limeyangler

Nice fish!....ok...now i'm really jealous.....lol

hey Mike, i live here permanently now, moved here a year and a half ago.

Hi Y'all, I cant remember the last time i got out in the boat by myself...probably only a couple of weeks since the last time....but man was it nice! Dont get me wrong...i love having company....but being out in the middle of nowhere with just my thoughts for company is a must for my sanity...or whats left of it....lol. Went back to one of my usual haunts with walleye being the target for the day. The weather is very changeable from minute to minute here now, fall is well on its way. Its nice though, because its cooler without being cold, and the rain only lasts a few minutes and the wind is light. The sun and rain have been giving us some great rainbows, and yesterday was no exception......... ALL THE SUN AND RAIN MAKES FOR SOME NICE RAINBOWS I headed back to a small midwater reef i fished a while back with my buddy Darryl. The water has changed drastically since the last time i went there 2 weeks ago. It was almost crystal clear then, but with the weed growth starting to die back it is now much more tea stained. I decided to go with a small yellow jig to start with because of this, as i had been using black the last time. The first 20 minutes did not even produce a bite, so i decided to fish the top of the reef, dragging the jig through the weeds. This was rewarded with some small pike almost immediately........ LOTS OF SMALL PIKE FEEDING ON THE BAITFISH ACROSS THE TOP OF THE REEF <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/cx.flv"> After about 5 or 6 pike in quick succession i decided to change to a black and yellow jig to see if i could tempt some walleye......again , pike after pike after pike. I decided to go back to black and stay on top of the reef . I did not get any more pike with the black jig but after 10 minutes i hooked into a really nice 20" walleye....then it went dead....not a sniff anywhere on the reef for the next 20 minutes or so. GOT THIS ONE......BUT IT WENT DEAD AFTER THAT <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/ev.flv"> The wind had picked up a bit, and i noticed it was blowing up against the weedline visible on the right hand side of the first pike pictue above. The last time i fished that with my buddy Kyle we were slammin' walleyes, but they were all pretty small, but i thought i'd give it a go. THIS WEEDLINE JUST LOOKS TOO GOOD! I started off jigging ( i was using minnows all day) and ended up changing jigs about three times before hooking into another small pike. ANOTHER PIKE!....lots of these little guys here today I was beginning to think it was not going to happen that day, but as a last resort....lol....which with hindsight should have been my first resort....i switched over to a hammered gold walleye spinner, and moved out to the edge of the cabbage weed in front of the reeds and started to slow troll. I missed the first fish, a huge pike had followed my spinner in and grabbed it right at the boat and snapped me off, i made another rig up, and for a laugh i put a 6" sucker minnow that had found its way into my medium minnows. Well the size of bait did not put off the first walleye or the second or the third...etc...etc. All in all i had at least 15 walleye, and all but 4 were above 18". One of the walleye had my hook and vanish trace still in its mouth from around 2 weeks ago!!! I am pretty sure it was my line as it was 8lb trilene vanish transition with the red size 2 octopus hooks i use on my bobber set up...poor thing...so being over 18" i put him/her back after removing what i had left in its mouth 2 weeks earlier. POOR THING HAD MY HOOK IN IT FOR 2 WEEKS MOST WERE IN THE SLOT....but i did get supper All in all a good solitary session, the weather held up, and i found what i was looking for after a bit of experimentation. A very relaxing few hours.

Nice Fish!!! Thanks for posting.

great report and pics, nice walleyes too.

ABSOLUTELY AWESOME

That is truly awesome, lol...i will have to come back and read the rest....but the pics of those Char are absolutely amazing...colors are incredible!!! I am a little jealous too.....especially as i always wanted to catch Grayling from a very young age. Thanks for sharing.

Hey Fishing for life...sad to say this happens everywhere, similar to Bushart it is one of the reasons i left England!!!! fishing mostly from piers over there it was becoming more and more difficult to go out without the potential for a fight starting.....like you said, it would seem a simple solution for everyone to work together so everyone can fish the same spot, but some people are just to ignorant/aggressive/dumb to see it that way.

