Final Fishing Report 2009

[Dick Wilkening]

This season went by to fast!

I am sitting here in my office looking out at 3-4 inches of snow on the ground and more to come.I am sure the Witch Bay road is full of happy hunters.

Dave B asked about an end of year wrap-up. I will probably sound like a broken record, but I think the overall fishing this year was better than any of the previous years.

The fish were all affected by the cold water conditions this year. With the water temp. only 44 degrees at opener and never getting above 60 before July, the weed and algae growth was very slow to develope. This changed some of the early season locations for all of the species. I found that you had to look at the rock structures, points and humps, out in the main lake areas. One thing the cooler water temps did for us this year was it kept the fish in shallower water than normal. Even in Aug. and Sept. I was still finding my walleyes and bass in 12 to 20 feet of water. Something else that I saw this year was that a lot of my walleyes were spitting up crawfish. Also when doing any crankbait fishing for the walleyes any lure in a crawfish color was a good producer. This could be related to a poor minnow hatch this year due to the cold spring conditions, or maybe the hatch was late and the minnows are smaller than normal.

The muskie fishing was a little slow to develope this year. But once it did it finished with a flurry. The buzz word around camp was COWGIRL. The muskies did seem to prefer the blade baits this year. But I seem to remember a year or two ago that the SS Shad was the hot ticket. So can I say the muskie fishing was any better this year, maybe yes, maybe no. Muskie success still falls down to three variables in my opinion.

Luck-with the right location.
Luck-with the right lure.
Luck-with the right presentation.

But all things considered the fishing was better this year than previous years. The size and numbers of all species is improving each year. This in my opinion to a direct result of the catch and release attitude of all our fisherman and women at Witch Bay. I personally would like to thank everyone for practicing catch and release.

Know final season report would be complete without a big thanks to the Witch Bay Staff. The food was excellent and the service was supurb.

Also a big thanks to Steve and Gail for suppling all of us with a World Class fishing resort with a family atmospher.

And I would like to thank all of the guests that I worked with and helped thru out the season. I enjoyed my year at Witch Bay very much and am looking forward to the next season.

Dick Wilkening
Witch Bay Pro Staff

[Dave B]

Dick -- Thanks for the wrap up. I hope you don't mind if I throw you a few questions and make a few comments. First, the questions. What, if anything, did you and the other instructors and guests do differently this year? Was there a new technique, lure, color, etc. that seemed to produce this year for walleye, or smallies. Other than locational differences due to the cooler temps and slower weed growth, did you see a different preference in baits (live bait, cranks, jig types, etc.)? Any new tricks we need to read up on over the winter or stock up for while dreaming about next year's trip? Now a few comments. My group fished the first week of August, and we spent most of our time muskie fishing. It seemed like there were relatively short, but intense feeding windows throughout the week. You could be fishing good spots all day, and not see much, and then in 30 minutes or a hour see and catch fish. A few times, we could predict when the feeding window was going to be -- wind shift and/or full moon rising at sunset. But, other times it was tough. If you decided to take some time off throwing heavy metal and fish for walleyes or bass, you might miss out on the window. You just had to put a full day in. Over half the fish we caught were on double cowgirl type lures. The others were caught on a variety of stuff -- shallow invaders, suicks, jackpots, etc. It seemed that the DCG lures were most effective our week when run a little below the surface instead of trying to burn them in -- maybe due to the cooler temps. One nice bonus of the cooler water temps was we managed to catch some quality northerns (a couple of 37's, a few 38's and a 43.5") while fishing for muskies. All were in relatively shallow water. In the past when we were fishing in late July with warm water temps, we just weren't running into many quality northerns on the shallow rock structures. Another interesting, perhaps cool water, phenomon this year was the muskies didn't want to eat many top raiders, but sure were willing to go on the over-sized jackpots. The only fishing we did for walleyes was casting crankbaits on the main lake rockpiles. And while we didn't spend much time doing it, we did find some fish on the rocks, including some mid 23-26" range fish. In years past, when the shallow rock bite is going, you don't need a lot of wind on the rocks. This year, if there wasn't wind, there wasn't much of a bite.

[Jratthelake]

Hey Dave, the only thing that may have changed for me is amount of time the double blades were in the water, I threw topwater with very little success this season, although the fish would follow they would not hit. We found the fish where they were supposed to be but it seemed if you werent throwin something with blades you werent hooking up, and a smooth figure 8 also put many fish in the boat, without you simply did not catch as many fish.

One very important thing we saw this year was how many different fish could come off of a small area, we had one spot this year that produced 8 different fish from 38 to 47 inches, and many other spots that produced numbers of different fish.

This was my 4th season fishing for Musky and each season I learn more and more about where and how to fish for them but it becomes more apparent to me that more time needs to be spent on how to deal with these fish once they are boatside. Musky fishing can be very scary to some and its not till the fish is boatside and in the net that things can go very wrong. With the proper tools, knowledge and equipment a good release is assured, without the proper gear, and lack of experience, someone is going to get hooked, or worse the fish will die.

Dave, I have been home in Kenora for the past 2 weeks unwinding from the season but am returning to camp today to spend some time fishing with a group of 6 from Chicago, the weather looks good and the water temps are cooling so we hope to see some big fat fall fish. Once I am settled back home for the winter season I will have plenty to say.

Also Witch Bay is on FaceBook so those of you on facebook check out the Witch Bay Group, there are about 30 on there now and would like to see more, add pics , video, comment and such.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=23541337232&ref=mf

Hey Dave, Take care , and keep on keepin on

[Dave B]

Wayne -- I'm jealous. I've been dreaming of fishing late in the fall. A combo bowhunting/muskie fishing trip would be about heaven for me. Over the past 4 or 5 trips, we've become big believers in the concept of multiple fish on small spots. We see it regularly now, and try to make sure we use it to our advantage by going back around and fishing a spot again right after we caught one. We've seen spots where there are 5, 6 or more fish on the same spot at the same time. We've seen some where there was a big fish on a spot one day, and the next there is a mid 40" fish. We've seen multiple follows at the same time - one on each guy's lure. Last trip, Joe P had a follow going, and another fish came out from under the boat and try to grab the lure as he went into a figure 8. Crazy stuff. That's what makes it so adictive. Good luck. We'll be in touch this winter. I think I'm going to try to bring up my 2 boys any my wife with me next summer for the first time. Talk with ya' soon.