I hit a new lake with Norm this morning, in quest of a dinner walleye and succeeded in spades! We began trolling around 7:30 under sunny skies and N/E winds blowing at 5 to 10 knots. I could feel by the morning air that this 70 degree temp would climb much higher by afternoon and wanted to take advantage of the low light period early. Water temps were 63 degrees and really stained from all the cross current winds from yesterday making visibility just terrible. Norm’s first scream on the reel ended in a northern pike of 3 or 4 pounds and we were on our way. The next fish was taken when he picked the rod from the holder to clear weeds from the lure and ripped the bait. It just stopped and he had some weight attached to the end of the line. As with most of the walleye, this one stayed down until it neared the boat and we caught a glimpse of the beast. It looked to be 7 or 8 pounds in the stained water and I thought he had a real giant for this lake! When I finally got it into the net I realized that it was big. It was 27 inches long & I put her on the scale for a second to know for sure. She pushed the 6.25 mark and after a few quick picks I slipped her into the live well for a later release. I wanted to make sure she was in good shape before letting her go back to the lake and pumped plenty of water and oxygen into the tanks. We went back to trolling and managed to get 3 more good walleye and many, many more northerns trolling stick baits. Norm wanted to try for some largemouth bass and I decided that the mid day period would be a good time to see if I could get him a few, so we headed to the jungle after releasing the walleye & began. I had him throw a scum frog due to the pockets of open water and sparse vegetation and apparently it was the right choice. He had a few missed explosions before he finally contacted with something way in tight. I told him to winch it out of there and soon slipped the net under his personal best largie. It weighed exactly 5 pounds on the nose and was a surprise after the big tournament held this weekend. I guess they left one out there! We saw several other fish in the 3 pound class spooked as we covered the water and managed to get a few more up to about the same size as well. Smallmouth were the next ones to target and it didn’t take long before Norm was tight to a real blackie on a senko. When it took to the air I knew it was at least 4 pounds or better and oh what a fight. I eventually netted the fish and took a quick weight and a few picks before releasing her back again. It went 4.34 pounds and completed his « Grand Slam » for the day. We stayed a little longer and he caught several more slightly smaller bass before we called it a day. I don’t think he expected to have the combination that he had for this heat wave of a day as the temps reached around 90 degrees under scorcher sunshine. I was glad for him as he now has another great memory to add to the already many from all the previous trips on different lakes. It seems that there’s always something special each day to remember and this day definitely would be the « Big Grand Slam »!

After yesterdays outing, Curt & Eric wanted to try another lake nearby for a half day of fishing before they headed home, so I went back to meet them in the morning. I was glad I had left the boat somewhere nearby and travelled without it in tow as it may have been a different outcome. Along my drive to the lake I came so close to wiping out a deer that I don’t think I would have been able to swerve away towing the boat. That’ll kick start your day with a bang! We hooked up and headed on the lake by 7:30 A.M. and began fishing slightly different methods from the previous day. The topwater bite was on, but the fish were acting somewhat strange. The bigger ones weren’t hitting and some of the smaller ones were also slapping at the baits trying to move them away. I hit plenty of areas in this short time trying to find bigger biters but all I could come up with were small to medium fish. The weather was somewhat different as well with cloud and plenty of sunshine all around. Winds picked up to about 10 knots from the north by mid morning unlike the dead calm conditions yesterday. Water temps were in the mid 60’s and the air temps were closer to 80 when we were done. Although there were plenty of fish caught, they weren’t the size that I was looking for and that was a little disappointing. It’s surprising how fast a half day goes when you’re on the clock! We cut out shortly after noon and headed back to the dock to take out. Wouldn’t you know it, the clouds let loose and poured on us for about three minutes as I put the boat on the trailer, soaking us all. You gotta love « Mother Nature » !!

