doubleheader Posted July 26, 2007 Report Posted July 26, 2007 Greeting to all from Pennsylvania. I'm not a new member, and although I don't post much I do enjoy most of what I read here. My wife and I and another couple spent two glorious weeks at Lakair Lodge earlier this month and I thought I'd post some highlights. I know most target muskies and bass, but we target walleye, sorry, pickeral. This was the 3rd year my buddy and I have taken our wives, I think they love it as much as us now. For us the trip is more than just fishing. We enjoy the whole experience. Therefore, although we fished every day, we really didn't spend every minute fishing. We never fished past 4:00 PM. We found the fishing to be excellent- for our standards anyhow. We boated 369 pickeral, and hooked up with two muskies. 13 of our fish were 25" or more, somehwere around 25-30 were above the slot. We know the count as the women were sure they would outfish us so we kept tally sheets on each boat. We usually drift the weedbeds and work the rocky points, but this year we found most of our fish in deeper water, in fact 25'. We found that trolling harnesses at about .7 mph worked best. If you got too fast the pesky perch would nail your bait in an instant. Sorry I don't have the metric conversions for this data. We were using 10 lb power pro, fast tip rods, 1 oz bottom bouncers, and harnesses with floats. The fish wanted a different blade color every day. Our best day was 52 fish, and we had a couple other days with over 40. All the large fish but one, which slipped out of our hands taking pictures and didn't recover, were released. We also kept about 15 smaller ones. We fished east of RT 64 bridge for the most part, so if you know the water you pretty much know where we fished. If I can figure out how to atttach pics I will.
TJQ Posted July 26, 2007 Report Posted July 26, 2007 WOW!!! Nice report... Ive heard from numerous people that the fishing hjas been super this year right accross the lake!! Glad ya had a good time!
Whopper Posted July 26, 2007 Report Posted July 26, 2007 Wow is right! You were doing real good until I read the black shirt LOL Excellent report! Thanks for sharing! Whopper
Joey Posted July 26, 2007 Report Posted July 26, 2007 Wow, you guys did well, that's fantastic. Nice looking pickerel. Thanks for the report and pics. Joey
tbayboy Posted July 26, 2007 Report Posted July 26, 2007 Nice fish and thanks for all the details, always appreciate that. Sounds like you had a great time.
Marty Posted July 26, 2007 Report Posted July 26, 2007 Shut up Phil. Leave those very wise people alone.
Whopper Posted July 26, 2007 Report Posted July 26, 2007 Shut up Phil. Leave those very wise people alone. Ah Marty I'm sure they are very wise people they caught fish! I'll bet their even Steeler fans All in good fun! Whopper
Daplumma Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 Great report.Surprised to see that many "wall-ice" caught after a week of GCD slaughtering them.To hear him talk I didn't think there were any left in all of Ontario.Seriously,good job.Too bad about the Steelers thing and all. Joe
Rizzo Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 sounds like a great trip...but more details on the 2 musky you tied into are needed (worm harness or did they nab your pickerel on the way in?)
dheitzner Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 sounds like a great couple of weeks, they're some real nice wallys
sturgman Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 That first Pickeral has some chunk too er. Congrats on the great fishing on Nip.
lunkerbasshunter Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 awesome! glad you had a great time! imagine what the numbers would be if you fished after 4pm? cheers!
setomonkey Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 Nice sounds like a great trip, and I think I might know where you were fishing east of that bridge... Mike
Shelley Cooper Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 Wow.. what a nice trip.... thanks for sharing
Guest mistyriver1 Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 I was talking with Kevin the other day and he mentioned that the fishing had been very good lately. Less than 3 weeks and I'll be up there, can't wait !!!!!!!! Congrats on your successful outing !!
ccmtcanada Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 We boated 369 pickeral, and hooked up with two muskies. 369 pickeral???? Holy crap!! You all cleaned up out there!!! I was at Lakair for the first time with the OFC bunch back in June, and I'll be back again next year for sure. Absolutely LOVED it up there. Congrats on a great trip...looks like you all had a great time!