Thats a great fish Cliff!.......i was reading the post, i scroll down and see the picture and i said out loud" HOLY SH@T"....my wife asks...'whats up?".......i says....."come and see the salmon Cliff caught".....she walks over to have a look, sees the picture, and the first thing out of her mouth is...."HOLY SH@T"! LOL. Well done on the PB

Thanks for the replies guys. Tennessee guy, yup, we were staying at Sunset Lodge, great little place, nice little cabins and Adelle(co-owner i think was really friendly, helpful. She also gave us a huge discount on the use of a camp boat whilst we were boatless on Thursday. Yellowboat.....i look forward to reading your report on Wabaskang, ive heard great things about that lake and its only 1 1/2 hours up the road from me. TBayBoy and Solopaddler....after our not so successful second day of pre-fishing it was a semi serious plan to try "flippin' the dock" as a tactic for the first day of the touney. GCD...it was pretty wet and windy the 2 days we were out, but the tournament days were in the 90's....hothothot....but yeah...the weather is changing rapidly up here....CANT WAIT ....NOT LONG BEFORE I CAN DRILL HOLES IN THE WATER.......i will be going to ice fish Red Lake this winter!!!! I found out that our boys finished in the top 20...not bad. Dont understand why the results are still not up on the official website...pretty slack if ya ask me, considering all the mills are closing up here and the tourism dollar is becoming scarce....ya'd think they would be busy advertising this all a bit better (ooooops....was i ranting .....lol.)

Awesome...awesome report...must have taken a while to compile (lol...take it from one who knows....lol). What camera are ya using???!! those shots are fantastic!...even your phone camera shots are amazing...great stuff...thanks for sharing that.

