A day mostly lure washing

[tjsa]

My bud and I got out to Lac Des Mille Lacs way up here in the Great White North yesterday. Overnight low was 7C, to a high of maybe 19C.

 

Ride down the Savanne River was smooth and calm, the lake was only slightly choppy from winds from the north from the day before, which was very windy.

 

 

I saw the low temps, and brought along my Viking insulated raingear, and my OFC toque, which I needed,

 

 

After a 30 minute ride down the lake, we stopped at an island. A bud of ours shared plot tracks/waypoints with us, so we started there. Minutes in we both missed fish, then I got the first one, a little 10" walleye. Couple of drifts later, got another about the same size. Another boat showed up, but did not see them catch anything. Moved around the other side of the island, and I got another maybe 12". Wind was still north at 10km or so, so we drifted to the next island nearby, and my bud gets a good hit.

 

Awww, crap, snot rocket,

 

 

I usually don't take pictures of skanky pike, but I wasn't getting any bites at the time, so I tried to get some action shots, all the while keeping an eye on my rod. The pic above was the best I got, as I noticed my rod tip bending, and got a nice breakfast fish about 13 1/4".

On this lake, you cannot keep any under 13". We drifted the spot again, but no more takers. Switched to trolling with worm harnesses. My bud put on a hot pink harness with a dew worm, I used a lighter pink/white harness with a gulp worm imitation(which worked fabulously on LOTW last year). I missed a hookset on a fish, and my bud got a nice 17.5" fish further on our troll, along with another darned pike.

 

We moved around fishing deep, shallow, across saddles between islands, then went further south to some humps on the GPS plots our bud gave us. Not a touch for quite a while, then while drifting up a shelf, I had a hit, but missed it. Fed the fish though as I had no minnow left.

Anchored there for a bit, but nothing else. Moved to another point where we noticed a bunch of boats fishing, no action there for us, but we did see one boat pull up a decent stringer of fish as they were leaving. Guess they were there from the very beginning of the day, and capitalized on it.

 

Anyways we tried a few other spots with different techniques for the next 3 hrs., got another snot rocket for our effort, but never really hit another fish since 11 am. All 6 of our walleye came between 9:30-10:30 am. Then the bite just shut down. Could have been the weather switch from a low barometric pressure to a high pressure. The late mayfly hatch might have had some effect also, as we saw hundreds of larvae cases in the water. Ran into a bud of mine fishing the mouth of the Savanne River, and their experience was the same, they were even down in the same area we were, fish biting first thing in the morning, then nothing. At the launch, talked to two other parties that came in, same thing.

 

I am sure some other anglers got into more decent fishing, it always happens, right place, right time, right structure, right baits, we just didn't find them today.

 

Total for the day, 6 walleye(2 kept) and 3 pike(released).

 

It was also a day where we were doing a shakedown cruise of my bud's new boat, a 14'9" Triton with a 25 hp 4 stroke on it, to see how much gas it uses on long runs. We traveled approximately 48 km's at 3/4 throttle, and used just over half a cruise'a'day(5 gallon tank), so now we have a decent idea of how far we can travel, and if we need to bring extra gas.

[Greencoachdog]

Nice report and pics Tom!!!

 

Y'all look kinda chilly in those pics, I'm still sweating my nadz off down here!

 

Good to see you getting out and catching some fish!!!

[tjsa]

I would much rather be wearing my toque in August than sweating my nadz off any day,

[Leecher]

Great report and pics Tom

Sound like you guys had a good time even in the colder temps!!!

I'm sure that the couple of eyes kept will taste good in the frying pan

Thanks for sharing

Leechman

[TC1OZ]

Thanks for the report....I WISH I could wear my toque in the summer.

[Radnine]

I would much rather be wearing my toque in August than sweating my nadz off any day,

I'm the other way, I would rather be hot than cold any day.

Nice report and great photos.

Thanks!

Jim

[MCTFisher9120]

Nic job bud!

 

MTBF