We got home on Tuesday. Probably as rotten weather for two weeks as we ever had. Shoveled snow out of the boats twice. Very strong winds, lots of rain and cold temps. Walleye fishing was very good. Deep water , current areas close to the camp. Crappies were sporadic. Caught them at 35' and 14'. Miles bay area was best. Duck hunting was poor, although we did get enough birds. Bills were rafting up around Horseshoe Island. Shut the trailer down for the season. Six months to wait.
Got home this afternoon in time to see the Vikings luck out and win. Should have stayed one more day as yesterday wasn't very nice. Today would have been beautiful on the lake! Anyway, went up to Miles bay yesterday by myself while my wife cleaned up the cabin and got things ready for winter (I LOVE HER!). My first fish, picked up my jig on the drop,was a nice 22". Wow-gonna be a good day I thought. Not any more there. Had to move around to find any numbers. It was cold out, but at least the wind was blowing hard. I caught around 30-35 fish, all but the one, were around 12-15". Most were from one of my normal summer spots in 19-20'. Tried a few of my normal fall spots and nada. Oh well, I guess I'll be back when it's hard water for some sleddin' and Hay Island crappie fishing. Justin, Thanks for all the brave minnows that are willing to sacrifice themselves for me, and save me a stall again for next year. Bob
It sounds as though we had as mild weather as anyone, which actually didn't help us. We could have used more wind to concentrate some baitfish...and muskies. In all we caught 16 muskies this year. We did manage some personal bests in the group and some big fish...49.5 (nope, couldn't stretch her to 50!), 48.5, 48, 47, 46.5 were the top 5. We worked a lot of different areas with very little pattern anywhere. The fish came from all over the place and various times of day, with the only similarity being the typical point or underwater point coming out from a shoreline. So, keeping the baits wet was the key. Also unique this year was the "smaller" baits. We only caught one on a 14" Jake or 13" Grandma...and that was a little 31" peanut!
As previous posts mentioned, water temps were between 43-46 during the week, which is typically ideal. Early in the week the air was cooler, but we had mid 40 degree highs consistently mid to later week. Days were very stable and we never did have much of any wind to speak of. What light wind we did have was usually from the E. We never did find that great "feeding" window, but at least we contacted some quality fish.
We also put some big Northerns, up to 40", in the boat.
Good luck getting some last runs in, Justin, there are still some beasts out there waiting for you! Thanks for all your help this season.
Last edited by Rich; 10-28-2009 at 02:34 PM.
Reason: attach picture of 49-5
rich
you never mentioned how thick your muskie was congrads on a nice thick fall lotw muskie you needed to give her a chiropractic adjustment to try to get that last half inch !!! well you cant get much closer than that. did you girth her ?
basil
Thanks Baz. Conservatively, the girth is 24". That's what I quickly taped in the water, but I may have missed the biggest part. Nevertheless, its a fun one to look at!
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