From the Land of Ten Lakes to the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes

[longdraw]

Packed up the family, truck and Skeeter and headed north on 6/28.  After driving through the night we got to west Minneapolis at 6am CST.  I unloaded the wife, kids and bags at the in-laws and went straight to Minnetonka.  For the record, I have fished Minnetonka a handful of times but never from my boat with all of my chit.

6/29 I spent all day on Minnetonka, pulled out at 8pm
6/30 Lake Z in the AM, Minnetonka in the PM
7/1 Lake Z in the AM with the Father In-Law (:der: PM Minnetonka
7/2 Lake SX in the AM Party in the PM
7/3 Minnetonka in the AM Minnewashta in the PM
7/4 Clearwater in the AM Cedar in the PM
7/5 Cedar in the AM

I mapped out about a dozen spots on Lake Minnetonka with the Lowrance with the help of some maps available through BassGold.  I had a number of people willing to give me spots to fish but I was hell bent on finding my own through map study alone, for Minnetonka that is.  I had some valuable information given to me from some gentleman on UltimateBass.com  with regards to some smaller bodies of water that may be worth a peek while I was there.  You could spend every day in a month around west Minneapolis putting your boat on different small lakes and possibly never  find the good ones, so this intel was very handy.

There really is no need to get specific regarding patterns and different Lakes.  All of them fished the exact same with the exception of Clearwater, which threw me for a loop.  It was the only time I saw rock under water and it was impossible to run around w/o routes on the GPS.

All of the better fish I caught were on a hard milfoil edge with very deep water adjacent.  It helped when I found a mixture of milfoil/pondweed/coontail.  I caught a ton of fish on docks but none over 13".  I caught a ton of fish shallow in bare bottom or Pads but none over 13".  This goes for all lakes I fished.  I knew this would be the case going in but how can a guy not check out cover like that, which I did on occasion but my main goal for each outing was to find the best catchable fish in the system. 

I caught zero Walleye and very few Pike.  Anytime I did catch a pike I would GTFO of there. 

I caught fish on Senko, Jig, Spinnerbait, Buzzbait, and Spooks but I feel I would have done just as good if I would have only brought Frogs and Beavers.  75% of the fish I caught were on Beavers 15% on Frogs.  Outside of one morning on Minnetonka where I was getting blasted by 3.5lbers on a Spook over open water and following up with a Senko which was lights OUT BTW.

When we got out west to Cedar for the fourth I spent most of the time with my boys letting them fish.  We had planned to stay until the 7th but were so tired and to tell you all the truth, I had my share of fishing grass for the year.  I even broke out the 2WT that Koldkut laced up for me and jacked up some monster Gills just to get some variety.

Some pics, enjoy!



Not my wife, BTW :p
























I don't wear flip-flops BTW











First light Minnetonka Panorama:
http://360.io/QAm4DF

[CraigP83]

Awesome report! Sounds like you got them dialed in pretty good. Did you get any smallmouths in Minnetonka? there are some bruisers out there if you stumble across some deep rocks. Also, any luck on swim jigs?

Great Pictures btw thanks for sharing!

[Creel Limit Zero]

Now that's what I call a report.  Great pictures, looks like a sweet family trip! 

[longdraw]

Awesome report! Sounds like you got them dialed in pretty good. Did you get any smallmouths in Minnetonka? there are some bruisers out there if you stumble across some deep rocks. Also, any luck on swim jigs?

Great Pictures btw thanks for sharing!

Thanks Craig.  No Smallies.  Never swam a jig, it crossed my mind a few times but bites were coming so no need to switch.

[-Shawn-]

Awesome report!!!

[Mike Cork]

What a great time, awesome report Thank you for taking the time to post the photo's too, love seeing the kids have a great time Some nice bass you caught too.

Looking forward to reading more from your way

[earldogg]

Nice tank jammers!

[Bigwrench]

that was one of the best reports I have read !! Thank you for sharing your experience and the pictures Looking forward to more in the future !

[Smallie_Stalker]

Now that's what I call a report! Awesome job!