guitardude_15

^^ this man speaks the truth

When you heading up? I'm there almost weekly

Very solid smallmouth fishery and there is a good number of musky. I get a lot of pike but no size and some decent largemouth. Stormy has a very good laker population as well. Walleye can be tricky but they are there.

When Carter was moved I didn't think to much of it but Richards ???

I would have considered them a cup favorite for next year with the signing of Bryzgalov but I suppose they don't wanna win for a few years...

Schenn, simmonds and a voracek are all good so is a 1st round pick but seems like a couple odd moves, unless they need the cap space to sign Bryzgalov?

The live target smelt hammered walleye and smallies for me on LOTW, I don't know if it outfished the ghost x-rap it replaced though ?

Definitely takes alot of patience, always have a throwback lure like a hell hound, manta or a soft bait my jackpot locates a lot of fish for me but hooks up with very few

Nice looking fish! Congratulate your friend on a PB, nothing beats that feeling!

I saw a laker while wading about 4 years back! About 5 lb laker in 3 fow

Great looking baits! I may just have to order some

Beauty fish, top water is the best. They miss walk the dog style baits so often though!

Congrats

Thanks for the feedback guys, is the link to the video working?

So, this being my first year away from Lake Of The Woods in a few seasons I didn't know what to expect from 2011's "home water".

I grew up fishing Restoule and area but spent my time chasing bass around. When I moved up to Sioux Narrows to guide for Totem Resorts I became a die hard musky angler. I knew these fish were around Restoule, I've seen them had them up on bass gear, had them steal walleye right off of the stringer, I just didn't know what odds I'd have targeting them.

Lake of the woods has an amazing musky fishery with good numbers of good fish as well as lots of monsters.

Luckily it looks like I wont be missing LOTW to much fishing Restoule, Stormy and Clear.

This was my first trip of my project FiftyQuest, as I have a lot of mid to high 40's fish but haven't broke the coveted 50" mark yet. I will be filming and doing reports all summer so I hope you guys enjoy!

Got up to the cottage on friday to face beautiful conditions, unfortunately a wind change and pressure break left us with blue bird skies a big drop in air temp and slightly cooling water temp's (seeing numbers around 75F Friday and then 71F Saturday. Not the start I'm looking for now I'm thinking deeper structures, open water, jerk baits, cranks etc...

Problem is I love fast paced musky fishing, run and gun, burn your blades rip your topwater style musky fishing! For the first trip of the year success wasn't paramount so I would look for the fish not following the patterns or try to relate some cold front structures with faster paced fishing. This way I get to fish how I love to fish, even though I may give up some success..

Out on Restoule my fishing partner Jake hooked up early on and I managed to get it all on video with my new GoPro, I apologize for the poor edit but I'll let the video do the talking.

44.5 x 17 not a bad start, nice head shakes and swam off healthy which is the most important part.

After that I picked up some "guests" my father and step mother decided to come along we trailered the boat into Stormy Lake and again early on my father had hooked into his personal best, unfortunately with 4 people musky fishing in a 16 ft aluminum I didn't bother filming.

here is a pic of his 44"

After that we dropped off the "guests" and Jake and I were back at it, had a few follows here and there with a couple of them being high 40" fish but no takers. Stopped at the most obvious spot on the entire lake (saw 5 fish here over the trip) and rolled a Funky Chicken spinner bait with a single colorado blade (less lift so I could fish it a bit slower) and got hammered by a Ski, just a little guy at 35" but hey I didn't get blanked on opener!

Saturday night brought even colder conditions, more North wind and made fishing Sunday pretty challenging. Had 4 fish up but no takers and no hits. Jake also hooked into weeds with a depth raider and had a close to 50" fish following the bait even though it had no action and was dragging a foot of weeds behind it the fish still followed the first turn of the 8 even... weird stuff...

All in all it was great to be back in the water throwing baits again, I'd consider the trip pretty successful and I cant wait to get back there to fish in prime conditions and get some more of these toothy critters on camera!

Cheers, Zac

Also the Youtube video doesn't seem to want to embed, anything special I'm missing on this board? hopefully the link works

I have made this drive a few times, I worked the past few summers on lake of the woods Dan nailed it with the sights to check out. Last year on my way up i stopped and fished the nipigon river, 8 brookies biggest 23" smallest 17" and about a dozen lakers biggest 31"

All were taken on bucktail jigs in a smelt pattern!

Once you're in kenora definitely check out figure 8, they are great guys and will help you out. Lake of the woods is no miss for walleye, bass, crappie, lakers, pike and musky.

I love that lake and hope you have a blast pm if you have any questions.

Right on miller nice to see you get into so many Eyes!

Definitely take a look at your hooks, change them or sharpen if need be.

Also try to take a second drop your rod tip and then set, sometime that slight pause is all it takes to increase your percentages.

No weeds in restoule at all! I managed 3 eyes and 7 pike over two days and the biggest pike was only like 25"

All of the walleye were 19"-20" right in the slot

It'll get better though.