I took a little road trip today to fish with Curt & Eric on a lake for smallies and lakers. They wanted to catch some big bass & oh how they did just that! We hooked up just after 7:00 A.M. and were on the water shortly after. The weather began a little misty in the clouds but soon cleared to just cloudy conditions for the rest of the day. Air temps were in the 70’s and the water was at best, 64 degrees where we fished. The bait of choice was definitely the jig as several lures were tried without success. Curt was just hammering the bass from the back of the boat as Eric was watching in envy until he finally joined in and the game was on. From that point, they were both hooking into smallies in the 3 to 4 pound class on a regular basis and loving every minute of it. I think the largest was one that Eric caught that weighed 4 ¾ pounds after Curt had caught one slightly smaller as well. I wouldn’t say there was any competition going on, but there was a lot of needling as each of them just kept catching fish for hours. I’m sure there were at least 50 or more of these big bass caught & released before we switched up to lake trout somewhere after 3:30 P.M. Neither of them had ever actually seen or caught a laker before and wanted to spend a little time trying, so we set the riggers down and began. Although I wasn’t marking any bait in this area, I was seeing some fish on the sonar and set the lines in those zones. We had a release on one rigger over 200 feet of water shortly after and Eric was tight to his first lake trout. This one was over 23 inches and made it into the live well for them later. We trolled for another hour or so with only one other fish on the cheater. Curt landed this one that went just over 19 inches and it was returned unharmed. A couple of other hits on the sliders but nothing to show was what we had for the remainder of this fishing. We were unable to troll through the zone I wanted as a boat moved in and anchored as soon as they saw the first fish come aboard making it impossible to troll around the shoal from where it was taken. These fish were suspended beside the hump 30 to 40 feet down adjacent to a bump that tops out at 26 feet of water. Although we had taken fish with a depth of 200 feet under us, shallower water was very close by. We called the day somewhere around 5:00 and packed everything up to go. It was a great day by anyone’s standards, but an incredible one by ours as plenty of big bass were landed by all. The lake trout was just the icing on the cake!!

Jim was in town on business for a few days and thought he would try the local fishing with me today. What he didn’t anticipate was just how incredible it was to be! We began under cloudy skies for the first couple of hours but were soon in rain and drizzle for the remainder of the outing. Temps weren’t too bad with mid 60’s above the water and just about the same below. As for winds, well that was a different story. They pretty much switched direction about every half hour or so. I would have to say that we had just about every compass direction that there was! The fishing however was worth every bit of misery that « Mother Nature » dealt us. Pike of all sizes up to 5 or 6 pounds were caught on a multitude of baits and they weren’t what we were after. The walleye were the quest for today and they bit equally as well. We had fish mostly in the 4 pound or better class with several over 5 and a couple topping 6 pounds too. Rods were firing all day long with the longest wait about 10 minutes at worst. With the low clouds and rain falling they bit throughout the entire day and that’s what it’s all about! We had non stop action that you just dream about and by the time it was all over there had to be somewhere around 60 fish landed, or better. Fifteen of them were walleye and Jim was happy to take a couple of the smaller ones home with him for a dinner. Although it was a wet one, I wouldn’t have traded it for the nicest day of the year, for anything. I think I’m just going to fish on rainy days from now on!!

Norm was back again today, for the first time on this local lake and really looking foreword to catching some smallies. We had a beautiful day in the forecast with sunshine and temps in the 80’s predicted, along with a slight breeze from the east of about 5 knots. The water temps were about 64 degrees in most areas and actually hit 70 degrees in some others. I thought the top water bite would be hot so we began throwing lures on the surface for a while with only a few takers. I switched up to a jig and started catching just about everything that swims, but they were nothing to brag about. It wasn’t until Norm started throwing a shallow running crank-bait that the bigger bass started to come aboard and this was great to see. We refined the areas afterwards with some soft plastics and began catching even better fish with the largest going somewhere around 4.5 pounds. He caught a real mix of fish today with everything from perch & rock bass to smallies, walleye, pike and even a gar pike. Some of the smallmouth were post spawn while others were definitely in the pre spawn mode. I’m sure that if we had of been able to fish everywhere that I wanted today, we would have had plenty of big fish. Unfortunately with the tournament scheduled for this weekend, there were bass boats all over the lake and I was limited to the areas I wanted to fish. At least the season started a little early with the special « Catch & Release » fishing bumping the opener regularly set for this coming Friday. Overall a pretty good day with our best five fish going in the high teens. Can’t complain with that!!!