fishing report 9/15

[Steve Herbeck]

9/18
water temps now starting to drop under 60 degrees. had our first frost yesterday morning,daytime temps avg 50-60. nice fishing weather.
an occasional welcomed front coming through between days of sun especially for the musky fishermen.typical sept early fall weather.
big smallies now starting to bunch up on top of humps and reefs 12-18' as well as scattered around rocky boulder points and shelves along shorelines. lots of 16-18" to fish up to 22" last few days and building daily with the slowly dropping water temps. big chubs on jigs and rigs been far the best but can be taken on tubes and drop shots on the humps and flukes,tubes,spinnerbaits and cranks on shoreline rocks.
walleyes the most consistant catches of eaters and slot fish at 28-32',mostly 15-22" with some 23-25"ers , humps,bars, and narrow areas with wind driven current been the best. the consensus is the bigger fish 27-30"+ have gone much deeper but scattered as marking some big fish at those depths of 45'+ but tough to get to bite,conversly and interstingly the past several days there has been a good am and pm bite developing on shallower mud/sand bottom flats near deeper water much like late june patterns especially if it has some sand grass at 15-17' mostly eater fish but good numbers.vb and western sections been best. central sections of the lake alot of fish have dropped deep to 40-55'.
guys casting for pike are finding alot of pike shallow again mostly 26-32" fish with the occasional fish to 38",musky fishermen casting rocks are encountering the occasional bigger pike 38-42" fish so they are starting to move up shallow again with the cooling water.
muskys have been up and down with the weather from day to day but showing signs of gearing up for the fall bite. some real jumbos showing up regularly/daily now 40#+ unfortunatly on off at boatside recently .real close to breaking open on real big fish.using the rocks both deeper edges of bars and points,and walls but the most aggressive fish seem to be flying right off the top and shallow edges. most deeper weed beds have started to or are deteriorated but the shallow broadleaf and tobbaco cabbage in 4-6' of water and thicker coontail patches are still good and holding fish especially on the sunnier days/periods.
blades still moving and catching fish but ripped minnow baits,dawgs ,raiders been best on most days. the west group had 48 and 51.5 "ers yesterday,scott 50", mike has had 52.5,2 51",48" in the past few days,scott m 52" haverlands 47",zedliths 46",unzicker 46",rodgers 46",houlihan 44". the MI group of 12 had 20ish fish or so mostly 40-45" ers a week ago and bill ended up with 31 fish for the 3 weeks here as well as 4 for his brother the week he was here to 51.5". there has been alot of 39-44"ers caught mixed in there,even more good fish lost at boatside strikes or nipping out on the cast and most everyone has had opportunities or sighting of real big fish so we're so close to having some awesome days. looking forward to the next few weeks and into oct.
got some availablity for last week of sept,first week of oct when we traditionally have always produced some real big girls.
looking forward to those already coming and get ready cause i feel we're in for a great fall bite and for those thinking of it come join us for a seasons ending trip before another season slips by.
good fish'n!!!
herbie