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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Some really warm weather and heavy rains have combined to bring water temps and water levels up significantly the last week.
Seeing water temps in the 72-75 degree range everywhere over the weekend and into the start of the week. I don't believe we saw 70 for more than a few days even through August last summer. September was the onyl stretch where the weather warmed up and water temps remained 70 or better for a week or so in 2009.
Action has been good. Fish are using the weeds and also moving to rock structure. We have been seeing/hearing reports of spinner baits in the weeds and bucktails on the rocks as the two most effective presentations. Some fish are deep in the weeds near shore despite many large wide weed beds with great cabbage in them.
Algae is certainly present and some areas will be more clear than others. Pay attention to wind and do a little running and you will find water clarity better some areas. This is the start of the prime casting season and we expect many great fish to be landed in the next 5-6 weeks.
Good luck on your trips, especially if you are coming to Morson and the Sabaskong Bay area. |
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| Thanks for the reports, Justin. Headed up to Morson on the 19th-26th and very much looking forward to it. Been pretty much strictly muskie since we started going in 2001, but I've made it a point to dedicate a couple days to walleye this trip. How's the walleye fishing been? |
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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Hey Sean,
Walleyes have been good this year again. Another year big walleyes being caught more and more. Several fish over 25 last week up to 30 inches were caught and released. Reefs, shoreline points on the breaks and transitional bottom areas have been the best. Minnows, leeches are the top 2 choices of our guests. Although we have a big group coming next week that only uses crawlers and they catch as many fish as anyone else when the bite is on. Jigs are the most common, but a bottom bouncer with a spinner can be good too if you keep it vertical.
Also plenty of small fish around. Have heard a few times the past week or so that people had a tougher time getting 17-18 inchers that they like for the pan and taking home. Catching walleyes that are too big to keep is a nice problem to have.
Stop by and say hello if you are taking a midday break or the wind keeps you from getting out (that never happens up here!) |
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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | One of the best action weeks in recent memory has just finished up. We had 5 boats casting regularly this week and they all had some excellent action. Rocks, sand, weeds were all holding active fish.
Bucktails (double 10s and 8s) were the most common report, but one boat with 3 guys fishing caught 12 fish for the week without actually landing one on a buckail, which was very unsuual for them. They got fish eating a lot of WTD and tail spinner topwaters.
Many personal bests this week included in the nice fish caught. Multple 44s, 45s, 46s, a 47, 2 at 48 and one at 49. As it often goes, the larger fish seen were not enticed to hit or fell off! Many nice fish hit at boatside. The importance of good figure 8 skills both leading up to the strike and then keeping them pinned through the first wave of craziness is vital to moving to the next level of fish catching success. Practice, practice, practice.
Many larger northerns in the mix as well with 40, 41 and 42 inchers all caught and released.
Most of these fish were caught within a few miles each way of the resort as this crew wasn't much for long boat rides. A couple boats did run up to whitefish bay and enjoyed a day in the clear water. Not much in terms of muskie action but got some bass and northerns up there. The portage was working fine as long as someone guides the cable on properly as the boat is cranked up and over.
Water temps in the mid to high 70s most areas with some shallow water. Hard to keep a minnow alive through a day in those conditions, never mind over night. |
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Posts: 118
| Hey Justin....sure appreciate your reports.....they're very helpful......I'll be on Sabaskong for the first time, the last week in July.....I've been to the resort's website and don't see your location anywhere......I'd like to motor over to see the place when I'm there.....I notice you have RV sites....I want to check them out for next year .....has the water come up?.....and how is the bloom?......keep up the good work.....and get your location on the webpage so folks can find you......then again it might be on there and I just don't see it......thanks, Bob |
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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Hi Bob,
Thanks very much for the note and suggestion. Its hard to believe that I overlooked the specific location, but I sure did that. I added a page to the website with a small image of a map and some GPS co-ordinates. Hopefully that will help anyone out that might not bsure of where the plac eis located. Stop over and say hello anytime!
More rain this week. Water is rising fast. Algae hasn't been able to settle anywhere this week with the wind blowing hard for the last few days. Water clarity will be a bit lower just from the wind stirring things up. Finally a calm morning here today (saturday am.)
Not as many throwing big baits this week, but was a great trip for one group of our guests. Back to back days with 50 inchers, including a 52 incher yesterday. Both on topwaters. Should have some great photos in a couple of days. One came out of the weeds. Need to find out structure of the other. Was so excited hearing about the big girl last night that I forgot to ask. Been tough to fish mid-lake rocks most of the week, but had someone say the got out fishing a bit of shoreline related rock and didn't have much action.
