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| heading up to the angle soon nobody from up there is posting on the forum whats the report from the angle ? whats been working up theres so far this year? |
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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | This is a report I sent to a couple buddies, I stay at Angle Outpost on the Angle.
LOTW’s Trip report 2007,
I was up there from June 29t to July 15th. First day I arrived the water temps were 68 deg and the last day that I left the temps were 68 deg. Week one the weather was pretty good and a few days before Jason and I arrived they had a severe cold front for several days with high winds and cold temps. As the week progressed the water temps started coming up and the water started clearing up and fish were getting more and more active with each sunny day. My buddy Jason joined me from the 29th thru the 3rd. Jason got a nice fat 51-inch fish on a top raider but other than that nothing too big was netted. Jason put 8 fish in the boat and I ended up with 25 for the first week with my biggest a 46.5-inch fish. We were moving about 25 fish each day but only seeing a couple decent fish each day. As the first week came to an end the fish really started moving and we were seeing as many as 50 fish a day! The mid lake stuff had multiple fish showing up and the mid 40 and a few 50’s were showing up. Then just as the water temps reached 73-74 and everything was falling into place another massive cold front came in and the high for a couple days were in the upper 50’s low 60’s. Rain and high winds came along with the cold front and it really dirtied the water up again. We were still seeing 25-35 fish a day but were only getting 5 or 6 to go. Second week I ended up with 20 and my partner boated another 15. We moved a couple nice fish but they would not commit. I had a 46 and my buddy a 47 for our big fish. Our other cabin mates faired better with a couple 48’s and a 49 for their big fish. I ended the 2 weeks with 45 fish and counting the fish caught out of my boat over the course of the 2 weeks made 68 fish, so not all that terrible as I make it out to sound, just not the quality that I hoped for. The majority of the fish were between 34 and 38 inches. The other boat in my group the second week put 24 more fish in the boat.
Water levels are about 1 foot to 18 inches higher than last year. Green cabbage was almost non-existent when I arrived and was growing OK at the end of the second week. But the green cabbage is still almost non-existent and the big beautiful patches of years past is gone. I cannot get over how much cabbage has been lost in the past 3 years! The broad leaf cabbage is growing pretty good and anyplace that you have found it in the past has good cabbage this year. The eelgrass or #*#* grass is almost non-existent as well. Pretty strange that areas that were too choked off to throw a buck tail through last year, you can through a crank bait this year.
Fish location this year was perplexing? They were very scattered and using every type of structure possible. They were found in sandy crappy weed less nooks and bays, rock points, weeds, mid lake structure, you name it there was no pattern so you ended up fishing everything. Once the cold front rolled in at the beginning of the second week the mid lake fish disappeared and never really returned. It seemed to me that the fish were really screwed up by the cold fronts and rapid rise of water in mid June. The boat landing at our resort had 3 sections of concrete slab visible when I was there, after ice out there were 7 sections showing!
The weather this week looked pretty good with temps in the upper 70’s and 80’s with low winds.
No evidence of bloom when I left and water should be clearing up this week. Funny at the inactivity of some fish up there. I would cast weed beds with buck tails and twitch baits and never raise a fish, throw a Weagle over them and make a bunch of noise and pull 3 separate fish out. So the fish were there but they really needed some coxing.
I’m really in a state of depression now after spending 16 days on the water there. But hey Vermillion trip in 3 weeks!
Ed Spoerl
Edited by MuskyTime 7/18/2007 12:39 PM
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| Come on, dude. 25-35 fish days in post-frontal conditions? 50 fish days in "normal" conditions? That means you're seeing a fish every 12 minutes fishing a 10-hour day. Stop kiddin' yerself, man.
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| Doug Johnson has (2) 53" fish in the last week both on Double Cowgirls. The bait just won't stop catching monsters!! |
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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | imcallinbs,
Many days I’m on the water 14 hours but average about 13 hours. Many spots that I fish hold multiple fish and it’s not uncommon to see 3 to 5 fish on a spot. I also run and gun and will put about 65 miles on my boat each day. I don’t fish down long unproductive stretches of shoreline but focus on the high percentage areas and keep moving. It’s a system that works for me, believe it or not?
Ed
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Ed, it sounds like a great couple of weeks, you worked your butt off and got fish. Congrats! m |
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Posts: 2378
| Ed,
What was it last year, 76 fish or something like that?
Man, I'd like to be in your boat up there some time!! |
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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | Hey Luke!
Last year was crazy! Between my boat partners and me we put in 97 over 2 weeks. Understand that this year most of the fish were small in that 32-38 range but still fun to catch. Weagle was taking some smack to the top raider this trip, going to have to give him more time in the starting line up!
Hope to make it over to Mille Lacs this summer at least once. Greg and I are heading to Vermillion in a few weeks. Hope all is well with you!
One of these years we will have to plan a trip to the woods with Steve, Dave and you.
Ed |
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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | A couple things I have to add are….
One of the things that I like about LOTW is that when you find the pattern, the pattern is usually golden everywhere in the area. So if you have a south wind and a hot sunny day and you are seeing fish on mid lake reefs, rock points or shelves and islands where the wind is blowing into, you keep running from one spot to another. Some days it’s a blast that every piece of structure where the wind is blowing into has multiple fish sitting on it. You might spend only 5min fishing a spot but raise 3 fish and maybe catch 1. Move to the next and so on…now not every day is like that but there are times when this holds true and the more spots you can hit in a day the more fish you can move.
There are days that can be a real struggle as well and I have had some pretty pathetic days out there where you only see a couple fish. I run and gun a lot and used to get in a rut by working down an entire shoreline. Sure you might catch a fish or see a few but 4 hours later that’s it. I prefer hitting multiple spots in that same time frame and fishing the spots on the spot that in the past have produced for me.
As far as cold fronts on LOTW’s, I have found that sometimes cold fronts will trigger bigger fish. Some of the biggest fish I have caught were during the first day of a cold front. This year the cold fronts didn’t affect seeing the fish, they were just a bit more subdued and the conditions made it hard to fish some areas I like to fish.
In a separate post (report) on LOTW’s I was reading where they were having luck in the slack water areas verses the wind blown side. We also found this true and aside from the day we raised 50 fish on mid lake wind blown stuff, we had more luck on areas out of the wind. The fish were not really using the wind blown points and reefs like they should have been using that time of year.
I’m sure they are nailing some pigs this week! I had the feeling when I left that it was about to bust loose!
Ed
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Posts: 110
Location: Albertville, Minnesota | Ed, nice report man, really nice. Heading up on the 26th. I hope its game on again this year.
Chris |
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| Just got back from the angle and we did not see or catch near that number of fish (saw 50-60 total in 4 days), but it was on friday at sat. Big fish were hitting tops waters, 50.5 and 47 were the two big. I can believe that that many are seen and caught up there. I had 2 45+ fish on, two miss and boated a 50.5" all within 50 yds of each other in about 20 min. We saw most of our fish shallow bays and rock points in calm to slightly wind blown water. If it's not black or orange don't use it. Nothing on Cowgirls. |
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| Anyone have experience fishing the Northwest Angle during early-mid September? I might have an opporitunity to head up there during that time frame. |
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lotw northwest angle