Fall Trolling Reports

[PerchJerker]

Just got back from a 3-day trolling trip, we fished Thurs, Fri and Sat nights.

The water is still too warm for the really good bite to begin. We marked 60.3 to 61.5 degrees in all the spots we fished. 55 degrees and below is when it starts getting good, 50 degrees is even better.

Thurs night the winds were light and it was a very bright night with basically no clouds --- just a gorgeous night to be on the water and easy to run around. I started on the north end, later ran over to St. Albans, later ran down to Indian Point, later moved into the bay by the casino, then ran back up north to finish up. We got fish every place we tried except for one, but nothing very consistent and nothing that was significantly better or worse than the other spots.

Friday was windy out of the south, but again it was a bright night with basically no clouds. We decided to stay on the north end and deal with the waves, which was a bit of a struggle but the bite was better than the night before. But due to the wind we came off the lake a little after midnight, which is earlier than I like to quit.

Saturday there were even stronger winds out of the south so we headed to the west side to miss the brunt of the wind. It was a very dark night, no moon at all for the first few hours, although later on some patchy clouds let some moonlight through.

All three nights we were greeted with fast action, with each boat getting fish in the first 5-15 minutes of having baits in the water. Thurs and Fri the bite started off fast and faded as the night went on, but Saturday we had pretty consistent action all night long with a few flurrys later in the night. We averaged 4 fish per guy on Thurs night, 5 fish per guy on Fri night (when we quit early), and 10 fish per guy on Saturday night. The majority of our fish came from 6-8 fow, along weedlines or the tops of breaks.

For most of the trip no hot bait or color emerged -- as soon as we'd get a fish or two on a particular bait, we'd get a fish or two on something else and just couldn't find any consistency. But on Saturday night we had a couple periods where we definately had hot baits that were producing steadily. Overall we did equally well with shallow shad raps, husky jerks, and rogues (my favorite). Clown was probably our best color with firetiger and perch patterns following it. For a while on Saturday dark baits were producing fast action.

We got a lot of 24 to 26 inch fish and okay numbers of 27's and 28's, but we also got a lot of smaller fish too, including some slot fish and a few under the slot. As the water cools there'll be more of an influx of bigger fish in those areas and a lot of the smaller fish will probably disappear.

My highlight of the trip was a 48" muskie I caught on Thursday night. It was my first fish of the trip and hit about 15 minutes after I started fishing. We also got a 42" pike and had a couple 16"-17" smallies.

The bite is going to get better and better over the next few weeks, I'm looking forward to getting back up there! Good luck to everyone that goes out, and be carefull due to the low water levels.

[CrappiesNeyes]

Sounds like a pretty good weekend! I'm jealous, that's for sure. Can I ask what speed you were trolling? I have done well later in the fall trolling as slow as 1 mph but I don't know if it is too early for that or ?? Thanks in advance.

Cne

[PerchJerker]

Oops, forgot to mention the speed.

I was trying to stay between 1.9 and 2.1 most of the time, occasionally slower, occasionally faster, sometimes mixing in 's' turns but more often trying to run a weed edge or a break.

We caught one fish that hit while we were catching a fish on another line and drifting, so that was much slower. And had another fish that hit after the boat had been completely stopped to catch a fish, that one hit a suspending rogue just as soon as it started to move again (we missed that fish though).

[Mykal]

PerchJerker,

We were up on he North end on Friday night as well, but did not get up there until 10pm and ended at 2pm when we saw lightning in the distance and my Marine band kicked out a weather alert. We found the same deal with no real pattern either. One fish here, one there. We hit smaller fish up in the 6 foot stuff and our biggest of the night a 25" came in about 8-9 over weeds.

I agree that we need a few more degress to get the fish to start migrating in. The launches were still out on the main lake.

