Fishing report -- 9/16 thru 9/19

My dad and I just returned from another great annual fishing trip. We fished hard during this time, and managed to put some nice sized walleyes in the boat. Of course, we also got a nice sun-tan after 3 brilliantly sunny, warm days that is everything that walleyes don't like!

Biggest fish of the week was 26 inches. Nice fight on a jig and minnow on the east side of the Narrows. Lots of perch in this area too, but keep moving around as they are scattered throughout. No concentration of big perch yet there.

Fishing the west side of Goose Island and Little Hardwood was crowded. Never been up there for an opener, but that's the scene that I imagined. Counted about 45 boats there in a small area. Fish were being caught, but not plentiful by any means.

With the warm sunny days, we fished a lot at night trolling small crankbaits. It made for a lot of fun, and was the way to go for bigger fish. Finding satellites as they moved across the sky, shooting stars, and seeing the "clouds" of the Milky Way was very cool when not catching fish.

Good luck the rest of the season.

While my dad and I were on the lake last week, we saw two really weird things. While fishing the south side of Goose Island, we saw two otters maybe 50 feet from our boat. They were balancing in the water, heads looking right at us and barking. They moved too good to be beavers.

Second, even weirder, while fishing the bay area to the west of Big Hardwood point, we saw what looked like an alligator head sticking out of the water about 30 feet from out boat. I don't mean just the top of a head, but the mouth, eyes and 1/2 of the head was completely out of water. We tried to move closer but it moved away from us at the same rate. I soon realized that it was a big muskie and as I reached for my rod, the thing nearly jumped out of the lake and took off.

Anyone ever see anything like this?

Hey Nova

I dont mean to laugh but your alligator musky story gave me a big laugh. "Have I ever experienced anything like this?"
To answer your question - Only once when i was younger and in college and sat a little to close to to the bong. That was aroung 25 years ago. Keep getting those alligator muskees!!!! LOL

This strange behavior by muskies is not a mirage. Muskies swim with their heads totally out of the water. There have been many sightings of muskies acting similar to gators. Many theories have been put forth as to why these fish do this. Clearing their throats is the most popular.

I also heard of a long black snake with white rings swimming near the Walker Narrows last week end. The critter was over 3 feet long and tried to enter the boat at the transom.

... but it was morning when I saw the muskie-gator!

Murph, thanks for the info. Glad I didn't see the snake! That would have really freaked me out!

Have seen this kind of behavior many times on Leech by muskies and its been reported quite a bit over on MuskieFirst website. But I have only seen this occur right about dusk. Looks like a gator or snake making a big ol V in the water. They never have been interested in a bait when they do this as far as I know.
Don

Thats funny. We were on Leech last week and saw the same thing. We were on the west side of Traders Bay maybe 100 yards off shore and what appaeared to be a beaver was swimming probably 20 yards form our boat. I slowly swam away from us. It then put its head above water and then its tail. Thats when I could tell it was a musky. It was strange.

The next moring I cought a 38" inch musky trolling roughly in the same spot. Maybe it was him.