2013 Reports

CraigP83 · July 04, 2013, 04:01:00 PM

Found a few hours to get out this morning on a local lake. Water temps were 77° and most of the sunfish were just coming off of their spawn so I tried going out of my comfort zone and fishing deeper weed edges. Found a couple fish biggest being about 2# on a drop shot. Eventually went shallow and found some bigger fish by burning a swimjig though schools of sunfish ended up with a 18", 19.5" bass. My best 5 probably went around 13#s

earldogg · July 05, 2013, 04:00:31 PM

Your doing MUCH better than me, im having my worst season ever. Every day its a grind, im not even getting my limit let alone catching 18-19" fish. Nice tank jammers craig!

CraigP83 · July 05, 2013, 04:21:34 PM

Quote from: earldogg on July 05, 2013, 04:00:31 PM
Your doing MUCH better than me, im having my worst season ever. Every day its a grind, im not even getting my limit let alone catching 18-19" fish. Nice tank jammers craig!

Do you know were we are launching on Whitefish Chain? I might swing up there next weekend to check it out, I've never been up there before

earldogg · July 05, 2013, 08:02:48 PM

No, but no need to prefish that lake, just go into deep water and drop shot, most people will have a 40-50 fish day.

CraigP83 · July 22, 2013, 09:14:05 PM

Ended up not using the dropshot all day. Found fish throwing a DT10 over a sunken island and working weededges with Tubes. Lots of fish out there but lots of dinks.

I know that cold front screwed with the fishing but I think we need to fish more local tournaments it's not worth getting a hotel and driving 3 hours to see 11 & 12 lb bags win it. Pathetic

earldogg · July 22, 2013, 11:37:50 PM

Quote from: CraigP83 on July 22, 2013, 09:14:05 PM
Ended up not using the dropshot all day. Found fish throwing a DT10 over a sunken island and working weededges with Tubes. Lots of fish out there but lots of dinks.

I know that cold front screwed with the fishing but I think we need to fish more local tournaments it's not worth getting a hotel and driving 3 hours to see 11 & 12 lb bags win it. Pathetic

Totally agree, whitefish is weak, there are many, many, great lakes within an hour of downtown. When we do have out of towners, we should atleast go somewhere cool, somewhere you have a chance to catch a biggin!

CraigP83 · July 23, 2013, 09:36:02 AM

Agreed. Adam is checking out that lake (near Sheilds) today that I said we should fish instead of making up the Sheilds tournament. I've heard that it's taken 25lbs to win out there. Ill let you know how he does, If he gets into them I'm going to push hard to nominate it.

We also need to fish some lakes in the Chisago area, Took 22lbs to win out of Green lake last week and Rush Lake just took 19lbs to win

CraigP83 · August 05, 2013, 08:29:23 AM

Got out for 4 hours early Saturday morning. Beautiful day to be out, It was a cooler morning and you could see the steam coming off the water as the sun was coming up. Fishing was a little bit tougher than I expected as the weeds were alot more developed than the previous time I was out.

After about 40 minutes I found my first fish sitting on a weed-edge leading up to a point. It took a dropshot rig and put up a good fight on a ML rod. When I'm out just fishing for fun I've been forcing myself to use a dropshot rig more often and I've been getting a few fish here and there. I've come to realize that I hate the drop-shot rig

. I never feel a stike unless it's a dang bluegill pecking at my bait or a pike swimming by to break my rig off. When a bass bites my rig just feels heavy and I know I've probably missed a few fish because I didn't recognize the bite fast enough. Not to mention it is a sloooooow way to fish. Here is the fish on got on the drop-shot.

After a few hours and a few missed fish, I decided to move shallow and punch some milfoil. I picked up one more fish on a tube with a 3/4oz tungsten weight.

CraigP83 · August 19, 2013, 09:07:00 PM

Dropped in the Mississippi River this weekend and decided to make a run further than I typically do searching for bass. Went north through a lock and dam, my first in my boat

Started cranking rocky shorelines and found a few fish tight against the back on downstream sides of current breaks. I'm still learning the river but learning more each time out

Ended up with 3 smallies, 2 channel cats, and 1 white bass. Nothing huge.

CraigP83 · September 07, 2013, 08:51:55 PM

Spent all week searching for some big bass on the Mississippi. I didn't find many but I did find these big fish, thought you guys might enjoy these pics

And..

Was a good time until this happened.