doubleheader Posted July 27, 2007 Author Report Posted July 27, 2007 Thank you all for the words. I know, I know, I was cursed to have been born a Pirate fan, and the misery over the last 16 years of losing has been almost more than one can bear, but at least my wife supports me, as the pic indicates. And yes, we are Steeler fans as well, please don't hold either misfortune against us. As for the 2 muskies, my wife hooked-up with one on a worm harness. The fish acted like it really didn't know it was caught. It hit pretty close to the boat, on the bottom in about 15' of water and my wife thought at first she had a snag. The fish let her lift it within a foot of the surface about 10' behind the boat and I told her "Holy XXXX, you have a big musky!!" Then the fish dove but really didn't run and it occurred to me at that point that this fish could do whatever it wanted. I told her to just keep pressure on the fish, hoping that maybe it was lip hooked and we could somehow get it alongside the boat for pics. She lifted the fish to the surface a 2nd time and said, " How big is it?" That prompted me to really think about that, and as the fish was pretty close to the surface and as I got a real good look I said, "I'd have to say it's all of 4 feet" There was no way we could net this fish in our large walleye net, so I called to my buddy on the walkie talkie to bring the big net. I could see my wife actually trembling she was so nervous. The fish then dove a 2nd time, not a violent wild dive, more like a "I think I'll swim back to the bottom now thankyou" and before my friend got even close to us the fish bit off the harness. It was a very thick heavy fish. The 2nd fish actually hit a larger perch jointed Rapala one afternoon on a boat ride. We had just decided to troll. Everyone was on my boat and I was in Warren Bay. We hadn't gone 200 yds and we were in 40' of water when all of a sudden my wife screamed, which scared the crap out of me, but as I turn around I could see my trolling rod almost doubled. I was running about 2.7 mph, which is the trolling speed of my big motor, running 30lb power pro, in 40' of water and my rod is just doubled. I put the motor in neutral and grabbed the rod. I had intentionally left the drag quite a bit more loose given I had just spooled the Power Pro, but I didn't have it set loose enough by the strain on my rod, and after about 30 seconds the fish got off. We never actually saw this fish, but based on the weight and all, I'd have to say it was a musky. I routinely pull smaller fish in my home lake in the 25-30" range, this was much bigger than that. So anyhow, that is the tale of our two muskies. I don't claim to be a musky fisherman, both hook-ups were just dumb luck.
Whopper Posted July 27, 2007 Report Posted July 27, 2007 (edited) Great story doubleheader! It alright to be a homer for the city teams! isn't everybody Heck around here we are so starved for a winner we root for a winner at the local checker game. Whopper Edited July 27, 2007 by Whopper
Rich Clemens Posted July 28, 2007 Report Posted July 28, 2007 Very nice DH. This was my first year to Lakair myself - also with the OFC group and definitely looking forward to next year. You had much better luck than I did, so congrats to your group. Oh yeah ... another Pennsylvanian. Where abouts are you from ? My town is about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh, about 13 miles south of Altoona and maybe an hour south of State College. Great to see another Pennsylvanian on the board and fishing similar waters in Ontario that I do. Welcome to the board.
Carp Posted July 28, 2007 Report Posted July 28, 2007 WOW !!! 369 wallies. Good shooting. Sounds like a great time was had by all. Thanks for the beauty report.
doubleheader Posted July 30, 2007 Author Report Posted July 30, 2007 Rich, we're from Warren, PA about 60 miles east of Erie, 10 miles west of the Kinzua Reservoir, and 30 minutes from Chautaqua lake. We're blessed with a lot of fine water and to be in the middle of the Allegheny National Forest, but nothing compares to the beauty of the west arm. I've been going to Lakair for at least 45 years, not continuous, but pretty much so in the last 10 years. I was going thru some gear yesterday and came across some of our old pictures. I have one of my dad carrying fish up the old Lakair dock dated 1962, and another one of my boyhood pal and I jumping off a rock at our camp which I believe is now part of Memquisit. If you ever get up in our area give me a call. Maybe we'll see you at Lakair one of these years. God willing we'll be there the 1st two weeks of July for a few more years.
capt_hooked Posted July 30, 2007 Report Posted July 30, 2007 Fred, I think you set a new camp record on the number of walleyes caught!!!! BTW.. we share some of your sports woes... you may be Steeler and Private fans.. but we can sympathize... as we are Maple Leafs fans! cheers! the capt
doubleheader Posted July 31, 2007 Author Report Posted July 31, 2007 Capt, how's the fishing been? We've been out of the boat for a couple weeks, but plan to head to Dunkirk (Lake Erie) to fish smallies (BIG smallies) next weekend. I trust all is well. Camp record eh? Well, it's really nice to see so many healthy fish in the west arm. Take care my friend.
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