water temps 73-75 and holding well.
tony puccio is in camp as guest fishing instructor last week and next 2.he's always full of laughs for all,great with guests/instructing, and finding new patterns.always alot and new things to learn from one of the origional walleye pros.
mayflys held on a bit longer than expected though fishing remained good but you generally had to move around a bit as fish were roaming around alot on the bars and spooking after 3-6 fish right off the bat. lindy rigs and minnows and jigs and crawlers.15-22'. reefs,humps. also still some big fish in heavy cabbage at 8-13'.some beds are perfect with 2-3' between tops and surface. try some big suspending minnow baits with rattles like rattl'n rouges in the pm over top and bait rigs slo pokes right into the cabbage and pockets mid day. also starting to feed heavily on crayfish now,must be molting,many filleted fish were full of them last couple days,same with pike. when that happens you will still have your standard bite at 15-22' but there will be some big loners or small pods of big over slot fish right up on top of shallow 3-10' bars and they will be very aggressive.cover ground casting tops with shad raps,flicker shads etc.
though the week besides enough eaters, slot and over fish dominated the catches with alot of 24-29" fish. 4wd lakes were hot last week as they are smaller and shallower than eagle and hatch started/ended sooner.
with the daily changes in weather though the week from sunny/flat to cloudy and some showers to sunny and windy musky action was good.starting to get exciting actually with alot of big fish moving.not seeing the big numbers we do generally at this time of season, more 6-12 fish days than 10-20 but alot of fish biting out at start of retrieve though plenty of big fish were missed/lost at boatside including some real hogs. sol his personal best at 53 and a 48,mark mccumber boated a heavy 52 and 6 other fish 38-48,bob hosiacki his personal best at 50.5,rob weasley his personal best 51,the sliwinskys 5 fish 42-48",mike 49.5,and more fish 40-48 were boated by others in camp.both weeds and rocks though some days one pattern or the other would dominate with generally the weeds being the diff on the sunny flatter days and rocks on the cloudy and sunny windy days but you got to bounce between the patterns daily as they are using both as well as deeper 12-18' rock humps being used by walleyes,3 big fish 50"+ grabbed walleyes last week off such structures and this pattern is usually overlooked by many fishing shield lakes.
mostly blades and topwater,some suicks too.
even with the excellent start the best walleye and trophy musky fishing of the season is on it's way.
got 1 availablity july 27-aug 3,
2 aug 10-17,
2 aug 24-31,
scattered availablity through what will undoutably be a great month of sept.
hope to see you and untill then good fishing!
herbie