Have a few more muskie anglers in this week and they usually do pretty well so they will be able to let us know what is happening in term of stucture and presentation throughout the week. |
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Posts: 171
Location: indiana | just returned from sabaskong. raised 69 muskies for the week and boating 17 myself up to 51.25 inches. new personal best. had pretty good weather with just a little wind the last two days. when the wind layed in the evening the big fish came out to play. caught the big one on the first turn of the eight and came out of nowhere. i have never seen so many fish eat on the eight as up there. todd
(lotw musky pics 2010 032 (Copy).jpg)
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 lotw musky pics 2010 032 (Copy).jpg (65KB - 198 downloads)
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Posts: 1023
Location: Lafayette, IN | AWESOME!!! |
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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Another great week of muskie action on LOTW out of the Morson area. Fish were quite active and while the number of followers didn't produce as many fish as some hoped, those with excellent figure 8 skills managed to boat a lot of nice fish over the week. The key structural element for our most successful group was sand with weeds, but we did hear of others using shoreline related rock structure. The hottest lure seemed to be a double 8 bucktail with organe tiger blades and black/orange skirt from Northland's new line-up of big double bladed bucktails they call the Boobie Trap. Another group had an angler using white tail with copper blades getting more action than his buddies. One particular boat had a great action day (5 strokes, 4 fish boated in one area) out of sloppy weeds that you might not think to fish, especially this far into July. You just never know I guess and might have to go ahead and fish everything with green vegation when they aren't holding steady to rock.
One angler in particular had a great week with 9 fish, the smallest being 41 inches and the largest up to 50.5", his first 50 inch class fish.
Water temps ranged in the mid 70s and got over 80 in some shallow bays in the heat of the afternoon. Extra caution keeping out of the water time to a minimum should be considered with such high water temps.
Don't neglect to downsize from time to time, especilly throwing back at a fish. More than one fish this week was caught on second and third follows with SMALLER baits than originally used to get the fish's attention.
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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | had reports of good activity on rocks last night and this morning. |
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| heading up to redwing lodge first week in august. it will be my first time on LOTW.
looking to catch my first musky. any tips/advice on baits and where to fish would be appreciated. we are planning on fishing burrow bay and the king island area.
thanx
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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | Hey Ryan,
You should be able to get lots of help from your resort operator. There is good water in the Burrow area as well as Kings and almost every rock point in between. If you are having trouble finding any fish at all, please feel free to stop by and we'll talk about what you've been doing and what you could try different. Concentrate on getting follows and turn them into takers with good boatside work.
Double 8s, Double 10s, spinner baits and tail spinning topwaters are the usual first choices, but also have a buddy that consistently contacts fishing using rocks by grinding depth raiders into them (he likes the jointed version.)
A first trip to the area can seem daunting when it comes to navigating safely out there, but watch your map and you'll be in good shape.
Good luck!
Edited by MyliesPlace(Justin) 7/26/2010 4:13 PM
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Posts: 2024
| Justin's latest report (7/24) is very similar to what we found. We fished from 7/19 (PM) to 7/25 (AM). Overall, fishing seemed quite slow (I'd grade it a C). We had to work hard for the follows we got, and even then the fish seemed unwilling to move much. Big fish were hard to find. In the end we left with 13 fish boated up to 45". Feeding windows were intense at times, then the action seemed to shut off quickly.
Water temps peaked at 77 and remained mostly in the 70-74 range. Water levels were up a couple feet. Weed growth seemed lacking. Where we once had lush weedbeds, and should have had them again this year with the warm spring and early summer, they were pretty pathetic looking and sometimes nonexistent. It may be the rusty crayfish, or it could just be a cruddy year I don't know. Nonetheless, the weeds seemed to hold the majority of fish, though if rocks were nearby the fish were sometimes on the rocks. Normally we can eliminate unproductive structure/cover the first day or two of the trip, but this time we could not. We caught and moved fish from benign shorelines with patchy weeds, bays with weeds, saddles with both weeds and rock, broken rock near shore, patchy weeds in front of reed lines, small islands adjacent to deep water, etc. No pattern we could nail down.
Algae was present everywhere and shifted day-to-day. Clean(er) water was easy to find.
Spinnerbaits and bucktails (Buchertail 500, Mepps Marabou, Comboo) caught most of the fish. Orange (blades) and black (skirt) was the best color. We had action on Red October Tubes, Top Raider, walk-the-dog topwater (One Eyed Willy), and Suicks. If you could get fish into the 8 they did seem relatively willing to eat, and if you could see the fish following from a distance a quick change in speed would trip their triggers. We also caught one fish, as Justin described, by tossing back a smaller bucktail after it followed a larger bait.
To those going up soon, have fun! Be patient and you'll rewarded.
Edited by esox50 7/27/2010 6:26 AM
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Posts: 406
Location: Stones throw away...finally!! | Headed up. Any current reports? Thanks. |
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Posts: 439
Location: Lake of the Woods, Morson, Ontario | best activity of the week still was in the cabbage...sand and cabbage was almost a sure thing, but boulders and points with weeds produced too.
Some action on rock as well, but not like it should be.
Northland baits were on fire again with several nice fish this week on double 8 boobie traps and booty call spinner baits.
Double 10s also did the trick a couple of times as well...red with copper blades was hot, black with orange and perch pattern all made fish eat.
Good activity on topwater when it was calm, but didnt produce many hook ups and boated fish. Mornings have been the hottest action periods the last few days. G
One boat alone had muskies at 47, 45, 47, 48, 50, 48, 52 on Thursday and Friday alone. All weed related fish, with one being in a classic natural current saddle. Yes, they had photos.
Many fish eating at boatside again. Cannot express enough how much your trip can improve with good work on figure 8s. Been seeing and hearing too many hook sets pulling the baits away from the fish. Drill those hooksets down and back towards the tail, bury your rod tip down in the water and then HANG ON!!!
The number of hawg sized walleyes was incredible this week. Lost count of the fish 27-29 inches, as well as a massive 31..all released. |
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