This evening we started out with live bait for the first time in awhile. We fished slip-bobbers and leeches in 7 feet of water. My guests Scott Carlson and Tony Glebe were a blast to have along tonite and we managed to catch a few fish!
We caught one 19 inch walleye and a perch while bobber fishing the first hour or so. The leeches and bobbers just weren’t putting the numbers in the boat, so I made the move to trolling. Tony caught a nice 25 inch walleye on a clown colored husky jerk trolled in 8 feet of water. The clown color was the best choice again tonite. We caught fish on husky jerks and rattl’in rouges all in the clown color. The depth that we trolled was 7-10 feet, we found most of our fish in a small area on top of the reef in 8 feet.
Our walleye tonite ran the size of this dandy little 12 incher to 25 inches…….lately I have been catching some smaller fish (13-19) most of the fish this September have been in the 20-25 inch range.
This last photo shows you that even catching a "little one" can be fun………..Scott whats up with them pink gloves?
The bite slowed up some as we left the lake around 10:30pm. As I looked around many of the other boats had left prior. It has been that these fish go for awhile and then they shut down. I know if you spent much of the night trolling these rock reefs you would have the opportunity to catch some dandy walleye…….Its fall fishing at it’s best!
Thanks for the report Bob. Wheres Hooks? Sleepin?
Catch a few for me Bud. Thanks, Bill
Its nice to see a few fish have decided to stick around the East side of the lake! Should be up to see you soon. I have guide trips stacking up for October!
Tuck
No Bill, I’m hanging out in the background here. My all nighters start this weekend and go till after the Oct. full Moon.
Here fishy, fishy, fishy
I was on ML Friday 9/19. I got to the Cedar access around 3 pm and nearly went home- the wind seemed to be steady at 25+mph straight out of the west and I could not see a single boat on the water. Finally I decided to go out and I’m glad I did. I did not catch many fish but I landed a few. Firsh was a 21″ eye on the Doe Island reef on a HJ12 (clown.) Then I got a 28″ eye (my best walleye ever-yahoo!) around 5 pm on a firetiger shad rap pulled over the top of a different 7 foot reef. An hour later I dragged the same bait over the same reef and got snagged so around I went to retrieve the lure but found the rock was moving. It turned out to be a 40″ class musky who finally bit me off but not before a 5 minute battle. I got a couple good looks at him- the last look showed my rap well inside his mouth, so I guess I’m lucky I stayed hooked up as long as I did. Still, I wish I’d done something different to get him into the net.
I tried leech/bobber fishing around sunset and into the evening with poor results- 1 tiny ‘eye and 1 tiny smallie landed. Quite a few bites though- I am not sure what they were, most times the leech would come back with no teeth marks. By the time I left the lake around midnight the wind had died to 5-8 mph.
I am thinking about switching to mono for trolling– I lost $15 worth of rapalas on snags. Ouch!
I have a lot of $15.00 evenings fishing wing dams.
When I have a $5.00 evening I feel good! Between lures, launch fees, gas and possibly a beverage eveinging are extremely expensive. I think I’ll start a post on this and see what everyone else is spending.
It’s been my experience that you’ll lose even more lures with the mono. I like trolling with fireline on a softer tip rod and a moderate to loose drag setting. I have been able to get them all back so far. Usually the hooks will pull straight before the line will break.