|
|
Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | July ended with strong winds for 4 days and August has started with more wind that people would like.
Fish has been a little more active in the 3rd and 4th day of the winds. Like any weather pattern, if it is stable for 3-4 days, the fish seem to respond. Winds have been from similar direction throughout this windy stretch so you would be able to call it a stable pattern.
Common reports seem to be that there are fish in the weeds/slop, but I have had some reports of fish moving on blades in large rock complexes the end of last week. Multiple fish days for several boats yesterday got the week started off on a good note. Biggest fish reported was 47.
The forecast is calling for a high of 66 on Monday so it looks like a little cold front of sorts will be added to the mix.
J-Man |
|
| |
|
Posts: 120
| Our group was on Sabaskong bay last week and the wind was what this years trip will be remembered for. It didn't let up day or night for days. It very much limited where we could fish. Because of this we found ourselves fishing anywhere we could without 2-3 foot waves and insane wind. This was often small weedy bays. We did get some fish in the weeds but any opportunity we had to fish rocks we had success there also. Biggest for our group was a 48". More than normal small fish this year than we have got and seen in the past. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Action has been much better with the wind more manageable. Have had reports of a 6 fish day and 8 fish day for a couple of boats with many more scene.
Combos of rock/weed seem to be the best structure.
Mixtures of topwater, bucktails and cranks all getting bit.
no bruiser landed but has been a couple on the line and multiple biggies that have followed several times without eating.
Water temps low 70s after a little cool down from the heat.
Most anglers saying the water is cleaner/clearer to the east of the resort than the west. Been some algae showing up when the wind lays down, but that has only happened for one afternoon that stretching into the following morning once in the last 9 days.
J-Man |
|
| |
|
Posts: 122
| Are there updates on the road conditions on HWY 621? Thanks |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1767
Location: Lake Country, Wisconsin | As of last Saturday about 15 miles of gravel... |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1901
Location: MN | Just drive up tonight. 621 is in great shape |
|
| |
|
Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | My wife and I were at Mylies from the 1st to the 8th. We were the last to show up on Saturday and didn't even put the boat in till the following morning. 621 had some gravel on it when we headed up. Not terrible but I drove a little slower to avoid rock chips. Still a little loose gravel on the way back but much better.
We were met with quite a bit of wind the first two days. Had to stay East of the resort, and I found out the 3 year old batteries in my boat were not up to the task of pulling the Tuffy into the wind all day. Had to resort to a lot of drifting with the wind, which I do not like, and my wife being about 6 months pregnant was not overly appreciative of some of the big waves, so we tried to avoid that as much as possible. Were fairly limited in how and where we went and fished.
Day one was a blank! Not a fish caught or seen by either of us. Day two I caught a 40 on a reef extending from an island, ripping a firetiger Depthraider into rocks. For the next couple days, firetiger cranks ripped into rocks seemed to be the best thing going for my boat. Had pretty much nothing going on bucktails, and only one follow on a tail rotating topwater towards the end of the week (more on that later).
I had a major bummer on I think Wednesday morning. I had just retied before starting the first spot of the day - ripping cranks into rocks takes a toll on line and leader. About 10 minutes in I had a fish hit, and before completing the hookset the line popped. Must have hit a sharp rock just before or just after the fish hitting. A second later the fish came out of the water, shaking wildly to get rid of the bait. I was wearing a GoPro and you can hear me yelling at the fish to "get rid of it!". Sadly it didn't. What a way to start the day. The crappy feeling of knowing a fish is swimming around with a bait stuck in it, and also losing the one "hot" bait that has been working so far. If anybody is up and finds a straight firetiger Depthraider with a 150lb Fluorocarbon leader attached west of Mylies a few miles, let me know. Hopefully there is no fish attached to it.
Later in the week we had fish going on bucktails, and I had a small window in some rainy conditions where I caught a couple smaller fish on a black pacemaker. Actually everything we threw at them for about 90 minutes in the drizzle seemed to be working - showing or catching fish, or getting hits.
