Been a hectic 3 days! On Saturday’s Allegheny trip, Elias the 7 year old manchild, had 2 toothies hooked-up (1 musky and 1 nice pike) but they both shook off. Al and Dave both had muskies chase them to the boat but could not convert. We did net a couple accidental bass and a smaller pike while down-sizing our baits later in the day.

Sunday’s smallmouth trip to Presque Isle was met with a nasty, rainy cold front with air temps dropping 30 degrees from the day before and 20-25 mph winds constantly pounding us. The fishing was decent in the morning but got very tough by noon. We mainly caught smaller males but a few prespawn females were netted. As the last boat left around 2:30, we decided to pack it in too.

Monday was a much better day as the fishing picked up as the temps rose into the afternoon. We had a very diversified species day with smallmouth, largemouth, pike, rock bass, perch and a single bowfin to round it out. I was surprised at the sizes of the pike that kept eating our jerkbaits and shiners over the 2 days. Our heaviest smallie was around 4-5 pounds and all 7 pike were 30+ inches except for 1 that was 28”. Water temps ranged between 64 on Sunday and 61 on Monday.

We are planning to do the same trip this coming weekend and battle the craziness known as Memorial Day.

Good luck and stay tuned!