Another no show on Tuesday had me taking care of things at home instead of being where I wanted to be, on the water once again. Today however, I was back out with Jay and his two nephews, Shane & Devin looking to get them into plenty of fish. I hadn’t seen them in a few years and they had really grown since we were out last with their father. The weather was a mish mash of terrible, with winds starting out from the S/W at 15 t0 20 knots and closer to 30 knot gusts. The skies were heavily clouded and most of them were gray & black rain clouds too! Although we never really got rained on, the run on the lake was a little splashy due to the direction I had to take and some rain fell upwards instead. I was glad I had chosen the rain gear! We began by trolling in an area and after about 35 minutes in the waves without any success, transferred locations in hopes of better results. Once more I criss crossed the wave direction in order to get to where we were headed, causing more upward splashes and wetness. I hadn’t had the lines in the water 5 minutes when a reel fired and Devin was officially into the first northern of the day. Although it wasn’t a very big one, it was still nice to see the fish were here! Trolling into the wind & waves was quite challenging to say the least as boat control wasn’t easy! Although the down wind troll was easier, it wasn’t as productive, as we had more hits from the opposite direction. The bites weren’t fast & furious like I was accustomed to but we were able to pick at them alright in the next couple of hours, catching a bunch of pike and a few walleye. One of the northerns acted like a really big walleye when Shane let him dive down into the weeds during the fight. He had a tough time getting the fish to the boat and although the pike was in the 8 pound class, there were 10 pounds of weeds along for the ride! This fish never really fought after the burial, it just gave up and was dragged all the way in. Devin managed to get into another big one a little later and showed his brother how to do it when he brought the fish back in record time. This was another quality northern and very worthy of a picture, but I was forced to hold it for him when he refused to stick his hand into the gills for the pic. We continued to troll through this area all the while hoping for a better walleye bite without any real success. To make matters worse, the bite totally died when the winds went west and then N/W blowing even stronger. Usually when you get a wind change the bite gets really hot but not when it turns into a northward blow as we found out. I thought we would make another run and switch it up completely, going for smallies instead. Once at the new location, we were into them almost immediately as Devin got slammed on a blade right at the side of the boat. This was the start of the smallmouth bite as everyone managed to get into them on a variety of presentations. The crank-bait that Jay was throwing turned really hot when we got over some shallower rocks and he started to just pound them. Both the boys had slacked off a bit and their uncle was monopolizing on their lack of catching by reeling in one after the other! Devin did hook up on a big one but it turned out to be the wrong species for this area as I unhooked a 6 pound pike for him after the fight. As we slid along this area, there wasn’t any one better lure than the other, with everyone catching on whatever they were throwing. I wanted to try another spot, but I have a hard time leaving fish when fish are biting, so we settled in and just kept fishing this one a little longer. We cut the day slightly shorter than I am use to when Jay mentioned that everyone had to be somewhere by a certain time and ran back to the ramp around 4:30. Considering the changes that we had in weather, I think that we fended quite well all around. We had 3 wind directions, a drop in temperature through the day and clouds with bright sunshine later on in the day. I don’t know who was more confused, the fish or the fishermen! Overall it was still a great day with many, many fish landed by all!!

After a not too disappointing cancellation for today, Christiane & I headed out for a little pleasure fishing on our own. A leisure launch of around 9:30 had us fishing a little later than I am use to, but we were in no rush! The weather was a scorcher already and with the lack of wind was only going to get worse. Sunshine and occasional clouds surrounded us throughout the day as we fished for a variety of species. We began by trolling an area I hadn’t been fishing for almost 2 weeks and had a confirmation almost immediately with a four pound smallmouth bass. Christiane battled this angry creature all the way to the net, but not without chaos as it tangled in the other line along the way. We took a few quick pics and set the lines back out in hopes of a few more. Three more smallies were hooked in the next 20 minutes but they were all slightly smaller than the first one and no pics were needed. I really wanted a confirmation on the walleye here and kept at it for a little while longer looking for old yeller! Another reel fired soon after and this one was definitely acting like a walleye as Christiane reeled the fish back to the boat for a sure confirmation. Not only was it the right species but it was also a biggun! Once in the net I was glad to see that there were still some of these big fish hanging around and despite the not so perfect conditions, eager to eat. Another few quick pics and we released the almost 27 inch eye, back to swim again. I set the lines back and started trolling the area more to try & get another one of equal or better size but this was not to be. Instead of fishing for fish, I was forced to fish for a rod when I accidently knocked it out of the rod holder while checking it. Somehow it released and just fell into the lake while we were still trolling. I immediately grabbed another line and casted to the area hoping to hook the line and luckily did just that. The lure slid all the way down the line and actually caught the other lure making it even more difficult to retrieve. Normally this would have been a good thing but with the drags set light, all I was able to do was pull line off the reel. I would have had to unspool almost 500 feet of the line to get to the knot on the spool and pray that it was tied on strong enough to hold without breaking. I once again tried casting a jig to the area in hopes of catching the rod, but was still unable to hook it and was left with no other choice but to go swimming. The visibility wasn’t great and without a mask and fins I knew it was still a long shot but tried nonetheless. On about my third dive down with the line in hand, I finally felt the rod tip and hung on to it ascending to the surface. I really didn’t want to lose this rod as it was one of my favorites for trolling and it would have been a pain to replace. Definitely the catch of the day! After regrouping, we trolled for another 20 minutes without another rip and decided to change it up and go for smallies elsewhere. We pounded a bunch of fish up to about 3 pounds on soft plastics and after an hour or so of this decided to go to another area and try trolling once again. This was the right choice as we were almost immediately into a fish. Although it wasn’t what we were targeting, it was still a fish. There were pike here, but what about the walleye? Well a confirmation was soon responded to as a three pounder came to the net not long after. Several more pike and another walleye were also caught in the next short while and then a bonus fish appeared. I thought it was just a longer than usual pike at first but soon realized that it was a lunge. Another « Multi Species » day with a grand slam home run in about 6 hours of fishing, not bad! Although it wasn’t a big one it was still nice to see and fight on lighter than usual tackle for a Muskie. With that, we decided to call it a day and headed back. It never fails that one person’s loss is another’s gain and this time Christiane was the winner. She had caught plenty of fish and a real smorgasbord of them to boot!!

