Friday evening, Robin Holden and Ursala jumped back in the boat and brought another friend who I never caught her name. Then again, that wasn't important as it was all about having another line in the water :-) Didn't matter as we had two rips on the trolling rods and they both came off before we could get the rod out of the holders. Got a feeling one was a good one as it was giving us big, swinging head shakes and not fast little ones or rolling up the line.
Saturday (July 24) I spent running all over and checking out a bunch of stuff I don't normally play on to see if there was any weed growth or any active fish. No to the first part and no to the second part! I did find one new bay that had weeds in it that I did not know about but the loons were so thick in there that any muskie didn't stand a chance of feeding! In open water I don't have any problem with loons. In fact, sometimes we would troll open water and just connect-the-dots and troll from loon to loon as they were usually over piles or pods of baitfish. In shallow water it is a different story. I cannot remember ever catching a muskie in an area that a loon or loons are working. After 30 years of wasting time working area that loons are in, I now will just leave a shallow water area that loons are in. Although it wasn't a very productive afternoon, it was educational and sometimes that is more valuable.
Saturday night, Jake Trinkner and his wife Ashley were on-board. It should have been an amazing night, but the fish were just teasing. We had 5 rips and only landed one--a chunky 36"ish fish on a Slammer 10" Deep Shad in sucker color. The fish were there and active, but just seemed like the last two nights the fish were just nipping the back of the baits and not really crushing them like normal.
Sunday morning (July 25) I had to pack up early and head home. This was a great trip and look forward to the next one as the summer patterns should really be set by then. Really makes you appreciate 'normal' summer patterns after we haven't had them for two years with the last two years being so unusually cold.
Brett Erickson