Hi Y'all, I got invited by the local tackle shop owner to go up for 2 days fishing on Thursday and Friday in Red Lake with his son and a guy called Keith. Kyle and Keith were going to be Pre-fishing for the annual Red Lake Walleye Classic Tournament, and they wanted another person in the boat so they could have more lines in the water/try different methods/locate fish hotspots...etc...etc... This was a new experience for me, and this is serious business(apparently) Anyhoo.....i had arranged to stay in a really nice camp on Red Lake where 'The Boys' had rented a cabin that sleeps 9. There were some familiar faces in our cabin...local boys from Dryden where i live so the banter was good(plenty of whiskey and beer consumed too...trust me to be tee-total) I arrived at the camp at 10am on thursday as arranged, and was to meet Kyle on the dock, he had already gone out that morning, but i could not make it up there that early as i had just finished the night shift at 7am that morning and its a 2 1/2 hour drive up there. When i got there, no sign of Kyle. People confirmed to me he was there and had gone out in the morning, so i just thought it was a case...lol...."one more cast...just one more cast and i'll go pick up Simon". Thinking this i could forgive him, even as 11am rolled around, cuz most of us have been prone to and guilty of one last cast syndrome. I was very tired as i had not slept for 36 hours or so, and despite having a cabin at my disposal to crash out in, i opted(surprise ,surprise) to get a few minnows from the camp store and head to the dock and fish while waiting for Kyle to show up. GUESS I"LL JUST SIT HERE AND FISH A BIT WHILE I WAIT I tried casting mepps for pike or bass (not even sure if there are bass in the lake) and got one small pike. I decided to swap over to my trusty old slip bobber set up and it was not long before i got a small (17") Walleye. This was soon followed by a much better 21" one. All were caught in less than 5' of water not more than a yard off the dock. AFTER ONLY A SMALL PIKE DECIDED TO TRY MY TRUSTY FLOAT SET UP 2ND WALLEYE WAS A MORE RESPECTABLE 21" Just as i was catching the 2nd walleye i saw Kevin's ( Kyles' dad) truck pull up. So i went up to see them. Keith was there.....and so was Kyle??! What the hell are you doing here Kyle....your meant to be out on the Lake!? To cut a long story short, Kyle was driving Keith's boat for the tournament and the reason he was late was because he had just been picked up by Kevin and Keith from Red Lake marina as the motor( cylinder bearings...or some thing like that) had blown. The mood was dark...not only cuz the qoute was 4000 dollars to fix, but it was only 2 days before the tournament and they now had no boat!!!! Not to mention Keith had just driven all the way from Ottowa (at least 20 hour drive) and like myself had been awake for more than 36 hours. The guys were laughing...not out loud but i could tell they, as serious walleye tournament guys, found it amusing that i was bothering to fish the dock ...WITH A BOBBER! They were not laughing that much after i showed them a pic of the one i just caught a few seconds ago though....suddenly the conversation turned to tactics...lol....so how deep were you fishing?.....was it rocks in front of the dock?.....any weeds? The boat situation however took priority and they decided that they would go and get the boat(the one with the broken motor), bring it back to the camp, unload all the stuff and drive it back to Dryden and bring Kevin's boat back and use that . WOW....Kevin had also worked the night shift so had had no sleep....and now they had to go straight back to Dryden after just driving the 2 1/2 hours and then straight back again. They asked me if i wanted to go to the marina around the corner to get the boat...or....still with a slightly mocking tone....continue to fish with my bobber.....i opted for the bobber option. So i headed down to the dock again and it was not long before i hooked into a really nice 25" walleye, I cast out again into slightly deeper water (7') and did a slow retrieve, sharply jigging the bobber every few seconds. On the 4th or 5th retrieve the bobber shot under, litterally as i got it up to the dock ....i did not measure this one but got it back after a quick piccy as i started to realise that the whole tournament thing is very secretive....and i did not want to let anyone else in the tourney see that there were good fish to be had right in front of the camp....lol...learning quickly....it was again around the 24-25" range....so a keeper tournament wise as slot size is between 18" and 23". NICE 25" WALLEYE FROM THE DOCK SECOND ONE WAS ABOUT THE SAME The guys turned up with the broken boat, unloaded the stuff and prepared to take off back to dryden to pick up the other boat. They were not laughing at the bobber anymore when they saw the pics of the two 25" walleye i had caught in the 20 minutes they were gone . Anyway....this left me and Kyle with no boat.....so we were sorted out kindly by the camp owners who rented us a 16' aluminium camp boat with a really nice brand new 4 stroke yamaha 30hp tiller.....all for $30 less than normal price for the day !!!!!!!!! thats really cheap and sure they did us a special favour deal.....Thanks guys. So Kevin and Keith took off, and Kyle and myself went out to try and find some good spots for the tourny and mark them on the handheld GPS. We had heard a rumor that there was a bay nearby where 2 camp guests had fished the previous day, and despite the fact they had been fishing for pike (must be americans....lol) they had, apparently, caught around 10 24-28" walleye on the mepps spinners. So we headed straight there. We spent over an hour , used spinners, worm harnesses, bobbers, jigs, bottom bouncers, mepps, crank baits....NOT EVEN A PIKE!!!!! So i says why dont we try the 3 rocks marked with milk jugs at the entrance to the bay, Kyle did not look convinced, but he said ok. Within minutes of arriving the fishfinder was showing some really nice fish in the deeper 12' water around the rocks, there was also a nice area that was like a rocky flat area that transitions into a soft weedy bottom. I was the first to get a smallish one , followed by a couple more 25", and just before we headed off that spot i got a really nice 27". Kyle did slightly better than me with 2 really nice 28" ones... We only stayed for about 15 minutes as we did not want to over fish the spot before the tournament, so we marked all the spots on gps and moved on. FIRST FISH OF THE DAY WOULD BE NO GOOD FOR THE TOURNAMENT>>>BUT GREAT FUN TO CATCH KYLE'S FIRST FISH WAS A RESPECTABLE 23" <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/jj.flv"> WE BOTH GOT SOME GOOD 28" ONES TOO!! <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/kk.flv"> We did not get out till almost 2 pm, and were kinda done by 5pm marking spots. We also had been told to catch supper for the boys at the cabin, and we had to serve all the other competitors their minnows before dark. So we headed back closer to the camp to find some under slot fish for supper....LOLOL....not an easy task on Red Lake....we must have caught another 20 fish in that hour but only three were under 18" and good to keep for supper!!! NOT EASY ON THIS LAKE TO CATCH UNDER SLOT SIZE FISH...NOT THAST I MINDED! We sorted out the guys minnows back at camp, cleaned our fish, Kevin and Kieth turned up around 7 pm with the other boat. it was a riot that night in the cabin, seems like we had around 5 or 6 other guys around from other cabins and plenty of whiskey and beer was consumed that night. The next morning we were out on the lake by 8:30 am, this time Kyle's dad kevin, and Keith were with us(it was keith and Kyle who were fishing the tournament the next day) It was pretty intense in the boat that day because Keith was only out getting the feel for the lake for the first time with the tournament proper the next day. We still had fun though, the fishing was not as productive as the day before....but its the tournament day you need to catch fish, not during the pre-fish. We did mark a few new reefs which held fish, we mannaged to catch some nice fish in a place Keith had nevev had success in before and the boys felt ok by the end of the day......here's a few pics from the 2nd day out. KEVIN WITH HIS FIRST FISH OF THE DAY...25"......THAT WOULD COUNT IN THE TOURNAMENT. I DID OK WITH A FEW TOO...BUT ALL THE FISH I CAUGHT THAT DAY WOUKLD NOT HAVE COUNTED IN THE TOURNEY All in all a great experience for me....with the best walleye fishing i have experienced since being here....and i've had some great fishing before. I'm actually at work at the moment(lol...yeah...working hard doing fishing reports) and talking Heather (the partner of the guy who won it)......she says it was very exciting, she would ....they are $10000 better off...lol. I dont know the results of the boys i was with, but i know that they were #40 on the first day out, and around 20th spot half way through the second day out of some 135 boats. Will find out today how they did.

