Lake Minnetonka, Mn 9-22-03

Last Wednesday was our last Wednesday Night Tournament on Lake Minnetonka. Scott and I love doing these and look forward to each of them. This one we were a little leary of. With winds 20+ mph we knew our main lake spots would be all but impossible to fish. We got on the water a 1pm to do a little prefishing before the 4pm start. We found a nice out of the wind spot that had a nice weed flat right off the docks. I started by skiping a Spider Grub on a Money Jig under athe docks and caught a solid 2lb fish on my very first cast. I made it a point to ask Scott is that was to be a good or bad sign. I didn’t catch another fish up to tournament time. Scott managed to boat over 12 bass in the next hour throwing a buzzbait over the weed flat. On almost every cast there would be minnows busting the surface, obviously the reason the bass were there. Most fish were in the 2-3lb range. Not pigs, but good solid fish.

As 4pm rolled around we made the run to what we thought was our best set of docks. The first 3 fish we catch under the docks all were pike. Now what a 5lb pike is doing under the docks, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t suggest dipping your toes in. Next Scott put a small fish in the box on a buzzbait. From there on it was my turn. That little spider grub went to town and manged to get our other 4 weigh fish. 1 of them came from under a dock. 1 came way up behind the dock. Another came next to the dock. And our biggest, a 4.2lber, came from a group of about 5 lillypads between the docks. Unfortunatly there were the fish that got away of coarse, but we still managed to squeek out a 5th place finish and end up in the top 10 for team of the year.

I intentionally waited to post this report as 2 good friends were fishing the Mn Pro-Am Championship on Fri and Sat. Most of their fish were caught doing the exact same things. In the fall there will still be a few fish in the milfoil, but they are a lot harder to come by, at least for me. If I want to fish deep, I will usually go to an outside weed edge and cast deep diving crankbaits like a Bomber Fat "A". Most fish seem to make a migration shallow however. They are up chasing the abundance of minnows that are in the shallow weeds. When the bass do this, they have the feed bag on and are a blast to catch. Almost anything you throw will catch fish. On a lake like ‘Tonka the channels will also turn on. And never forget the slop this time of the year for the pig.

Fall is also I think the best time for the muskies. The very first cast a buddy made the other day yielded a legal fish. Topwaters or bucktails worked over weed flats are usually the best areas. Last year I had 6 legal fish in 2 days, and I am by no means an esox expert.

The pleasure boat traffic is all but gone, and the fishing is going good. Get out and enjoy.