More Cold Fronts

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June 21st 2018

 

Michel & Eric were my guests today for a tougher than usual outing! Three straight days of giant winds from the SW finally turned full circle and were blowing out of the NE this morning. Not only were they blowing but they were howling again! With the NE always comes cold fronts and right on cue, Mother Nature slapped us right in the face again! I lost almost 6 degrees in water temps since last Sunday and I’m sure even more from the last three days of heat. This would be interesting!

The conditions didn’t allow me to fish where I had wanted this morning, so I opted for a long run to the other side of the lake. I needed to fish somewhere that wasn’t affected by the condition change and thought this was the place. With lines in, the troll began! First reel to fire was short lived as the fish threw the hooks before I was even able to get the rod out of the holder. Strike one! The next reel to go ended in disappointment as the fish came off before I could even give the rod to one of them. Strike two! The third fish stayed pinned but was a small walleye and although 15 inches, I chose to release it. I was sure we would be getting bigger! One more keeper walleye and several pike later, I pulled the plug on this area and made a move.

With the winds laying down slightly I chose an open water area with a little more depth. A couple of quick fish came aboard but they were both pike and not what we really wanted. I searched all around this place but only came up with more pike. Time for another move!

By now I really wanted to get them more walleye but for some reason all the fish being hooked were pike. All the ones they landed that is! There were plenty more short strikers and fish coming unpinned as well. So many that it was getting old real fast! I set the lines quite a bit deeper as we trolled over better depths and it didn’t take long. They actually got a chance to bring one aboard that had the lure in his mouth. Although a pike, it was a really good one and no one was disappointed! What was disappointing however was that from this point on, all the other fish were pike as well. To add to this, even more came off too!

I shifted out of the area and changed up all the baits to see what the shallows held. Not only did it hold fish but they were riders. I think the first 5 fish never even made a noise. They were just attached to the baits and on! There was even a nice keeper walleye that came aboard the same way! These fish just weren’t active!

After spending about an hour in the shallows with mostly pike and short strikes to show for our efforts, I slid back to deeper water. Right on cue one of the deep lines fired and Eric brought a really nice over to the boat, which fell off when in the net. No surprise there! This was to be his last walleye of the day and had to be released after several pics. I thought they were going to finally bite but we only managed a pile more northerns afterwards. Time to move again!

The big NE that we had started the day in had all but disappeared. Running was definitely a lot less painful for Eric and his dad, the guys with sore backs! No more pounding the waves!

Although the run was long, it was relatively smooth when we arrived. I had wanted to start out deep on a waypoint but as I neared, it looked like someone had already beaten me to the spot. Odd because it’s really a nothing area unless you know what to look for! Ironically it turned out to be a boat that had been close to me last week when my clients were reeling fish in, hand over fist. These guys were anchored directly on top of the actual waypoint in the middle of nowhere. Oh well, there goes another good spot!

I never even let off on the throttle and headed right to the shallows instead. We tried everything in the next hour and could only come up with more pike. Several short strikers may have been walleye, but we’ll never know! From the shallows we trolled right to the deeper water and I changed up baits on the fly. Same results were had as more pike came aboard too!

Eric had wanted to be at the dock by 2:00 so we packed up and headed back to drop him off. Michel & I went right back out and tried open water shoals for about 90 minutes with only walleye being landed. Too bad only one was a keeper though as all the others were on the small side. Of all the fish brought to net, only one of them actually made the reel go off. Right from the start of the day, they were barely making a sound! Why should it change by the end of the day?

We finally pulled the plug about 3:30 and I was glad to get off. We only had three walleye in the livewell but it would be enough for us to eat. Michel was staying for dinner and leaving after the traffic thinned out. At least we would have fresh fish for dinner!

This day may not have been a banner one but despite all the crappy bites, there were a fair amount of pike landed. Walleye too but mostly small ones! I’m just glad the cold front and NE winds died and hopefully the stable weather will remain with us for a while. Doubt it but who knows! Starting Saturday, I will be on the water for many straight days and in all kinds of conditions. There will have to be adjustments made daily, if not hourly and with any luck the changeups will be the right ones. All I know is that we have to eventually see better weather now that summer has officially arrived. Well at least one can hope!!