thats a really nice laker!!! now you got me wanting the ice to arrive....lol...love pulling those up from 60 fow on small genz rods and 8lb test.

nice selection of fish you had...great pics too....thats a rock bass 100%

great repor Lexx. Nice walleye...and as for the salmon....hmmmmm....you lucky so and so...dont get those up here. LOLOLOL i took my mum and dad out trolling for lakers a couple weeks back...we also dragged a couple fish around the ;lake for half an hour before realising they were there...DOH!

Hey Cudz, nice report. Funnily enough exactly the same thing happened to us downrigging for trout last year...we spent 7 hours 'cleaning spoons'....lol....then as i wanted to catch a fish and avoid the skunk got a bit of bass action before heading home.

why you singin' into the end of your fishing pole cliff? Great job!!

Great report, i dont mind being outfished by the 'missus' either.

hey Icefisherman, glad you mae it back safely. I was in Erieau this july/august but left my 16.5' luminium boat at home because of the wind/conditions on the big lakes. I was still surprisec to see tiny 12' boats out in 3'swells....craaaaaaayzeee....lol. Anyway...i hear ya about the weather forecasts.....i hate how inacurate they can be...and how it will be saying a certain thing for three days up until the morning of the day in question then change everything so like you said its 400% WRONG!!!!!

great report, looks like the kid had fun....thanks for sharing...PS...thats a nice walleye.

What a great report. I am still chuckling about the bulging eyes and screaming like a girl...think i would have been the same.

Great rport Johnny. i dont wear a watch either, and i know exactly what you mean....how many times do i get back and look at the stove clock and realise there were still another 3 fishable hours!!!!!DOH!!!! Good to see you got a few nice fish...i would have been casting a topwater inbetween all those people for that 3lb + smallie...hehehe(just kiddin'...kinda)