The last couple days I had good luck on a flame/black-chart Double 10 Spanky Bait. The highlight of the trip was boating a personal best 52.5 in the 8 on that bait. Back to the topwater from earlier - we think my wife raised this fish earlier in the week on Wednesday evening. I heard her say - "Is that a fish?" She had seem something so big she couldn't believe it was actually a musky! She did a few more 8's, and I only saw the tail come around once. It was a BIG tail.
We fished that spot about 4 times, limited other days of not being able to get to the fish due to wind. On the last full day about 12:45 it came in on the Spanky double 10, nipped in the first turn of the 8 and missed, came back around and hit on the next 8.
After getting my leg lassoed by my wife's line and bait, which stuck to the boat carpet, and her freeing me, the fish was cleanly slipped into the bag. Owe my wife for raising this one - I likely wouldn't have fished the spot again had she not raised a big fish on it. She raised the fish off a hazzard about 100 yards from a rocky island, and it was finally caught off the windy tip of the island itself.
We experienced just about everything - cloudy cold days with big winds, and hot sunny bluebird days without a ripple on the entire lake. We had very little in between average weather, but I was glad we weren't up the previous week with ALL the wind they had then. I ended up with 8 fish - 7 if you don't count a 28" or so that I popped off without netting at boatside. Unfortunately my wife only boated a medium size northern for the trip. She fished hard with good baits and made good casts, had a few follows and a couple nippers, but never closed the deal on one. I found it pretty odd and interesting that during the whole trip, I only had 1 follow that didn't bite. Every other encounter I had was a couple misses out from the boat, or catching every fish but the one that came to the boat. With that said - we had our fair share of down time between seeing any fish since they seemed to eat, or just not show for my boat.
Highlights of the trip was seeing how it went taking a pregnant wife to LOTW for a week (better than expected), putting a 7/0 through my thumbnail while taking the bait out of the net after unhooking a fish, past the barb WITHOUT it hitting any flesh and having the wife free me from it with hook cutters, and catching a PB than my wife raised earlier in the week.
My week of Christmas is over and I'm looking forward to going back already. Wish I was there now. Thanks for the spare Depthraider Justin. Shame I lost that one to a rock the next day before it had a chance to get eaten!
Edited by curleytail 8/10/2015 9:41 AM
Attachments
----------------
 017.jpg (41KB - 248 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | Forgot to mention that other than the big one, our fish ran on the smaller size. I had a small one, a 34, 37, and the rest between 38 and 40 inches. The few I lost that I saw appeared to be upper 30's to low 40's also.
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 4343
Location: Smith Creek | Congrats Tucker!! (On the fish and baby) |
|
| |
|
Posts: 151
Location: Chippewa Falls, WI | sounds like you guys had a similar week to what we experienced. We were at mylies the same week and had tough fishing. Were weren't seeing very many fish and every fish we caught ate out on the cast. I only had 4 follows all week, two little ones and one upper 40's, maybe pushing 50" that came out of slop weeds with 76 degree water temps. We ended up with 11 for the week, 50, 43.5, 41, 41, 41, 40.5 and all the rest were between 37-40. My mom caught the 50" on a surface bait and supplied us with the highlight of the trip! It was her first trip to Canada and only her 4th musky ever.
Attachments
----------------
50.jpg (67KB - 232 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Fishing has been similar to reports from Tucker and Aaron with the exception of one boat experiencing a good nite-bite right as the sun goes down and into the darkness. The guys have boated multiple fish at that time including a 51 and 49 on back to back nights on bucktails.
Otherwise, fish still seem to be out of their usual summer rock pattern. My suggestion is find some of your fave rock spots and look around for the nearest slop, reed, rock-weed combos and give them a try.
Bucktails and topwaters have been the best producers this week.
Finally getting some overcast after several days of sunny and warming temps. Front coming on tonight as well so some of those nicer fish that have followed this week might be priming to go crazy.
Also have seen two anglers go to hospital in Baudette the last two days for hooks that got buried deep in fingers.
Pinch your barbs down people! You will thank me for the advice...eventually.
