18.5″ probably pushing 4lbs. Every one of my fish were released. Now is a great time for bassin!!
Great report!! Mike how did you do in the classic? We caught fish just like you said in your report, but we did catch some of out bigger fish on a trap. The fish out there seem to get more and more aggresive as the day goes on. We had 2 fish at 11:00 and it was just like someone turned on a light after that. We ended up having 19.40lbs not a bad day but we had some bigger fish going in practices, thay just did not go for us.
Great looking smallie
Scott Seaton
Nice report Mike!
Scott,
I think it was the boat!
I think you are right
Steve,
The inside weed edge bite runs form the opener thru Jun usually. As the water warms and the weeds thicken, the better fish seem to move out deep. There are always a few on the docks, but rarely is that a tournament winning pattern.
Serpent,
Each day out we see skis. They are just laying on the shallow sand. We haven’t caught any this year like last year. They don’t seem real aggressive yet.
Dan,
The top water bite hasn’t taken off yet. I would expect to see a few fish soon. They have proved more aggressive each day as Scott and I said.
Scott,
We had 19 as well. The big girls just wouldn’t hit Sat for us. We had a limit early and caught fish all day long. I had wondered about traps given how high the weeds are now. Did you get many pike throwing them?
Mike,
In practices I caught a few on a trap, but on sat. we did not catch any. It seems that if you were on the inside weedline you did not get many, but if you went out to the outside weed line thats were we caught the pike. We were fishing big flats, if you fished the sharp drops you caught bass and pike. The pike sure liked the mag worts cranked on the outside weedline.
Thanks for the Tonka report Mike. I can’t wait to get back down there. I know there are some real brutes in there.