| Kathy and I got back yesterday from our first trip to Lake Vermilion. We stayed in a small resort and primarily fished the west side. It was very hot with bluebird skies all week, in fact it was pretty miserable from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. The mosquitoes came out in swarms about 8:30 p.m. each night. Surface temperatures ranged from 75 to 82 degrees and the water was quite clear. We fished weeds, rocks, shoreline, and points. We did not fish walleyes, but those who did reported a slow bite. We did not fish sunfish, although they were everywhere, with many of them being widebodies. There were very aggressive and we caught some while fishing for bass and even caught one a 6/0 hook on a musky popper. We caught alot of largemouth and some smallmouth bass. There were more largemouth than we had been led to believe from the literature. They were very aggressive and responded well to poppers. We caught fewer smallmouth, but Kathy got her personal best, a 20.5 inch beauty who made four jumps. I caught one 11" crappie on a bass popper. Northerns were all over and ranged from snakes to medium sized. White seemed to be our best color. We had musky follows and a few half-hearted strikes on the west side. They would not come back for our throwback lures. I had visted Thorne Brothers a number of time this winter and gotten some really important stuff I needed, however the musky gods have continued to hold that against me. My wife believes I have too much stuff and proved that again. We fished for a day and a half on the east side with guide Tom Wehler aka Kid Derringer aka Musky Tom (he is the real one). He is a great guide and fishing companion and Kathy and I hope to fish with him again. She increased her personal best musky 11.5" to 48.5" and to prove her point she caught it on a bass rod using a bass lure and no leader. Tom said it will be up soon on his site. Like many of the fish we caught, it looked like it was the first time she had been caught. All of our follows were on bass-sized whitish lures. Hope this information helps. We look forward to fishing Vermilion again with Tom Wehler. As of now I remain...
Muskyless Tom Keith |