Tim was joining me today to learn a little about the smallmouth bass and he brought Kevin along for the ride. The weatherman was once again, bang on with their predictions of possible thunder showers very late in the day! We were in the rain from before 11 o’clock until just about 5 o’clock, when we called it a day and headed to the ramp. Add the terrible east winds instead of the S/E ones that they called for and you have the makings of a perfectly disastrous outing! Although we did have sunshine to start, it was very short lived when the clouds arrived. The air temps were probably the best part as they finally dropped below 80 degrees and topped out closer to 75. I wasn’t sure what to expect so we began shallow and threw soft plastics just looking for some fish. Unfortunately only a couple of smaller ones fell victim to the baits and we moved on. It didn’t seem to matter what type of cover we were fishing as the fish just didn’t seem to want to bite. Big bass were seen in almost every location we stopped at but they just refused everything we sent their way, annoying us even more. When I finally had enough we went to a couple of current breaks in deeper water and it was here that Tim managed to get a decent fish to the net before the hooks just fell out. There had been a few others taken on tube jigs but they weren’t up to my standards so we relocated to deeper water along the channel looking for some schooling fish instead. Unfortunately do to the direction of the wind, it was impossible to manage a drift and have control of the jig so we had to abandon that idea too. Mother Nature was making my life a living hell trying to locate some of the better bass and the fish weren’t cooperating either. The next area saw plenty of huge smallies and every one of them refused the baits without ever even looking at them. All we could do was watch them swim by in the pouring rain! On to the next area and Kevin managed to get hold of yet another small bass with sightings of giant cruisers and passers by. I just kept relocating to new areas hoping for the « Holy Grail » but it never happened. We managed several more not so great medium bass from a number of tried locations before we called it quits. Not too many pictures today but we still managed to get a few shots off nonetheless. Overall it was a pretty disappointing day by my standards with neither quality nor quantity coming aboard. Hopefully the guys at least had a better understanding of what to look for, on any future trips on the water and just how the smallies actually behave. Days like these make me want to troll even more!!

Well, it wasn’t hard to remember who I had today as they were both named Ben! I had Big Ben and Little Ben and they were about to experience another unbelievable day on the lake. We had switched up from yesterday and now the others were hitting a different lake with Mike and I was heading back to my comfort zone for walleye & northerns. The weather had cooled slightly but was still holding high humidity and temps in the low 80’s forecasted for today. Winds were nice, blowing at around 10 knots from the west and increased to about 15 later in the day. With the sun and clouds it would remain comfortable enough to fish without sweating bullets and that was definitely a welcomed change! I was surprised that the first fish came long after we started the troll and was covering water searching for the active ones. Fifteen minutes is considered a long time and I didn’t like it a bit! These fish were around, just not very active this morning as we picked one here and one there for abut the first hour or so. Eventually, they started to hit the lures and the game was on. Ben & Ben had decided to have a little competition today and were counting every fish as well as the size to determine each species winner. The pike & walleye were coming in the boat every few minutes now and all was great after there slower day out the one before. Ben had managed to land a 46 inch Muskie and he was thrilled at its overall mass but big fish like that are loners. With the species they were targeting yesterday, you’re not looking for numbers, just size and this was a treat as the action was hot. Walleye of up to 26 inches and northerns up to 33 inches were landed and plenty of others slightly smaller as well. At one point there were ten walleye in the livewell before we released all back to the lake to bite another day. The highlight of the day was seeing the big northern of 32 inches get beat by another one of 33 inches minutes later. After they had landed piles of fish I thought we would switch it up a little and see if they could get a few smallies to add to the already hefty sac of walleye & pike. It didn’t take long before they were locked up to some of these little brown power houses and on light spinning tackle it was great. Soft plastics and jigs accounted for the 10 or so bass up to 3 pounds as we covered an area the size of a football field. The winds had kicked up a little stronger so I decided that another troll was in order and set the lines out for even more action. They were almost immediately into doubles and it just kept coming. For the last hour and a half they managed to slam plenty more fish in both species and couldn’t believe the day they had. As always, I never like leaving until the last fish is caught and told them we would head out after just one more. Well, when the reel started to scream I knew it was a good one and Ben also felt the weight of this one as he had reeled in oh so many already. The way it was staying down made me feel like it was another big eye like the last one yesterday, but then I saw the fish. Although it wasn’t a walleye, it was still a nice northern at almost 31inches. What a way to end an already spectacular day of fishing! I’m sure the two Bens will remember this day of fishing for quite a while and hopefully they will all come back looking for another trip chock full of big fish once again!!

