What a Fishery! What a Day!

Sometimes things just come together!  This past Friday Keane and myself hit up the big pond again for my second time of the week.  We had the same game plan in mind as I had a couple of days earlier, only this time we were able to follow through with our plan.  We hit the water by 4:45 and had every intention of landing some Muskies.  The only problem was that the 44 degree air temps that we arrived to just made the muskies jaws lock up.  As the sun rose higher, they came out from all depths and sat on the calm surface to soak up all the possible sun.  We only had 3 legitimate follows in our first 3 hours of casting, and we saw at least 15 others that were just laying logs on the surface.  When this happens on that lake, it truly means that it could be a long day.  Our mistake on this outing was the fact that we weren't casting our baits in the middle of the full moon light at night.  These fish were apparently eating so heavily throughout the middle of the night with the full moon, that they turned extremely mellow during daylight hours.  If given the opportunity, we would have done this night fishing, but it will have to wait for the next trip.  I will however give a "shout out" to my good buddy Muskie Mike who was able to capitalize on this Midnight bite over the last couple of nights of landing fish in the complete darkness. 

With the conditions turning sour on the Muskies, and the wind laying down low, we were able to turn our tactics to the other great fish in this lake and make it one of those days that will always be remembered in our minds.  One of the great things about Mille Lacs for me is that I have a couple of spots on this lake that when the conditions are crappy for Muskies, I can go and catch huge smallies and walleyes.  The best part about it, is that I sight fish the giants! Yes that's right, I have a couple of locations where I know they move shallow enough to see the large schools of white tips (walleyes) and the blacker than night jumbo football smallies.  It is probably the coolest fishing that I know of, and what makes it even better, is that all the fish in these spots are huge.  I am serious when I say that the average size of the walleyes that we catch there are over 25 inches.  The smallies aren't too shabby themselves, and 19 and 20 inchers are quite common.  On this particular day, we landed 4 walleyes over 28 inches, with our largest topping out very close to 29.  I'm not sure how many we landed in total, but it was absolutely non-stop action with the Smallies and Eyes.  The average size walleye for the day would have to be at 26 inches.  In fact, we only had 3 fish that we thought would be under 20 inches, and when we measured them, we had to chuckle because they would be 22 or 23 inches.  What a tough problem to deal with.  The smallies were slammin as well, and we topped 19 inches several times with numerous doubles.  We could have taken hundreds of photos, but I think you get the point from the few that I will show.  What a great day to be on the water.  Even though we didn't catch any muskies, when you land that many trophy caliber fish in one day, you have to just sit back and enjoy every single battle.  It truly is one of those amazing sites to be seen, and I am fortunate yet again to watch my years of searching on that lake to pay off as well as they did.  Thanks Keane!  Until next time fellas, Keep on Livin the Dream!

A Mille Lacs Quicky!

Well it wasn't until 11:15 last Thursday that I learned I would be heading to Mille Lacs, but by 3:00 we were on the water, and by 3:10 we had a walleye in the livewell.  I guess that's how it goes when you are busy trying to live the dream, so that's just what we did!  Jeff, Brian and Myself cleared our schedule and made the journey to catch ole marble eyes.  We spent roughly 4 hours catching walleyes and about an 1 1/2 hours after muskies.  We landed many walleyes in the short time period we were on the water, with almost all of the 30 or so that we boated falling in the 22 - 26 inch range.  We only had two under 20 inches that we were able to keep, but we weren't complaining.  In fact, I don't think we could have picked a better day to drop everything and head up there.  The wind wasn't blowing (FINALLY), and the temps were near perfect.  The one really dissappointing fact was the health of the fish that we were catching.  As you can see from the pictures, they were all very very skinny.  It's hard to say if they are all starving, but for whatever reason they don't look too healthy.  Hopefully they plump up shortly!  I could post many pictures, but they all seem to look the same, so I'll  just show a few, and you can kinda get the point.  It sure was fun though. 

Our limited time chasing Muskies didn't provide any monsters in the boat, but I hope to change that tomorrow when I head up there in search of a snaggle tooth. 

Nice call on this one Jeffrey!  Thanks for yet another fun day, and til next time, Keep on Livin the dream!

Dang It's Hot Out There!

Well yesterday morning I was given the privilege to take out a new client by the name of Ed.  This is Ed's first time in the boat with me, and our main goal on this outing was to get him familiar with lake Waconia and how to go about catching fish.  Ed is new to the lake, and recently purchased a boat slip from the marina along with a boat to put in the slip.  With that being said, it was my goal to try my best at teaching him a few tricks and techniques that I use to bring fish in the boat.  Our morning started by chasing the Ol' Marble Eye's, but due to the recent heat that has just moved in, many of the larger fish were reluctant to take the bait.  We settled for a few shorter than normal walleyes and then switched to the elusive Muskies.  We had a few nice fish going instantly on one of my walleye spots, and watched an upper 40" fish chase a crappie to the boat while we were still walleye fishing.  We decided to work that area over, and found there to be about a handfull of different fish willing to chase the bait.  Exciting? Yes, but no takers.  I enjoyed the time on the water trying to teach Ed a few tricks, and hope to get him dialed in very soon. 

With this new weather pattern that just came in, and with water temps skyrocketing into the 75 degree range, it's now time to find a new pattern and force feed them darn walleyes. 

