fishing report w/o 6/26
Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 5:39 pm
Got there Sat afternoon by time we went to town for supplies decided not to go out till Sunday AM. Wont give you blow by blow daily description because some days are a little foggy in my mind. We were on water every day by 6 and usually earlier except one day we didnt get out till 7 --in the rain. Got rained on alot during week. Fished till 10 or 11:30 each day, then was back on water around 4/5PM.
My first impression Sun morning was "holy crap I never saw so many boats". I finally found some space and some fish around Conger Island. It became my go to spot all week. First few days had little company --by end of week became pretty crowded.
We (myself/wife/16 and 11yr old grandson)caught enough to keep everyone happy (total catch and release). We probably caught about 60/80 gamefish plus crappies/perch and sunfish. We lost too many fish as far as Im concerned ,which I will talk about in separate post , including what I think was large smallmouth I hooked in 17ft of water behind Conger Island on a Rapala DT16. I think the lost fish has something to do with my tactics with braided line.
The star lure of the week was a yellow perch X-Rap #10. I caught the first few fish of trip with it then my wife absconded it for rest of week. By end of week it need a new paint job --one of my complaints about Rapala lures. I tried three other X-Raps 1os with different colors --one small pike.
I caught 18" walleye on the perch version, the largest smallmouth (15") my wife caught the largest LM (17") and largest pike(27")
Not great size but one thing I will say about BL fish --they are all well fed and fat. If I didnt know better I would say the bass hadnt spawned yet. The pike from 22-27 all had "shoulders" not hammerhandles and fought like hell.
Other hot baits were Strike King 3/8 tandem blade spinner baits with willow blade and a Colorado blade. The willow blade had a "fish" design --needless to say the one with the perch blade did the most damage.
On Friday morning water was calm and I broke out Frog color Tiny Torpedoes and caught 7/8 LM
My general impression was --highly pressured lake which needs catch and release regs to maintain it. Dont get me wrong it seems like an extremely healthy fishery qty wise but im not sure about quality. We had a great time fishing, was hard but worth it --considering it was my first time on lake I was satisfied.
One other thing of note --at place I stayed they hosted bass tournament day of my arrival. After weigh in and the following day there were more than a few dead bass floating around the docks. Looking at some of the
boats participating I wondered if all of them had proper live wells. Im not a big fan of "small" tournaments for that reason. Just my opinion.
My first impression Sun morning was "holy crap I never saw so many boats". I finally found some space and some fish around Conger Island. It became my go to spot all week. First few days had little company --by end of week became pretty crowded.
We (myself/wife/16 and 11yr old grandson)caught enough to keep everyone happy (total catch and release). We probably caught about 60/80 gamefish plus crappies/perch and sunfish. We lost too many fish as far as Im concerned ,which I will talk about in separate post , including what I think was large smallmouth I hooked in 17ft of water behind Conger Island on a Rapala DT16. I think the lost fish has something to do with my tactics with braided line.
The star lure of the week was a yellow perch X-Rap #10. I caught the first few fish of trip with it then my wife absconded it for rest of week. By end of week it need a new paint job --one of my complaints about Rapala lures. I tried three other X-Raps 1os with different colors --one small pike.
I caught 18" walleye on the perch version, the largest smallmouth (15") my wife caught the largest LM (17") and largest pike(27")
Not great size but one thing I will say about BL fish --they are all well fed and fat. If I didnt know better I would say the bass hadnt spawned yet. The pike from 22-27 all had "shoulders" not hammerhandles and fought like hell.
Other hot baits were Strike King 3/8 tandem blade spinner baits with willow blade and a Colorado blade. The willow blade had a "fish" design --needless to say the one with the perch blade did the most damage.
On Friday morning water was calm and I broke out Frog color Tiny Torpedoes and caught 7/8 LM
My general impression was --highly pressured lake which needs catch and release regs to maintain it. Dont get me wrong it seems like an extremely healthy fishery qty wise but im not sure about quality. We had a great time fishing, was hard but worth it --considering it was my first time on lake I was satisfied.
One other thing of note --at place I stayed they hosted bass tournament day of my arrival. After weigh in and the following day there were more than a few dead bass floating around the docks. Looking at some of the
boats participating I wondered if all of them had proper live wells. Im not a big fan of "small" tournaments for that reason. Just my opinion.