Edited by MyliesPlace(Justin) 8/12/2015 8:21 PM
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | Aaron, I've looked at that picture on Mylie's Facebook page a bunch of times and get a kick out of it each time. That's a great looking fish - looks really thick. What an awesome story for you and your Mom too. Nice job putting her on it!
Tucker |
|
| |
|
Posts: 151
Location: Chippewa Falls, WI | thanks tucker,
It wasn't the biggest fish caught this season but what it meant to her and the rest of us in the boat...can't be measured in length or girth. She was so excited just to be up there on that body of water for the first time and truly wanted nothing more than to just catch a canadian musky to get a picture with...So many things happened that day to get that bait on her rod at that time on that spot...
I had caught two fish on that bait the night before and then lost two more. In the morning I noticed one of the barbs on the back hook was broke off about 1/2" below the point. I went to repair it but didn't have a lighter to heat the shrink tubing. I texted my dad who happend to have one but he was a 20 minute boat ride away from us at that point. We drove down to him to get his lighter and fix my bait. Shortly after fixing it, his pedal on his minnekota TM stopped working so I poudned waves from Kings back to Mylies for them. My Mom didn't enjoy the ride back nearly as much as the boys did and had told my dad multiple times on the way in that she was going to play solitaire in the afternoon and that us three could fish together in my boat. Of course I wasn't going to let her stay in so I assured her the ride in my 21' Ranger would be very different compared to my Dads 17' smoker craft. She decided to come out with us and fish. The wind kept blowing and we found fish on windy points on 9" shallow raiders. I had four of them with me and within 30 minutes we had caught two fish and I lost a low to mid 40's as well. Then like magic three of my Shallow Raiders started taking on water and sinking, literally one after another after I put them on. I told my brother to keep his on as I was already having a better week fishing then he was and I wanted him to keep throwing it. I gave my mom the next closest thing we had which was a 9" grandma bait in the same pattern. The Problem was she couldn't rip it the way we were into the rocks and I figured she should probably throw something else. I had a quiet top water on thinking it wouldn't get eaten infront of her considering the waves. I gave her my my loud topwater I had action on the night before to throw thinking it might call something in. We only had about 50yds left of good shoreline when I saw my brother putting his rod away and reaching for the terrova. I told him to keep it in the water and to keep casting for another 50 yds. There were two rocks out of water and he placed his 9" shallow raider between them on a perfect cast followed by me doing the same. We told my mom to throw in there as well but thinking it was the third cast in didn't leave her much hope..until about the third crank of her reel and the big girl choked it. Crazy to think that fish saw the hot bait of the night, a prop style top water, and then ate hers!! It was a great top water strike and as I went past her off the front deck to grab the net I noticed she wasn't even holding onto the reel any more. She had one hand on the foregrip and the other on the bottom of the rod just holding on, (totally playing defense). I loooked back towards the fish and saw her back and tail come out and at that point I knew she had on a big fish. The rest of the fight the fish stayed down and finally came up like a submarine off the back of the boat by the motor. I slipped the frabill under her and she fell perfectly in the middle (note, I hate netting fish like that but I knew the way that fight was going I had to take my first good chance at netting her). As I looked at the fish laying in the net I couldn't process what had just happend to one of the most amazing women I've ever known. She loves to musky fish as much as any guy I know and truly just wanted to catch any musky...and here she had a real pig of fish in the net. As I turned to tell her about the fish she asked me "is it a pike?" (she had caught a fish that she thought was a nice musky the day before but it turned out to be a big pike, she was really down after that knowing the fishing had been really tough for us and she only had one more full day of fishing left). I replied back to her "Pike don't grow this big, you just caught a giant musky" (she hadn't seen the fish to that point) and she just about had a heart attack! Those precious few minutes are something that none of us will ever forget. Another funny twist is the next day my dads pedal started randomly working again. Sooo many things lined up to get her in my boat on that spot with that bait, and then to think two good baits had just went by that fish and she didn't eat...then my moms bait comes through and she hammers it...It's an amazing story with an awesome ending! Things like that simply don't happen, or at least as frequently as we would all hope.
thanks again,
Aaron |
|
| |
|
Posts: 238
Location: Illinois | Great story and what a great way for her to catch such a giant....with a boat full of family! PRICELESS |
|
| |
|
Posts: 144
Location: Loves Park, IL | Awesome! |
|
| |
|
Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | I love that story! Awesome, and really, really cool how much she appreciates any musky, much less a fish like that.