I highly encourage y'all to check out this link that Ed sent to me.  It just might be the most crazy fishing you will ever see. 

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.fullscreen&videoid=1125465453

I bet I know a few people who would give an arm and a leg to try that.  Thanks Ed!  Until Next time, Keep on Livin the Dream!

And Bret Strikes Again!

The last time Bret and I hit the water together, we managed to boat 3 muskies in a trip that got cut short due to the weather.  One of which was Bret's largest at a very healthy 48'.  While those memories were shared yesterday morning with Tim, we didn't exactly have plans to repeat that success.  Our mission was to start out the morning by boating a few walleyes and then switching over to the ol' Bucketmouths.  Well, we did do as planned, but as you can see from the pic, we also did a little unplanned dancin with the toothy critters.  Our morning started by catching roughly 10 walleyes, which was pretty good action considering the intense wind.  They weren't quite the size that we were looking for, but Bret took home some fresh walleye fillets for dinner.  We then switched over to bass, but with the tornadic strength winds we were dealing with, it made it quite challenging to strategically place our casts.  We landed a few bass including a nice one by Tim, and dealt with the wind the entire time.  The great part about the style of bass fishing that we were doing, is that we were working a couple of my favorite muskie spots on the lake and giving ourselves the opportunity to do battle with a trophy of another kind.  The first time we encountered a muskie on our lighter than normal muskie gear, the muskie won, and left me to retie another lure.  The second time we encountered a toothy critter, it couldn't have gone any better.  The battle was won by Bret, and it was quite the battle at that.  First of all, I took out my gigantic net to make room for the finesse fishing, which forced us to land this fish in a very different matter.  Secondly, and the best part of the story, was that this muskie was spotted before it even ate the bait.  As Bret would put it, there is nothing better than seeing it before the attack, and observing the entire strike.  And lastly, it was battled on lighter gear than my normal musky fishing tackle.  According to Bret, it beat the intense battle that he encuontered with me last year when he landed his 48 incher.  While this muskie wasn't as large, the 43 incher will always be remembered as the one that he watched eat the bait and somehow got in the boat.  While we didn't plan on landing the muskie this way, it definitely is quite common to entice them on lighter tackle this time of the year.  There are a few baits that seem to work really well for me, and they are also my favorite bass baits.  It only makes sense to throw them this time of the season and give ourselves the opportunity for a little bonus action.  Truly a fun morning on the water, and I cannot wait to do it again fellas.  Thanks for the fun time, and until next time, Keep on Livin the Dream!

WOOHOO!!! It's Musky Season!

Well it's about time huh!  Musky season opened this past Saturday here in our wonderful musky state, and for yet another year, I didn't target my favorite specie.  I have been so darn consumed by trying to keep on the ever changing walleye bite, that I haven't thrown the big baits....that is until last night.  After having my fill of chasing the unpredictable walleye bite the last week or so, I decided to get after the big boys.  Our lake of choice on this outing was obviously Waconia, since that was where we were trying for the Walleyes at the time.  It wasn't long into the casting that I had the first follow of the year, and it was one of those fish that we all had a chance at catching.  The darn 42 incher chased all three of our lures boatside once we were doing our figure 8's.  Kinda cool, but it didn't eat!

After about 40 more casts a piece, we got closer to a spot that I typically see them, and we were hooked up for the first time in 07'.  WooHoo!  Nothing spectacular in size, but it is always great to get the first one of the year.  Dusty took a nice picture (by nice I mean that the fish looked good, not necessarily his hair, haha, sorry Dusty but I have to) and we were back at it again.  Before our stretch of water was complete, we saw another fish and then moved on.  Not too darn bad to see 3 nice fish and land one in about an hour of feeeeshin.  Since my walleye season is still going, and I had scratched the itch that I had to get me a snaggle tooth muskie, we grabbed our spinning gear and went back to the Willies. 

Much to my delight, the couple day drought of loosing the battle to the changing walleye pattern and the confusing weed growth on the lake, We scored on a new bite.  We caught a few really nice walleyes right before it was time to head in along with a few other fish including bass, crappies, sunnies and sheephead.  A good day to say the least, and something positive to write about.  I returned to lake this morning to make sure my new walleye pattern wasn't a fluke, and caught about a dozen walleyes as fast as I could get my fathead to the bottom.  Don't worry, I let them all go for the guys coming out in the next few days.   They are going again fellas!  WooHoo!

I have been hearing from a lot of you guys lately about your experiences, and I just want to share with everyone what some of our fellow anglers are catching.  I would love to keep sharing everyones stories and pictures, so please keep sending them my way and i'll get them on the world wide web for everyone to see.  The first picture is from Mr. Douglas himself.  He landed a nice Ski a few days back while fishing for the elusive and mighty bluegill.  Quite the shock when the drag started to scream I am sure.  Nice fish Doug!

The next awesome pic is from a true muskie man in the making named Jake Bohnsack.  We have shared several emails since I met him on the dock last spring, and from the looks of what I have been receieving, he is getting some fish in the boat.  He was up north for the muskie opener this past weekend with a fishing buddy by the name  of Paul Schlagel.  So I just want to give a shout out to them, especially Jake for his new personal best at 46.5 and also landing a 43.  Nice work!  Keep the pics and stories coming fellas.  I love reading and seeing them, and so does the rest of the world.  until next time, Keep on livin the Dream!