A very hot & humid June 25-26 Rice Lake Report

[Steelcat]

Day 1:

Weather was hot, wind was from the South West. My friend came picked my brother and I at around 7am. We arrived at the cottage at 830am. After an hour of driving, my friend suddenly realized that he forgot to bring our food.... so he was like "No fish means no dinner~!" Since this is the first time he has ever fished in Rice, the pressure of finding fish was on my brother and I~! After checking in and get our rental boat, we already felt the heat and wonder how we were suppose to "survive" the rest of the day. With everything being "thrown" into the cottage, we immediately got our fishing gear and jump aboard our boat. Our first spot we went to was the spot where we had some luck during the bass season open. After an hour of drifting, no bite at all. Then we head to another spot, but someone were already there, so we had no choice but to try the outskirt of that spot, once again no bite. It's already 11am but the heat was crazy, while we were being cooked, I suggested that we should try out some location that we've never tried before. After some searching, we managed to arrived at a good looking area with weedline and deep drop offs. Within seconds, my brother yelled Fish On. It was a pretty good size Largemouth, now our spirit were up. Then I had a hit, and was a Crappie (ummm dinner). My bro and I took turn on getting fish (we had 10 just in that one area, the largest was 17 inches), as we were also trying to teach him how to cast. At 1pm my friend wanted to head back to the dock for some pan fish. My friend was determined to get some fish so he braved the sun and finally caught his first Rice Lake Bluegill, he was so excited that he kept yelling "I finally have dinner~!". We managed to catch several more panfish, then we went back to the cottage to prepare our early meal. We decided to BBQ our fish as well as some veggie that my friend remember to bring. After dinner, we relaxed a bit and had ice cold watermelon. We waited until 830pm before we head out for some shore fishing. The insects were giving us hard time as they flew into our nose, eyes, ear. We tried our best to ignore them and kept on fishing. On my first cast, I got a ding Smallmouth (good fighter though). We walked all over the place and my brother also managed to catch a couple Largemouth. As we were concentrated on casting, my friend suddenly made a noise as if he was trying to lift something heavy. After he landed the fish, we were so happy for him because it was his first Largemouth bass. Right after the celebration, I managed to catch a 4lbs Smallmouth, right after that a 4lbs Walleye. Right at 1030pm, all the bites stopped for some reason, so we happily called it a day and planned to head back out at 5am the next day.

 

First fish of the trip (part of our dinner)

Some of the fish we caught on our honey spot

A small Smallmouth about 14 inches

My friend's first Sunfish

Our dinner~!!

Lovely Rice Lake Sunset.

A successful night time shore fishing

 

Day 2:

Weather was like an oven~! Wind was very light. We head out for some early morning shore fishing at around 530am. Once again on my first cast, a ding Smallmouth. We managed to catch 3 Largemouth one of them was caught by my friend. At 630am, we decided to head out to the lake before we need to return our boat at 8am. Once again, we were adventurous so we head to a place where we had never been to before. We drove around and found a good weedy area. We drop our senko into the weed holes as well as weedline, on almost every cast, we managed to have a fish. Overall, we had 20 Largemouth from 10 to 16 inches, we also caught a couple nice size Crappie. We stayed till 745am, then head back to the dock to return the boat. Once we were on land, we immediately started to cast our line again for another 30 minutes. Before we need to leave the cottage, my brother managed to catch a 17 inches Smallmouth. At first we wanted to stay a little longer for some more shore fishing, but it was way too hot to stay under the sun. We arrived home at around 1pm.

 

A nice Smallmouth from shore

One of the many Largemouth during our morning boating.

Yummy Crappie

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Excellant report!! What did you get the crappies on?

[Steelcat]

I got all the Crappies with black grub~ They are all very scattered not in group for sure.

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Thanks. All I want is one or two to try out!! Casting out a black grub with no bobber sounds good to me.

[Steelcat]

Find holes in weedbed, drop your grub into it and see your line dance

[mattyk]

nice report thanks for sharing.

[dustink]

Wow....a bit of everything.....very nice.

 

dk