Also a pretty neat lesson about 2 baits through and finally eating the 3rd one. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 52
| Great story , Congratulations !!!! |
|
| |
|
Location: Not far enough north! | I was up from the 9th to the 15th. Water went from 71 to 81 in that time frame. Fish were shallow for the most part. Not necessarily right on top but in the top eight feet it seemed. It was a tough week and there were tons of musky boats out there. Everyone seemed pleasant and polite that we talked to which was nice for a change. The obvious spots were being pounded continuously and the fish on them showed classic "pressuritis". We ended up with 16 in my boat for the week which is pretty low. We did not see the numbers we normally see either. Biggest was 49 and only one under 39. Last three days wer 90 degrees and last two were dead flat causing temps to sky rocket and algae to get bad. It was choppy Saturday morning when we were boating out so hopefully things improved with the weather moving in. We didn't have any major weather all week to trigger any big windows. Seemed consistent throughout the day and slower than I thought it should have been in the evenings... |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1901
Location: MN | You didn't do well on Wed when it was white skies and impending rain? We got two, lost one and saw several in the few hours we had to fish that morning before we had to leave, and another group that was up last week got 5 that day after having a fairly tough bite to that point. |
|
| |
|
Location: Not far enough north! | We got two that day but I had the shake offs and lost three Wednesday. We did get quite a few strikes this week what we're not boated. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Apologies for the delay in reporting. It has been a busy couple of weeks with wild weather changes and fronts moving through. The heat wave of week ending Aug 15 gave way to 30 degree drops in temps and big wind for a couple of days. Fishing action slowed down to start the new week, but got better as the week went on. Bucktails were the hottest lure for the week. Action came from all structures with the biggest being from rocks and shoreline rocks. Multiple fish in the 47-49 range as well as a couple of 50s...including a slob-a-saurus class fish that was one of the fattest I've seen.
Then came another cold front with winds gusting to 40 MPH on Sunday (Aug 23) and gusting to 30 MPH the following day. The wind's blew and blew and the temps dropped; barely reaching 50 degrees for a couple of days before the gradual warming trend kicked in on Tuesday. We are now in Day 4 of stable weather in the warming trend and action has picked up. Again, predictable slowness post wind and front with 1-2 fish a day caught per boat max. A 48 and 44 were the biggest after the tough conditions. Bucktails still seem to be the ticket for the majority of anglers.
Thursday (Aug 27) was a great day for one boat with 2 guys landing 6 and losing 7 more. Plus several other follows. Most of the fish caught were on double 10 blades. The biggest was "only" 44, but the guys were not complaining at all. Another group of 3 guys in one boat launched this morning at 8am and went out for a morning session that produced 5 fish including a 50" and then came in for a little break after having driven all night long.
Another biggie was landed on Thursday in another boat on a Big Tooth Mag 8 Juice bucktail. Just over 50" for the happy angler. Not a personal best but his biggest on LOTW.
Bloom has been present, particularly if the wind lays down, but it has quickly blown pretty clean when any kind of breeze moves it off shorelines and away from bays. The 6 fish day included 2 fish in pea soup paint.
I have always tried to get people to focus on the spots/structure more than the bloom. The fish are there..if it has been a productive spot and you can't get away from bloom, fish it! Do a full figure 8 rather than one "L" to give fish a chance to eat or show themselves. These guys saw 2-3 fish in an area in the morning and went back to it near last light. The wind had died and the bloom was in full effect, but they landed 2 fish in quick succession right in the bloom.
No, it's not fun to fish in that stuff. Yes, if you can comfortably get away from it, then go for it. But by all means, don't try and claim there won't be any fish in bloom.
Water temps back up to the high 60s after being low 60s to start the week in the cold front.
Best of luck on the water to close out the month of August.
J-Man
|
|
| |