Hi Y'all, I bumped into a buddy the day before yesterday on my way home from work at 7pm....well he was actually stalking me LOLOL....he says he saw a truck at the bait shop and thought ..." Nah....that cant be him...buying minnows at this late hour ??" So he came over to see if it was me...lol...it was. Anyway...we had a chat through the car windows....and I says ...come on lets go fishing....to my surprise he says...lets go, so we drove to my place and jumped in the boat and went off for an hour before it started to get dark. The fish were not co-operating very much that evening and we got a couple of very small pike and a couple of sauger and walleye. I LOVE THE CAMOUFLAGE PATTERN ON THESE SAUGER When we got back Darryl says to me he needs to get out fishing more often...sooooo....i says "what ya doin’ tomorrow?"....he says....."I’m off work for another week"...nuff said....lol...lets go fishing so we did. I picked Darryl up at the dock in town at 10am yesterday....wow...perfect day for fishing, slight chop on the water, clear skies, no time limits and about 25 degrees c. Darryl has lived in Dryden all his life, but like a lot of the locals has never fished Wabigoon much(Dryden is on Lake Wabigoon). There is a perception that it is not a particularly good fishery, however i think this is a bit unfair. The fishing is 'relatively' poor when compared to some of the other less accessible lakes in the area, but there are a lot of fish , and decent size fish, its just a difficult lake to fish, and can take a lot of effort to work out. Darryl wanted to get Walleye, so i suggested we try a few spots I’d done well at , slowly working our way to Mile and Trap lakes, as Darryl was quite excited to go into these lakes as he'd never been to them. So i took him to a mid water reef...and we got one small walleye, and a couple of small jackfish. Nothing to write home about...but a start...and we had the whole day, so i said that we should move on and go straight to the furthest lake(Trap) and work our way back home from there. DARRYL WITH HIS FIRST FISH OF THE DAY It was great to see Darryl’s reaction when we hit the small weeded channels connecting Mile and Trap to the main Wabigoon Lake. He was having a blast, and that made my day! Like i said we headed to the next connecting channel off Mile into Trap Lake. Darryl’s jaw was practically hanging on his chest...it is very pretty in these lakes, and the contrast in water clarity between these 2 lakes and Wabigoon given that they are connected is quite staggering. I had never actually caught a Walleye in Trap lake before....plenty of bass and pike but no 'eyes. That is until 3 days before when Kyle (young fishing pro in the making) took me in there and showed me the only real structure in this small lake(a 20' square mid water reef, that rises from around 25' to 2'-5' across the top, covered in weed). Straight away that day when we hit this reef Kyle hooked into 2 nice bass, but there were no walleye....so we moved to the adjacent shoreline and we really got into the 'eyes...i mean they were schooling against the weedline in huge numbers and hitting everything from jigged minnows and leeches, to walleye spinners cast out with worm, leech or minnow, only thing was that they were all very small, Kyle was looking a bit disappointed as he said he has never caught small walleye there before. ONLY TOOK ONE PICTURE THAT DAY BECAUSE OF WEATHER CONDITIONS...BUT HERE'S A NICE BASS KYLE GOT This VID DOES NOT DO JUSTICE TO THE WEATHER 3 DAYS AGO AS IT WAS WAY ROUGHER ON THE WAY OUT...BUT YA GET THE IDEA <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/MVI_1843.flv"> Anyway...back to yesterday, so i was telling Darryl about my trip there 3 days ago, he was pumped....doubly so cause he never caught a bass before and really wanted to. We got to the reef and set up with very small black flat jigs and leeches. I was really hoping this was gonna work out and the fish were gonna be co-operating....Darryl was pumped after i had hyped it up and i really wanted to change his perception of Wabigoon lake system. Well happy to say...the fish were co-prating....first cast at the edge of the reef and i hook into a fish.....i look around and Darryl is also into one too........ FIRST CAST......DOUBLE HEADER!!!! After that it was non stop on the reef for the next half hour, the time it took for us to get our limits, so Darryl is straight on the mobile phone whilst reeling them in telling Lindsay(his wife) that she should bring the kids over to mine tonight for a fish fry....lol. The fish were all in the 16" and above so we had to throw a few back that were in slot, i got the best one of the day which was 23", but lots between 18" and 21" went back. These walleye fought really hard, and Darryl, and myself kept thinking we had hooked into either bass or pike as we were reeling in...great fun. I did manage a few small bass of the reef, which only fuelled Darryl’s desire to catch his first bass. 1/2 HOUR OF NON STOP WALLEYE....NICE SIZE TOO...MMMMMMM....FISH FRY! <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/96.flv"> I GOT 3 SMALL SMB LIKE THIS ON THE REEF Now the 'pressure' was off, cuz it was only 11:30 and we had our walleye limit. So i suggested we try for some bass. I got another small one after an hour using a walleye spinner, we also tried the Mepps comets(yellow/black spots) but not much else than a few small pike , Darryl had another couple walleye. So we headed to my favourite weedline in the next Lake up (Mile). I had lots of pike in the first hour of working the shoreline, but Darryl was struggling a bit with technique, he had never used mepps before. We worked our way round to my favourite weedline and i hooked into 2 nice smallies while we were there. I could feel Darryl getting frustrated, but could not really do much to help...i suggested he try a topwater.....and he got a nice hit from a bass which leapt clear foot out of the water. That was good cuz now at least he had confidence that he was doing it right, not long after that he switched back to the mepps and got a solid hit but lost what seemed to be moving like a bass, which also got him pumped....but after another hour or so of me catching pike, and him struggling to adjust to a new technique i suggested we come back another day and spend it targeting SMB to get him his first. MY TWO BASS IN MILE LAKE <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/97.flv"> We got back home at about 5pm, after i did a quick tour of some other good reefs in the main Wabigoon Lake(we did not fish), and we ...or i....cleaned the fish, Darryl’s wife and kids showed up, my wife also got back around 7pm and we had a really good supper. Darryl said that that was the best fishing he had ever experienced on Wabigoon, and could not thank me enough, which was nice....so i have to say a big thanks again to Kyle for sharing some of his ht-spots with me, so i could pass the knowledge along the line. Kyle is in the Red Lake Tournament this weekend and him and his dad have invited me up to do the pre-fish with them on Thursday...cant wait......feel very privileged to get the chance to fish with these guys.....they are very good fishermen with a wealth of local knowledge.....plus they own and run the best tackle store in Dryden GREAT AFTERNOON OUT WITH MY BUDDY DARYLL

LOLOL....good one Joe...was waiting for that

only 100 days! call yourself an addict?! humph, i will argue and bicker that your not even close....Just Kidding...welcome aboard...i hear ya bout the fish smell thing too....lol.