yeah. it is a trip over to north dakota, but its worth it. my dad went last year caught alot of white bass and walleyes. i would of went, but i end up going to iowa instead. iowa was a blast!
well the opener is on my 21st b-day but i have class til 4pm sucks though but maybe a few booze and poker will do. chingchong
Waconia - Friday at 12:59p - Pick up a 6 pack of walters. Home for a nap. Then Waconia again on again Saturday night at sunset for a couple hours. Then, we're going to Mille Lacs from the Friday the 16th - Monday the 19th.
Ah that sucks - what happened? If you want to use my truck, let me know. I won't need it over the weekend. I will probably be in my buddys boat because I $#%^ing hate mine right now.
i'm going to do pike - i've never been a walleye guy for some reason. probably catch some 10-12" chub out of the creek the night before and toss them in the little backyard pond. then take the canoe out on lake x (not willing to disclose name at this time lol) to see if i can get some big pike (there is no public boat launch so canoe is the only option). i haven't seriously fished it in a while. back when i was 14-16 i fished it all the time and could have some really amazing pike days being able to pull out a couple of these bad boys in half a day was not uncommon
Carl, Let's go pike fishing at least once this summer. Local lake last summer: Local lake last summer: Local lake two years ago: Lake of the woods a while ago before I got married and started to pack on the pounds:
those are some nice pike ted! yea, for sure - we'll have to hit the lakes together this summer. ah good ol lake of the woods - i haven't been up in a few years. would really like to get back to the northwest angle sometime soon. last time i was up i lost an absolutely monster muskie at the boat - somewhere in the 50" range but he was barely hooked. time before that i got this bad boy
AH SNAP! That's a BEAST!!! Nice work. My only Muskie to date was a little guy - about 25". I was casting for bass on Tonka under docks and he hit like a freight train. I thought it was going to be a seet Bass, but nope. Mort the Muskie. PS: You should smile once in a while in your pics.
well if you notice all those pics are from like 01 and 02 lol besides, internet fishz are serious business :laugh: I have never got a muskie over 30" out of a metro lake. I've lost some mid 40" fish on calhoun and tonka. that lotw muskie is essentially the only larger muskie i've landed to date. although i've lost so many upper 40" ones at the boat or followed and either missed or turned away it's depressing. the last 3 years i really haven't been out on the water very often either so that hasn't helped my chances
haha I know about serious business. Check out this convict mug: I've never targeted Muskies. They usually win our "anything" league nights if someone lands one, but it's such a gamble. I would rather come back with 4 nice Pike than risk coming back with nothing if you don't find the alligators.
Hey Gridlocked could you be any chance check out my crappie spot? its the south side on the lake. If I was on Hwy 5 I would have take a left by the hospital and gone done to the lake. There use to be a dock there but its not there anymore and they are reconstructing the roads. I know there is a drop off right there thats where all the crappies are caught. Well from last year. The day I went there was no one there and it was way too windy. If you could check it out too see if its still hitting that would be great!
no sweat, I'd be happy to. Here is the south side of the lake by the In-Town Marina. If you have photoshop or something, throw a dot on the spot and E-mail or PM it back to me - unless you want to post it on here. Are you talking about the old public dock that used to be down there? If I get my boat out there, I'll sweep the area and different depths to see if I mark anything. Do you remember what depth they were at?
Yes that spot! I don't remember what the depth was but I know there is a drop off about 25 yards out from the shore line. It was none stop crappie action before hand.
Really!? Interesting. The topo map doesn't show the drop off, but I can swing in there and check it out. Were you dock fishing or in a boat? Google Maps search this: 44.852758,-93.792547 it should put a little arrow right on the dock.
I just assumed it was a drop off area because its really dark there and every cast in that spot was a hit. I was mostly dock and shoreline fishing. To broke for a boat.
I'll probably be out on Waconia around 3. Ted, you gonna be out there? If not there, we would be going to Riley
3am, or 3pm? :biggrin: Our plan is to hit the water at about 11:30 or so. Get Anchored and relax. Start fishing at 12:01a. We'll fish until whenever - go to my place in Boni for a nap, and hit the water again at about 5pm on Saturday. Hally, you still have my cell #, right? We'll be out in a little orange/red lund with 3 guys in it -My buddy's boat on the north side or just south-south-east of the island.
just finished re-lining 4 rods with suffix performance braid 20lb on 2 and 40lb on the other 2. I always forget just how many damn rods and reels i have - 13 or 14 i think now i just need to decide what tackle to bring tomorrow...