Another day of scorching heat and another day on the water to thoroughly enjoy the high humidity was what I had in store for me today. Elaine & Joel were to fish with me as the party of five were split into 2 boats. We managed to get a slightly later than usual start today but were into fish not long afterwards. Winds were blowing out of the S/W at around 10 knots at least giving us some relief from the 75 degree temps at 9:00 A.M. These would just keep climbing throughout the day however until they topped out somewhere around 90 degrees. We were somewhat fortunate to have clouds & sun instead of just total sunshine and that too felt good. I decided that trolling would be the best way to get the ball rolling and set the lines out in anticipation of a quick bite. Unfortunately, it actually took longer than expected and 10 minutes had lapsed before a reel began to scream. Elaine got the first northern of around 4 pounds to get the ball rolling and then things picked up. Both pike and walleye were being reeled in every 5 minutes or less and a couple of double headers were thrown in for good measure. No big walleye were landed this morning with the largest going somewhere around 3.5 pounds or so and the pike went somewhere closer to 6 pounds. What was great to see though was the smallmouth bass that Elaine landed that was closer to 4 pounds and oh what a fight! She couldn’t believe the raw power of the fish as she brought it to the net. After a few quick pics it too was released back to the area from where she came from. We continued to fish this area for a while longer, all the while looking for a real big walleye and coming up short. The did manage to reel in plenty of decent northerns up to about 7 pounds but the best we could do on the walleye was still under four. I thought a change was in order and switched it up a bit to be able to give them a different species to catch and went for smallies. Soft plastics and blades were thrown in this area but the pickings were slim. Although we had several shots at some good fish, most were either missed or lost altogether. I think Joel managed to get the best one to the net that went somewhere around 3.5 pounds but it didn’t beat the one Elaine had caught earlier in the morning. One more area was to be hit before we switched back to trolling and we headed over there to try and land a few more bass. The winds had kicked up a notch and were now blowing a little stronger than before making boat control somewhat more difficult. Joel was catching a few bass on soft plastics once again and when the winds got even stronger, I had to give him a jig just so he could feel what was going on. There were plenty of bass in this location, but the waves were rolling 2 to 3 footers with an occasional 4 foot rogue thrown in for good measure so we called it quits. When fishing stops being fun, it’s not worth it! It was past 3:30 now and I really wanted to see about getting a big walleye for them so we switched back to the trolling and ran to another area in hopes of a better fish. The run was a little tricky as we were criss crossing the waves and they were intense. Definitely in the 3 to 4 foot class! I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to troll into the wind without taking some waves over the bow so I ran up higher to troll down wind. Well, I couldn’t get all the rods in the water for 10 minutes as they kept firing! This isn’t a bad thing, just an inconvenience when you’re trying to set up and they had to reel in even more fish. Once again a mix of walleye and northerns were caught but not the ones I was searching for today. It layed down slightly and after making the down wind troll I was able to go into the wind without swamping the front deck, successfully. They continued to reel in fish and some of the pike were a pretty decent average of over 5 pounds. In fact, one of them went over 8 pounds and was really thick around the belly looking quite healthy too. I had planned on calling it around five and thought that we would just get one more before we headed in, when another reel fired. Elaine was generous enough to let Joel have this one and when he picked up the rod, there was some weight on the other end. As with the usual last call, another reel fired and Elaine too was into a fish so I cleared the other rod to allow them to fight the fish without any tangles. I released Elaine’s pike and still hadn’t seen Joel’s fish, but knew what it was even before it made an appearance. It was Walter and it was big! After a little chaos at the boat I was able to slip the net under a dandy of a fish, finally! I don’t know who was happier to see the trophy walleye but I know I was relieved. Not to stress the fish out too much I placed her into the livewell and got everything ready for the pictures. She was big and fat and just the way I like to see them, healthy! I measured her before the release and at 28.5 inches estimated the weight at around 7.5 pounds or better. I really didn’t want to hang her on a scale for an official weight so the length was all we needed before setting her on her way. Wow, talk about getting it in under the wire! I knew there were big fish in this area but was beginning to think that we wouldn’t get to see one when it neared the end of the day. It just goes to show that patience and perseverance pays off! Elaine & Joel had landed plenty of fish each throughout the day and this was just the icing on the cake. I hope tomorrow brings as much luck for the other half of this group and they have their shot at more trophies too!!