I Spent the day with Christiane and Dan & his wife Maibbeth on the lake for a variety of fish. We targeted walleye when we got started and managed to put three good keepers in the well before changing it up to fish for bass. The weather was not like what I was use to as the winds were practically nonexistent.  Lately I’ve been out in some pretty good rollers and it was nice to see this for a change! I set everyone up with soft plastics and let the games begin. It didn’t take long before fish were being hooked and coming aboard. Dan may have managed to get the first couple of smallies but Christiane hooked into a giant and everyone was in awe as she battled this beast. She had only gotten out with me once or twice this season as bookings have been good and she was thoroughly enjoying the fight. It was definitely her largest in quite a while! I took several pics before releasing it back and they all resumed fishing. Both Dan & his wife Maibbeth were hooking up as well and all the fish were decent size. Dan was use to catching smaller ones on a drop shot rig at the lake he usually fishes and was real happy to get fish of this quality. He even managed a personal best that was soon to be broken a little later in the day. The fish were cooperating pretty good and numbers of good sized bass were getting caught until Christiane hooked another giant. She may not have been getting as many bites as everyone else but the ones she did get were good ones! After a couple of minutes I slid the net under another slab and shot a few more pics. We were definitely on the fish and it wasn’t long between bites. Eventually this area slowed and I moved to another and it started all over once again. Fish were coming in hand over fist and all quality! It was here that Dan finally got one over 4 pounds and his personal best! It was the icing on his cake for the day! He was catching all kinds of others but this was the one he would remember today. After beating on many, many more smallies, we decided to try for a few more walleye before calling the day. The troll was the way to go and 45 seconds after the lines were back in, one of the reels fired. Dan landed an over and immediately after the release, another one went off as well. Two fish in as many minutes! This one was a keeper and added to his others in the live well. I moved around a bit and managed to get two more eyes, a northern and a jumbo perch before ending the day. A little chaos at the dock due to the weekend warriors and I was out. We had spent the day on almost flat calm waters and they had landed a ton of fish. What more could you ask for?

Just another day in paradise, not! It began with strong west winds blowing 10 to 20 knots and intensified throughout the day. I had a single person today, unlike the boat load yesterday and was looking forward to fishing. Too bad Mother Nature had other ideas as she tortured us all day long! Christy was hoping to get a possible musky as she had never landed one before, but it just wasn’t meant to be. We hit a few areas early and trolled them hard, only to come up empty. By about 10:30 or so we pulled the plug and targeted the smallies instead. It seemed that the winds were stronger now making the fishing even tougher. The light bait approach for bass was difficult as the big blow was causing giant bows in her line, making it almost impossible to detect the strikes. I was on a bunch of good smallmouth and had to reposition the boat in order for Christy to feel any pickups at all. She eventually overcame these problems and began hooking many fish, but landing them was a different story. More than half of them managed to jump the hooks, leaving her in disappointment. She did catch plenty but it could have been a whole lot more! I moved around a few areas and in every one, had a rough time positioning the boat for her to cast. We held out here for a few hours until neither of us could take it any longer. I thought I would be able to run around a point and fish shoreline further away but soon realized that this idea was impossible. The waves were three & four footers and blowing right on the area I wanted to fish. Plan B was to troll another spot but the water clarity looked more like coffee and after 20 minutes there, I moved again. By now the waves were rolling pretty good and despite an attempt at trolling into the wind, I was forced to go in one direction. Downwind was the only way to go and I hate settling! We managed to get several pike but no walleye. I would have loved to make turns and cover entire areas but unfortunately, I had to keep going with the wind. To make matters worse, the floating weeds were in the entire water column. It didn’t matter if I got the lures in clean because there was so much more below the surface and likely all the way to the bottom. A constant rotation from each rod was needed and even at that, they kept coming in dirty. By 3:00 we had just about enough of this crap and headed to the ramp to pull out. I know that even with the hurricane like winds, I would have been able to catch if it wasn’t for the weeds in the water. Despite all the obstacles we encountered, we endured most of them and even managed to catch some fish. I only hope the winds lighten up soon as the fish are getting away with murder. So many places to fish and very few areas doable! It’s just got to lighten up soon!!