If you do go to Riley, post here to confirm it. Tell me what your boat looks like and the time, I'll wave from shore or something. Do you go to Riley often, and how often do you catch northern pike at Riley? I know they are there, and that there are some big ones, big fat bass too. I've had some big ones get away when I was a teen, northern and largemouth bass. Biggest Lg mouth bass I landed was 6lbs, caught bobber fishing with a nice sized sucker minnow. Riley has been way over-fished in the past 12 years, and with all the recreational watercraft whipping around does not help either, heh. Something in the fog:eek3: Public access at Riley, the east side. Entering the fog at Riley.
just got back - slow day. i caught 2 northerns. both taken on an x-rap in about 4' of water. first one was about 24" - fat though, not a hammer handle. took a pic of the second one since it was a bit bigger
I didn't even bother to take pictures. Here are my opener cliff notes: Well, the Walleye out smarted us… We got out on Waconia at about 1a on Saturday morning. We hit one of our favorite spots from 2a until sunrise and got nothing. We marked an absolute $hit pot of crappie suspended on the deep side of the reef and in deep water right where the bottom transitions from sand to mud. We shot up to the public beach and trolled in 4-5 feet of water, and one guy casted stick baits at the shoreline. Again, nothing. We trolled shad raps in 15’ of water through the clay banks, nothing. Then put on some smaller shads and trolled up to the north side, almost all the way up to the crick. I had some really nice Pike hits up there, and got one in the boat – about 3lbs. while I was sleep trolling. :biggrin: We trolled shallow, deep and everything in between and every color and style of Rapala that we have. We casted stick batis into shallow water, jigged, Lindied, bobber fished (shallow and deep), trolled fast, trolled shallow, tried live bait, tried plastics, drank and scratched our heads. We Lindied and jigged some of the humps and holes on the north west side – nothing. Trolled a couple times past Kegs. We casted the shoreline on the far west bowl and then at the Rock Jetty – nothing. That’s when the rain sprinkles started and it was about 11:00. We had been fishing for 12 hours and we wanted to eat, $hit and sleep. All three of us were starting to get slap happy and deranged. We hit the water again around 5p after talking about what the heck is going on and getting some much needed rest and Red Bull. We checked out the boulder piles that we had found in some deep water and didn’t mark anything. We made a couple S’s around a few of the reefs on the south side and around the bump in front of the marina didn’t see anything but crappie. Cruised up to the mouth of the creek and sat on the west of the opening and bobber fished with fat heads and leeches. We ended up with some nice Crappie, but no Walters. I left the lake at around 11p, figuring that if I fished for almost 20 hours and didn’t even see anything on the sonar, that I had been out smarted and needed to go home. There were three guys in the boat, and we all had something different on ALL of the time. We figured we could try hundreds of combinations and figure out what they were looking for. The warmest water that we found was like 53.5 degrees and considering spawn doesn’t happen until 55, I think they are suspended in deep water and cruising around the lake looking for the warm spot. Since the warm spot doesn’t exist yet, I think they are in a holding pattern. I think they are about a month behind “normal†considering the winter that we had and the late ice out. Thoughts?
We were out there around 1:30am til about 9am. We tried the creek right off the bat. Water temp there was around 53, no luck. Tried a few other areas, no luck. I had a few hits but nothing to the boat. We gave up a little early, but now hearing that you were out there for 20+ hours I don't feel so bad I think I saw you out there Ted, I was gonna yell over to ya, but wasn't sure. We were in a red/silver Lund w/ 3 guys. (That looked like about half of the boats out there!)
Right on! We were in an older red-orange Lund with three guys in the boat as well. What part of the lake were you on when you thought you saw us?
We were up by the creek around 1:30-3:30, then cruised over to Cemetery where I thought I saw ya. We were there from about 3:45-5:00.
Right on! When we were on Cem, my buddy's blue lund with 4 guys in it was right next to us. We didn't mark anything there all weekend.
I'd have to agree with ya on the water temp theory. I can't think of anything else that would cause the fish to be so slow. When a front is about to roll through like it did Saturday morning, aren't they a little more active typically?
Gander Mountain has a sale going on, buy any tackle box and all tackle lures you can fit inside (need to be able to shut the top of the tackle box) is 20% off. I was in serious need of ALOT of stuff, hooks, leaders, sinkers, Gulp bait -chartreuse-orange-black-and Gulp minnow, almost forgot the Berkley fishing line (yes, the line fit inside also). The box I bought was only $8.00, so in total $20 was saved, on the essentials. got my license too, lol. Now, I just need to get a nice day sometime soon! For now all I'm doing is some shore fishing on Riley Lake, not bad for pan fish or possibly some bass. Anyone else know of any hot spots on Riley Lake in EP/Chanhassen, feel free to PM me.
I'll be on the water in about 7 hours- fishing our Wednesday tournament for our league - Walleye / Panfish. Two Crappie rods, two Walleye rods. I can't wait. I finally have my rod/reel combinations like I want them - got the Shimano Symetre 2500Ri's on the St. Croix's. :woot: Edit - 6 hours.
NIce! I went to a near by lake and caught 1 crappie and 3 bullheads. I didn't think bullheads would bite a crappie jig.