Craig314 · September 08, 2013, 10:42:26 AM

Ouch, what happened there? I hate those toothy critters, they have wrecked more baits than i can count, they love frogs. But those are nice, did you target them or? They do make a cover to go over a a broke one, my brother had to do that and it works great. Love the pics of the boat, but then i am biased, lol, keep them comin.

Bigwrench · September 08, 2013, 11:42:21 AM

You could probably install a SS Skeg guard over it ? Would look good too ! I've thought about installing one in mine just for looks. As far as this fish, I actually miss catching them when I lived up there. Good memories for sure. We have a few lakes with Muskie and Pike around but haven't targeted them yet

.

earldogg · September 16, 2013, 03:46:55 PM

Craig, how did knife go? Would have rather went fishing than watching the lowly vikings! Did you get your boat fixed?

CraigP83 · September 17, 2013, 02:38:21 PM

Got the skeg fixed, but the motor is still throwing an alarm periodically which has me worried. Brian won with ~14lbs, Tim took 2nd with ~12, I took 4th with ~9lbs (4-fish).

Adam got DQed for bringing a Smallie to the weigh-in

but he had a good bag. He probably wouldnt have taken 3rd

CraigP83 · October 09, 2013, 09:16:58 AM

Awful quit around here, anybody have reports?

I got out for a couple hours this weekend.. Water temps were in the Low 60's found fish scattered throughout the water column. Got some in 12' on a weededge, 6' cranking a weedflat, and in 2' throwing a buzzbait and frog over the pads that are starting to die. Biggest fish of the weekend was 18''

earldogg · October 09, 2013, 11:09:53 AM

This is my favorite time of year, most lakes have flipped, the weeds are way down, the water is cleaner and the fish have the feed bag on and are easy to catch. Ive caught them shallow, mid depth, and deep. Buzzbaits in morning, jigs all day, but ive really been smoking them on a big 3/4 oz spinnerbait, shallow and slow rolling it in deep water.gl

CraigP83 · October 18, 2013, 09:10:50 AM

Anyone plan on getting out this weekend? weather says snow showers tomorrow AM and also Monday

I just dropped my boat off to get winterized knowing that the next few weekends are busy for me

earldogg · October 18, 2013, 02:25:01 PM

Im going to the swamp saturday early, snow, temps at 35-45, a little rain, why not! This will be my last day of the year, than the boats going into slumber for the winter.

CraigP83 · October 18, 2013, 03:40:44 PM

depressing isn't it

earldogg · October 19, 2013, 04:53:15 PM

Swamp, 33-44 temp, water temp 50-52, total overcast, wind 5-10 mph from west, hail, light rain, stained water 3-4 feet vis. From 7:30-10:00 caught 10 bass, top 5 weighing 23 1/2lbs, biggest bag I've ever caught. Big gal weighed 5lb 11oz, caught 9 of them slow rolling a big 3/4oz white spinnerbait in 6-12 fow. Caught one 18" on a dd crankbait in about 13 feet. Lake went dead for 3hrs than finally caught my last bass of the year, an 18" on the big spinnerbait, what a great last day of the year.

CraigP83 · October 28, 2013, 09:00:16 AM

Went out for what might be the last time. Fished a new lake that has poor visibility, water temps were 41-43* range. All shallow vegetation was dying off and I couldnt find any deep weeds on the graph, presumably due to the low visibility. Ended up getting the Skunk. Not sure were the fish go on lakes like that once they move away from the shore.

If I had had more time I would have just ran the side scan all day looking for deep rocks. Looking back I probably should have packed up and tried a new lake but we ran out of time.

Craig314 · October 28, 2013, 05:51:57 PM

How is the Ranger running? Season goes by quick in the north, now spring just needs to come early.

earldogg · October 28, 2013, 07:17:43 PM

Go back there in early june and buckle up. Dirty scum water can be a tough bite when the water is very,very cold.

CraigP83 · October 28, 2013, 08:12:50 PM

Quote from: Craig314 on October 28, 2013, 05:51:57 PM
How is the Ranger running? Season goes by quick in the north, now spring just needs to come early.
[/quote

It's winterized now but ran ok the last few times out. Still not sure what was tripping the alarm.

Quote from: earldogg on October 28, 2013, 07:17:43 PM
Go back there in early june and buckle up. Dirty scum water can be a tough bite when the water is very,very cold.

I'll have to try it again next yr. Looks like it could be a fun lake. I image it gets busy though!