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The ladies dig my hair...

6K views 15 replies 12 participants last post by  Lip_Yanker 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Water temps have dropped to 60-62 for a couple days & it seems to be schooling up the smallies. When you find a rock/gravel hump in 12-16' of water thats adjacent to deeper water, it is seemingly magical the last couple days. Caught a few on 4"plastic minnows (kalins jerk-minnows?), but big-profiled 1/4 oz bucktails were getting absolutely crushed.
Im confident I had 5 fish that went 4lbs+. Caught a handful of walleyes, too, but most were cigar-sized.
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My god is this fun!
 

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#6 · (Edited by Moderator)
Had to make a trip down to chi-land & leave my binging smallies. Although I was bummed about leaving a hot bite, It was a very timely interruption that would gain me access to my tackle-making laboratory.
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Seeing as how I was running low on almost all lead, I tried to make the most out of the turnaround trip.
So, after about 26 hours, 1 Burts pizza, 1 Jays beef, & some quality time in my lab, I was on my way back north with about 300 new jigheads!
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I brought a salmon stick with the intention of hitting 1 of the cheeseland harbors for kings on the way but that was not happening! Lake was all ripped up looking like mud with rollers breaking over top of the walls. Never even took a rod out of the car & just continued northward.
After some domestic duty & emptying a boat filled with rainwater, I went out in the blustery post-front conditions that developed in my absence to try & pick up where I left off...............WRONG!
Hit 2 spots that collectively spit out 20-25 decent smallies prior to the front & only had 1 bite & caught 1 bass.
Hit a deep hole near the house on the way back & found crappies stacked on a tree limb in 20'. Caught a few of them but the wind was cranking so much I got to the "F -this" point & cut it short figuring Id tie jigs instead.
Woke up early the next a.m. & thought I could get an hour or so in before doing a few things. Water was glass calm & no breeze so I figured Id hit that deep tree limb from the previous outing & try to find some slabs. This general spot is about 50 seconds @ 2/3-throttle from the dock & also is adjacent to the deepest point in the whole lake. I have caught walleye in the deep portion (28'ish) a few times, but not lately.
Well, I never did make it to the tree limb/crappie because the walleyes were hammering newly-tied hair jigs down deep! For a good hour it was pretty hard to swim it along the bottom without it getting hammered. Caught probably 12-15 eyes in about 1.5 hours. Most of them ran 12"-16", with a couple slightly bigger. Nothing huge, but still entertaining. The highlight was a 22" . 3 different boats came (&went) by doing the vertical jig/minnow thing but I didnt see it produce anything.
Making long casts & swimming/gliding 1/4 oz bucktails at a moderate to slow speed along the bottom was getting a reaction. The windless conditions made it very easy to fish a 1/4 in 22-29' on a ML setup w/ 4lb-diameter braid.. There wasnt much subtle about the bites, they were really wacking it. It definitely also seems the bigger profile, longer the hair is on a jig, the more attn it gets from both big & small fish.
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#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
The bad news is I havent caught a smallie bigger than 8" in a few outings. No clue where they moved off too.
The good news is walleye (& crappie) are filling the void nicely!
Swimming hair over mid-lake contours is producing fairly reliably. Getting in tune with fishfinder has really paid off finding submerged tree limbs which are often covered in crappie.

A tick under 14". Caught a couple dozen others mostly between 8"-10".
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Walleyes have been small to barely "keeper" size (15") with a few 15"-17"s too. Biggest this a.m. was just over 19".
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#13 · (Edited by Moderator)
Afternoon outing, today.
TOUGH!
Wind was cranking harshly & making precision boat control pretty impossible, especially from a transom-mount TM mounted off 1 corner of the transom.
Hit 2 spots of productivity in past days & zilch. 1 strike in total. Got fed up with the wind & sought refuge behind a large Island. Figured while I was taking a break from the wind I may as well be casting. Shortly after while free drifting & barely paying attn to what I was doing, I looked on the graph & saw a massive tree on the bottom in 18' with some fish marks. For once I actually immediately remembered the makeshift marker buoy I made 6 weeks ago & pitched it. Squared up downwind with the TM & began tossing a 1/16 plastic on the UL. Caught a fish every cast for a while. I honestly have no clue, but Id guess I caught well over 30 crappie off that 1 tree. Most were in the 7-9" range, with about every 5th 1 being a 10-12". It was a welcomed break for a while but I wanted to find the walleye, so back out in the wind :|
The breeze had slacked off enough so it was only mostly impossible instead of totally to make a presentation without boatdrift screwing it up. Even still, I was 100% confident I had put good casts where I wanted em & still blanked, so, what next? With little daylight & gas left, running any distance was out. I conceded the walleye had won today & decided to spend the last 30 minutes of light looking for just fish
A large point that is about 1/4 mile from where Im staying was getting pummeled by the wind. A slow-tapering, featureless point that gradually slopes to 18'. Have hit it a few times in the past & never caught jack on it. Set up about 1 bomber-length cast from the shoreline rocks & started flinging 1/4oz hair. About my 9th or 10th cast I was over it & started winding my jig back mid retrieve to pack it up. Felt a big knock. Hmmm, probably a 10" pike. Threw another cast, this time parallel instead of perpendicular to shore in about 15' & the jig got smoked! A nice fat 19" smallie.
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Cast back out deep & midway back it got crushed again this time by a 17". This went on for a few casts. Twice after setting a hook, sticking, & losing a fish, another came & picked it up in a few cranks. Wound up catching 8 in about 25 minutes with nothing smaller than 15".
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About the time they seemed to slow down, the sun was going away, I mentally declared "last cast" .
All that to finally get 1 walleye!
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This has been a productive pattern for several outings. Normally I dont put a lot of angst into color, but this 1 has been kicking some tail. I refer to it as buffalo-flavored PB&J . Its about 5.5" long on a 1/4oz head on a 2/0 hook.
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#15 ·
badger75 said:
I don't have much hair being bald, but I sure think I need to find some like that.
Really, the hard part is finding a purple deer ...

HEDDONFROG said:
fish finders rule. My current depth finder is a 1/2oz jig dragged on the bottom lol
Boat Im using has a HB pirahna max4 on it. Im far from "up to speed" on modern electronics, but I have to say im pretty damn impressed with this little 99$(I think?) portable.

Equal time.......
The last 2days kinda sucked :x
Less than a handful of small walleye, 2 bass, & a slow crappie bite.
Dead-still wind, a.m. fog until 10am both days. Water temps have jumped back up to 68 over the past week from 60 the week before.
Threw some cranks (luhr jensen hotlips) & jerks(#10&12husky jerks) today. Threw grubs, fluke/jig, Got 2 15" bass on the hotlips.

Theres no f*ing fish in this lake!
 
#16 ·
cletedius said:
Equal time.......
The last 2days kinda sucked :x
Less than a handful of small walleye, 2 bass, & a slow crappie bite.
Dead-still wind, a.m. fog until 10am both days. Water temps have jumped back up to 68 over the past week from 60 the week before.
Threw some cranks (luhr jensen hotlips) & jerks(#10&12husky jerks) today. Threw grubs, fluke/jig, Got 2 15" bass on the hotlips.

Theres no f*ing fish in this lake!
Sounds about like we encountered last week on Big St. Germain. Was the worst fishing I have ever experienced in my life- 4 of us and we caught 3 Perch for the week. The couple in the cabin next to us caught 2 Perch for the week. Thank goodness for Bourbon and Cigars.

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