Brett Erickson July 23

Friday morning (July 23) I awoke to partly cloudy skies. Now common sense would tell you that we had a major storm come through, surface temp lost about a half a degree, air temps lost On Thursday (July 22), the daytime pattern became very evident—find weeds—throw a red #9 Llungen-tail and go fast! From 10am until 2pm I boated 4. 3 between 38” to 42” and one little guy. Sharp hooks really pay off as the first fish I caught ate the bait and shook its head and then did a roll. Then all of a sudden it is tearing off drag like you wouldn’t believe. 4 or 5 hard, drag screaming runs and it pops up. Evidently when it rolled, the hook popped out and then speared it directly into the hard cartilage at the beginning of the dorsal fin. I thought I had a lot bigger fish on until it popped up beside the boat. I didn’t feel as bad hooking the fish in the fin as I did looking at what it did to the weedbed. If you’ve ever fished Crow, there aren’t a lot of weeds—and once you find them you guard them with secrecy! To have the fish tear up a beautiful weedbed like it did kind of makes you a little bumbed out. On the bright side, the fish released very strong and the weeds are better in Crow Lake right now than I have seen them in many years. It wasn’t too long after 2pm (2:20pm if I remember right) the sky started looking pretty ominous to the south. I started winding my way through the islands back to camp. Once I got through the islands and into open water, I shut the boat down and put the rain gear on as a black wall stood between myself and camp. I made it to within a mile of camp and then it all let loose. Thunder, lightning, wind and sheet upon sheet of rain came down hard. Even with raingear, I still got wet. Got back to the dock and that was it for the day as the rain kept coming down until well after dark.

about 10 degrees and the conditions are typical post frontal. So if you believe what you read in most places, you should be throwing plastics or jerkbaits and working slower and deeper. I just started where I left off—burning my red #9 Llungen-tail. First spot—41”er and a little guy. That is pretty good for a confidence builder, so off I went on my way hunting for new places where I might find weeds. Weeds change every year so what might have been there in the past might not be there now. I stumbled on a number of good areas and popped another 41”er and a skinny 45” male. On the way back in for dinner I made myself fish a couple of rock spots. I really didn’t want to as they really have done nothing up to this point. I am glad I did as a chunky 42”er ate the Llungen-tail and went airborne and put up a spectacular fight. It is amazing how hard all of the fish are fighting this year--and how fat they are for mid-summer with warm water temps. Usually you will get one or two that really don’t do too much, but all of these fish have made some really good, drag stripping runs. Looks like a beautiful night, so it is off to supper and then back out on the water.
Brett Erickson