McGregor Area Multi Species Report 5.24.09

Well, I spent the past holiday weekend up at my families cabin on Lake Minnewawa near McGregor, MN. For the first time in many years all 3 of my brothers and myself were up there on Memorial Day weekend spending it with our parents and families. The transformation definitely happened some time or another as we were not the young kids anymore and there were other kids that were creating life long memories of spending time up at the family cabin. I guess what I’m trying to say is, “Yes I’m………..I mean we ALL are getting older and does time fly.” So make sure you take the time to create these memories for yourself and your children or nieces and nephews. You don’t want these times to pass you by. I still remember my first northern I caught about 30 years ago. It wasn’t the biggest fish, but it was a start to a life long passion that kept my Summers busy and me out of trouble.

After some remodeling of my fish house was done, I made my way onto the lake with my brother Rich, my brother Ron and his daughter Sierra in search of some mid day bass action. It took a little while for us to figure them out, but then it was game on as I started to boat fish after fish, after aggressive fish. I had one string of 4 casts in a row of boating a bass. The secret was easy, find the weeds starting to emerge and you found the bass. This was mainly occurring in 1-4 feet of water. Secondly, give them a heavy dose of white spinner baits and you had some scrappy bass willing to battle. After making the switch to white spinners everyone else started to pound the fish also. During our time fishing these bass we also found the emergent weeds were holding not only bass, but good schools of crappies and sunnies that we would later exploit via small leeches and crawler bits under a small bobber. I even started to pound them using a plain Custom Jigs & Spins Ratso by casting it out under a small bobber and using a slow retrieve to cover water and entice the bites. The largest sunny was a 9” bull but plenty of 8 to 8.5”s came to the boat. I believe the largest Crappie was only 11.5” but the action was a lot of fun. Shown above is my niece Sierra with a 19” Large Mouth we teamed up on as I set the hook and turned the rod over to her to battle the beast as I knew it was a good fish and it gave her all she could handle. She got a good ribbin from her uncles as we made fun of her new fish fighting stance. We spent a good afternoon pounding these bass and panfish and came back for just a little bit more on late Monday morning. We finally were able to locate some bigger fish after we spent some time and landed many around the 16-17” mark with the 19”er being tops for the weekend. I know there are bigger fish in the lake, but I’m guessing they had not moved in yet and are still sitting off that first break to deeper water. I’m anxious to get back up there in a few weeks and tackle a few of those hawgs that I know are in here.

The post cold front conditions did not seem to slow the bass or panfish action, but it did make the walleyes a lil harder to find and catch as I struggled to boat many walleyes. However, I did boat my 2nd biggest off this lake shown here in the 3rd picture of this report. I caught him with a jig and a leech off a gravel bar break in about 11’ of water. Not a huge walleye, but my 2nd best off this lake. I hope to beat my best this Summer as I have hopes of putting a little more time on this lake but we will have to see how busy the Summer gets

Well, it was a great weekend spending it with my family, fishing and spending time with my parents Here in the last picture is the latest fisherperson of the Stenger family as my niece Kylie even got into some of the great panfish action this past weekend. Depending on day and time of day we found water temps from 60-65 degrees, the bass and panfish were definitely holding around the new emergent weeds that were not quite far along as I thought they would be. The walleyes were a little spread out and hard to find, but holding in traditional spots as we did mange a few of them in the one evening and morning we fished for them. I’m guessing the cold front that passed through might have had a lil something to do with the poor walleye fishing, but at least we still had good action with the bass and pannies. Next weekend, I’m looking forward to rigging and slip bobbering the mud flats out on Mille Lacs, so until next week be safe, have fun and make sure you introduce a kid into the great outdoors and start creating memories that will last a lifetime!

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