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Posts: 114
| Our group fished out of the NW Angle a couple of weeks ago, and I'm finally getting around to posting our report. This year we purchased a guide trip donated by Dan Klis for Laura Morrison's fundraiser here on muskies first. We had a blast with Dan, he was a top notch "boat driver" and host. The first night we arrived Dan brought over some racks of the best ribs I've ever eaten that he'd made in his smoker for us. They were incredible. Our group brought up two boats of our own, so every day different guys could go out with Dan. Unfortunately our musky fishing was really tough, but that didn't stop Dan from doing everything he could to put us on fish. We had relatively stable weather while we were there, sunny and hot. Most of the fish that we moved and/or caught were in the earlier morning or late evening. The lake seemed empty of muskies from 10 am - 4 pm. Luckily the walleye fishing more than made up for that slow time, we pounded the white tips this year and had some of our best luck with size (many fish were 22"+, biggest was 27").
One of the trip highlights for us was when Dan arranged for Doug Johnson to guide one of us for a day- my buddy Jason was the lucky recipient. Needless to say, he's still talking about it. In total we put 7 muskies in the boat during our 3.5 days of fishing and probably saw 10-15 per day. Most of the fish were sub-40's, and we really didn't see too many fish bigger than that. I did have one bigger fish (probably mid-40s) smash a cowgirl boat side and somehow not get any hooks when I set into her...but I suppose that's musky fishing. Our best chances at bigger fish all seemed to go that way, we just couldn't get hooks into them when/if they did decide to eat. My brother did get his first musky ever the last night of our trip, finally getting the monkey off his back after years of trying. The other big highlight of the trip was meeting Laura Morrison herself, who was up at the Angle fishing with some friends. She had put a really nice fish in the boat the day we met her and we had a great time swapping stories with her and Dan that night.
Overall, it was another great year for us on LOTW and one we won't soon forget. A big thank you to Dan and Doug for their time- they were great to fish with and get to know. And finally Laura deserves a shout-out as well- she's a spitfire if I've ever met one and truly an inspiration. That and she out-fished all of us...not that any of us were too surprised by that! |
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Posts: 1283
| Awesome story and congrats to you brother! Sounds like a great trip! |
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Posts: 153
| I don't fish with a lot of people these days, outside of my small group of friends. But these guys were fantastic and good casters, which is essential when fishing LOTW.
I feel blessed to have met them and hope we have started a lifelong friendship. They are welcome at my cabin anytime. A couple from the group and I are trying to plan a fall trip to my cabin. But who knows, i might be in the process of changes jobs (eventually more time at my cabin) and Jason has a baby on the way.
A quick comment about Ryan mentioning the term "boat driver". I guided for Charlie McKeever at Flag Island Resort. He hated the word guide so he always introduced customers to us as your boat driver.
Some friends and I have some ideas as to whats going on with the muskies on LOTW, but feel grateful I was able to fish the lake the last 25 years. There were some very special years within that. |
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Posts: 1901
Location: MN | That last paragraph sounds a little ominous Dan. Care to expound on your thoughts? |
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Posts: 153
| Sure. The rusty crayfish took out the weeds. That affects spawning success. Also the shiner populatiion appears to be declining. Places we troll used to hold clouds of shiners, the baits would have a shiner on every treble when you trolled though those clouds. Dont see those anymore in the fall very often.
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Posts: 999
| Interesting, I just read there was a massive shiner explosion this year on other Angle Reports. |
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