[minnesotatuff]

i was up on saturday from 10.30am until 5.30pm with the neighbor couple. we put in at eddy's and tried drifting and trolling. i even had a leech down under a bobber for a bit while i re-tied my rig. we tried 3 kinds of minnows, leeches and trolled crank baits, all from 20fow to as shallow as 3-1/2'. i caught 2 dinky perch and a clam...hahaha. my neighbors didnt even get a bite. there were about a half dozen boats out, plus the launches from eddy's. i trolled to the same depth as one. it was at about 10' or a little deeper. i marked the most walleyes in 20fow, but they just wouldnt bite on anything i tried. temps were reading from 55 to about 58 but im not sure the electronics are reading that right. i was surprised it was when 60 has seemed like the common temp reports right now. hopefully it wasnt our fishing ability, but the time of day we were fishing. im really looking forward to doing some fishing during peak hours, maybe thursday or friday night this week.

thank you all for the excellent tips and reports. best of luck!

regards,

minnesotatuff

[PerchJerker]

Here's a little more info. I can't add much since I usually don't fish during the day at this time of year:

There were some guys staying at the same place we were that had been out perch fishing in the mornings. They said they were on the west side in 4 fow fishing leeches and minnows under slip bobbers and catching perch like crazy (no walleyes). They said only 1 perch out of 10 was a keeper but they had some dandys. I didn't get any other info from them.

A buddy of mine was up there fishing late afternoons, like after 3 o'clock. He was trolling small shad baits in 13-15 fow and catching walleyes and perch on them. As it got closer to dark he kept moving shallower and kept catching walleyes.

[CAMOMAN]

A buddy & I got up there about 9pm on Friday. Launched at Hunters Point. Immediately started pulling raps at Lakeside reef. Not much going for us. Moved over to Flamingo reef & my buddy hooked up with a fish on the first 2 passes. Thought we had found the ticket, but turned out to be our last fish in the boat for the night & we fished until about 2am. Bounced around to Agate reef, tried inside Agate reef for about a mile going back south & nothing going. We missed a fish here & there & we swapped raps frequently - just could not find anything consistently getting hits.

Saturday, got on the lake about 12-1pm after screwing around for the morning. Very windy, so we put in at Macs Twin Bay with no problems. Tried the graveyard for a few passes with a jig/minnow and crawler/lindy with no luck. Started cranking around closer to the state park to get out of the wind. Ran cranks to Isle bay & then decided to try for some perch & get out of the wind a bit. Bobber fished perch for probably 3 hours with consistent action. Lot of sorting, but the keepers were nice. Great time to taked the kids for action! We then tried to bobber fish for eyes near Spider Island as the sun went down. No luck, so started cranking again. Pulled on the south end for a few hours, nothing going - again, switching depths, speed, colors & styles. Decided to run up to Shaws reef to give it a shot for about an hour. Nothing going. Ran back down to Grassy Island reef & managed a few fish. The highlight of the weekend was on the last pass, last beer, etc at about 2am. Locked into 27.5"er. That was the largest fish of the weekend. Smallest was 12". A few in between, but not much going for us - no slot fish.

Talked to some other buddies that had better luck than we did - one group was on the north end & did ok, but the wind blew them off. The other guys were on the east side & one group found a few boucing around to some of the eastside reefs.

Water temps were 60.1 on Friday & 59.5ish on Saturday night. Man, was it windy up there though. Was still nice to get out & run the raps again - hopefully we can get back up there in a few weeks when the temps are a bit lower. Good luck out there fellas... hope everyone else had better luck.

[fievel9922]

CAMOMAN,

Ithink you are one of my brothers buddies he was talking to on the phone. you guys came down by where we were fishing late after running to shaws. His first name is Matt. Anyway we did alright down on the south end rock piles. We were over 20 eyes by the time we left. The big girls are not that big yet. We were pulling mostly stickbaits no real hot color. Clown Firetiger and green and blck husky were the three primary colors. Fish didnt really start to go until9:30 or 10:00 then we got some pretty consistent action. almost had a guy with a ranger run right into the side of us when they were untangling lines. Can't wait to get back up there this weekend. CAMMOMAN shoot me an email next time you go up and i can give you report. [email protected]