guitardude_15 Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 (edited) 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 Edited June 20, 2011 by Guitardude_15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handlebarz Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 Congrats on a great opener sounds like it will be a good season up there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asdve23rveavwa Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 Great report!! Awesome success on the skis as well. Those pics bring back some good memories from last year, and, our camping trip up there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunkerhunter Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 wicked report man, hope to see more throughout the year. cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitardude_15 Posted June 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 Thanks for the feedback guys, is the link to the video working? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asdve23rveavwa Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 Thanks for the feedback guys, is the link to the video working? Video worked fine for me!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
addymark Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 awesome report man! heading up there this week, hope to have some luck. was up there last week going for some pike and had a solid 40 follow to the boat and just swim beside the bow mount for a few minutes. also about 15 minutes after that came across a school of lakers in about 6 ft of water... wierdest thing ever, thought they were pickerel at first but then i got right on top of them and definitely lakers. any thoughts on that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
addymark Posted June 20, 2011 Report Share Posted June 20, 2011 as well forgot to mention, love the dark colour of that first ski! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitardude_15 Posted June 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 I saw a laker while wading about 4 years back! About 5 lb laker in 3 fow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike01 Posted June 21, 2011 Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 I'm going to try and get down there a few times this year. We usually stay in the park once or twice and this time I am bringing the boat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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