I really had a full boat today as Tony, Antoine, Kevin & Ray were with me. Smallmouth were on the list and I decided to start with them as it had been a while since they were targeted. As usual, the winds were blowing but for some reason, they didn’t seem as bad. Maybe I’m just getting use to it! With the air temps scheduled to get into the mid 80’s the water temps would surely be on the rise. I hoped that this would make for more aggressive fish today. I ran for a while and stopped in an area that held fish and set everyone up for the challenge. Kevin drew first blood with a blade fish and I knew it was going to be a great day! The others were all throwing soft plastics and getting hit as well. Some were coming aboard but many were being missed by poor hook sets. With a little instruction, this was soon a thing of the past and more fish were being landed. I never had to go far and fine tuned this area, keeping them on the fish the entire time. Amazingly, it was almost 1:00 before we decided to break for lunch and change species and locations. The winds had picked up considerably by now and we were drifting while eating and getting closer to where I wanted to troll. Despite the high winds, the SW direction made the waves smaller than I had seen all week. It may have been  gusting 25 knots but the conditions seemed perfect for a troll. I set the lines and began where I had been having great success. This was the latest that I had fished this area and hoped it would still produce. After about 30 minutes with only a small eye to show for our efforts, I moved on to another place nearby hoping it would be better. The first fish was a nice 24 incher and just like usual, the reel never fired. I just noticed that the rod was bent and informed Tony to grab it. Ray, being from Florida, had never seen a walleye and was quite impressed at how the fish looked. Too bad he never got a chance to eat one because he would have really been impressed at their taste! A few pics and a release and back she went. In the last hour or so they managed to land a couple more northerns, a giant perch and another nice walleye before we called the day. They decided to end it at 3:00 as they all had things to do tonight and needed time to get ready. I definitely made the right choice this morning by starting with the smallies as they put a beating on them. So much so that we were able to stay pretty much in one area the entire morning and catching the entire time. Everyone had landed a good number of fish today and had a great time in the process. Hopefully with all this warm weather finally upon us, things will stabilize and the fish will set up in their summer locations. It’s definitely beginning to look that way now!!

Vern was back with me again today on yet another windy outing! We hit the lake before 7:30 and I headed directly to where I had been catching good numbers of quality eyes the week before. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the past few days throwing terrible conditions our way. Well despite the water clarity and mass amounts of torn up weeds floating everywhere, we got bit not long after the lines were wet. In fact, it was almost a double in the livewell, but one was way over the slot. The last time out, we were on sturgeon and cats big time and I hoped to do the same with the walleye today. It wasn’t going to be an easy one with the winds out of the W/NW intensifying throughout the day. Sustained 15 to 20 knots with gusts up to 30 would make this a real challenge! To make matters worse, the fish weren’t hitting well and once again most of them were only bending the rods. We really had to watch the lines to know we had anything! Plenty of them were even getting off by barely being hooked. This lack of aggression went on for most of the morning until I switched up rods and baits. A lighter drag and smaller profile lures had the reels firing good now and many more walleye came to the net. Both overs and slot fish were being landed but only from one small area. It seemed like the fish had set up away from where they were before and dropped off the edge when the wind got big. We were now trying to fish in some quality rollers, with most of them being at least 2 to 3 footers. We endured all this and boated plenty of fish with a few bonuses in the mix. Vern managed to get his slam today with a nice northern and smallie as well. He even caught a few perch rounding off a bunch of species! I know we could have kept catching many more, but by 2:00 it had grown to a point of being uncomfortable and we called it a day. In a little over 6 hours of fishing, he had landed the most walleye he’d ever seen in one day. On top of that, he was taking some of them home to eat! It just doesn’t get any better than that!!

Andre was back this morning, after his great trip last week, looking for more! We started at 10:00 because a friend of his would be joining us this afternoon and scheduled our finish for 7:00 this evening instead. Although the lake had a good blow early, it flattened out to virtually nothing for the remainder of the day and became scorching hot in the process. I dropped the lines in the water where I had fished only a few days before with success and hoped for similar results. We weren’t fortunate enough to get the walleye that I wanted, but there were a couple of quality smallies and some decent northerns boated from here. I searched elsewhere for a bit and eventually found what I was looking for when three high end keepers came aboard. Andre’s friend would be wanting to bring some fish home tonight, so we livewelled them for him. He now had a head start on his limit! Several more pike and smallies were landed from this area and others nearby before we got the call for Robert’s pick up. It didn’t take long before we were back out and I stopped on another area that I hadn’t fished yet, today. Lines set and three minutes into the troll the first reel fires. Robert is about to witness walleye fishing at its finest! He boats his first good keeper and not long after, another reel goes off. This time however it’s quite a bit larger and would have to be returned due to the slot. Although he considers himself a walleye fisherman, he had never seen techniques like these used to catch the fish. He had also never seen such quality sized fish on average being caught. I think he may have a new trick in his bag for the next time he fishes eyes! We reset the lines and resumed our troll despite all the floating weeds and kept hammering the fish. It was about 50/50 for the size and many of them were released after the pics. The remainder of the trip saw plenty more overs and keepers being landed. We even had a couple of double headers making it a perfect initiation for Robert to experience. Both Andre & Bob enjoyed their day and were amazed at the lack of boat traffic on the water. Weekdays are just so much better than the weekends and I can fish anywhere I want without being bothered. I think I may just have to do it again tomorrow!!