Lip-ripper Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 I had a couple extra vacation days to burn and decided last week that I would head out to the cottage to get a few jobs done that have been put off far too long. My wife was away for work and I had my beagle and her fluffball maltese to watch, so they were designated as my fishing partners for the extra long weekend. I decided that after having success finding lakers the last few times out and catching a couple nice surprise ones, the focus this time would be on pickerel or rather walleye if you prefer... I had caught a few as various locations around the lake, but no consistency or pattern to them. Different depths, different baits, etc. Patterning them was to be the focus this trip. A few weekends ago, while trolling for lakers, I had to quickly reel up and avoid a steep underwater shoal. This was in an area of the lake that was very wide open, and the depth came from 150 FOW to 18 in a span of a hundred or so yards. Picture an underwater mountain, the tip being 18 feet down, with steady declines on all side of it. The peak of this shoal, is only around 30 feet across. This was going to be my first area to try. I arrived Wednesday evening, quickly unpacked some gear for the stay, and headed out onto the lake. A 1 minute boat ride and I've arrived at the shoal. I figured making quick short passes would be the method to my madness and I wanted to start by trolling the top of the shoal. The bait store was out of leeches, so a jig and a worm it was. about 15 minutes in... success! A few minutes later, another strong hit and after a few minutes, a 4.5 pounder is boated! Now, here's what happened. At first, I struggled with the decision of whether or not to release it. After all, I own a cottage on this lake and that is a good spawning size. I threw it on the stringer before snapping a picture of it, as I had gotten a video of the fight on my GoPro. A minute later and a loud thrash at the side of the boat, I look down? gone... The fish made the decision easy for me. His thrashing opened the metal clasp on the stringer and swam away. My only regret was not snapping a nice picture of it. Here's a screen capture of it though. After this, action was steady, I have found my new hotspot for pickerel. I boated 5 that evening, keeping 4 for the table. The next morning, I awoke to the fog. I wanted to race back to my new hotspot to see it the previous evening was a fluke, but figured I should get a few jobs done first. After staining, splitting wood, cutting grass and dock mending, I was back on the water at 2pm. Oh wait, I had a nice breakfast first... So I figured that yesterday evenings success may be due to the time of day, but figured I would try again... just in case... 6 pickerel later, I found out that time of day really didn't seem to matter. Here are a couple pics of the days success. biggest fish was a shade over 3 lbs. All 6 fish caught Thursday were released. Pleased that the task of finding pickerel was deemed a success, next up was deep deep jigging for lakers. I headed to a creek outflow to catch some chubs for bait. I figured large chub minnows would be my best hope for deep lakers. A little fallfish got in the way. I considered keeping him for bait as I believe they are classified as such, but opted to stick with chubs as the fallfish was a little big for bait. In hindsight, I should have tried him out as I have a 4 oz jig that would have worked perfectly with a fallfish on it. I jigged and jigged... and jigged and jigged... nothing... nada... not even a snag. I failed at the task of deep jigging. Even switched it up and tried white tubes. This is my next task, figuring out what I'm marking super deep... Saturday rolled around and I got company. My neighbor showed up and wanted to go out for an evening fish to get a feed for his family. He was actually with me when the shoal was first discovered, and surrendered a good 20 bucks in tackle to it. He even caught an incidental pickerel near it on a laker set-up earlier in the summer so I had no problem heading out to it with him. The action wasn't as steady as earlier in my stay, but we were successful. We each got one around 3 pounds and I even got a laker on the same set-up in the same spot. These fish came home with us for the table. A very relaxing mini-vacation was had, and pickerel success was found. Now to figure out those deep bottom dwellers... until next time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GBW Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 nice report and glad to see you were rewarded for your efforts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broker Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 It feels the best when you finally figure out a pattern and start nailing fish. Good job and nice report Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asdve23rveavwa Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 Got to love finding those "honey holes" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nipfisher Posted August 20, 2012 Report Share Posted August 20, 2012 Looks like you picked a good lake to buy the cottage on eh Ryan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spincast Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 Looks like you picked a good lake to buy the cottage on eh Ryan? x2 - nice report and great place to get away to Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Farmer Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 Great report, I like your fishin Buddy's. Nothing like hitting a nice lake by yourself and mans best friend. Love the breakfast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rod Caster Posted August 21, 2012 Report Share Posted August 21, 2012 Looks like you picked a good lake to buy the cottage on eh Ryan? x3. SOunds like a fantastic spot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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