The Med Sea

[GVJeff]

Thanks for the information Special. The three kids, 14 year olds, had never been out on a boat fishing before. All three are from the inner-city of Minneapolis, fish the City lakes and the river, but had never been on anything else.

We took your advice and found some sunnies around the weeds at the launch area. Also worked the sunken island...found through the Hot Spot map. Had a bunch of fun, tooled around the lake, and ate well.

We trolled around looking for some northern...but to no avail. I thought it would be fun to have them catch something other than a sunny. One kids did get a bass trolling. It was very fun to watch.

I heard from their mom's that they're still talking about it from last Wed.

Thanks for the advice.

[Mr Special]

Your Welcome,

Sounds like you and the kids had a good time. That's what this site is all about. It's great that you brought those kids out, now they're talking about fishing instead of all the other stupid junk that's going on in our community. With the days getting a little shorter and the weather cooling down the fishing will only get better and that's when trolling cranks on Med will really kick out some hogs. Give us a buzz anytime you need, don't be a stranger, your family now. The FM family

Good luck

[MedicineMan]

Sounds like you guys had a good time GVJeff. If you are after Northerns, the best time to catch them is early in the morning and right around sundown. After 9am it becomes a challange to catch slimers. I myself went out from 9-9 yesterday. I caught a couple Northerns, a couple Sunnies, a Perch, a Walleye, and so many Bass that I lost count! I'm guessing that I ended up with 30-35 Bass. I caught 95% of my Bass between 1-5. 80% of the Bass were between 2-3 pounds. I lost a few monsters. But it was a great day out on the lake. I'm planning on hitting Med tomorrow morning after work.

[This message has been edited by MedicineMan (edited 08-06-2004).]

[MedicineMan]

Hmmmm, kinda dead here.... But anyways, I'm going out today from 9-9. I'll report back on how I did.

[Mr Special]

That's because this cold front has made it tough. There's been bass leagues out there lately and they'll all struggle. Ebass "Hint the name" he lives for bass and a buddy was out there yesterday and didn't do good at all. I hear even the crappies have slowed. But with this weather warming up, a few days and it should be back to normal.

[MedicineMan]

Hmmmm, I've never had any problem catching Bass. When a cold front comes through, I do two things. First thing I do is Downsize, I mean DOWNSIZE. Usually when fish are active I can use 6" cranks and catch a good amount of fish. After a cold front comes through, I never use a bait larger than 3". The second thing I do is really slow my presentation. I mean moving just fast enough to make the blade on my lure spin. If things get really tough (this has only happened a couple of times) I'll use a lindy rig with a leech. If you can't catch fish with a leech, you might as well go home.

[MedicineMan]

Well, I went out from 9-9 today. Fishing was good but spotty. I got 2 Northerns and 3 Bass from 9-10. Went to a different spot from 11-12 and caught 5 Bass, and 1 Walleye. Moved again to a different spot from 1-3 and caught 4 Bass. From 3-5 I drifted around and checked stuff out with the Aqua-Vu. Ran into Baswacker on one of the islands. Sat and talked to him for awhile and another fisherman. Went back to one of my spots and picked up 4 Bass from 5-6. 6-8 is dead time so I did some Aqua-Vuing. 8-9 I caught 4 Bass, the last fish I caught was also my biggest Bass, 18" 4 pounds.

[MedicineMan]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the water is really dingy. Up at the launch the water is crystal clear. But once you're out in the main lake light penetration is only 14 feet. The bigger Crappies have come shallow as well, I saw them in 8-14 feet of water. Also, the water temp is 66 degrees, so the fish are in a semi-fall pattern. Look for sharp breaks that lead into deep water.

[This message has been edited by MedicineMan (edited 08-13-2004).]

[rundrave]

was out on medicine today, from 10am to 3pm. Caught only 2 fish all day, both northerns. Fished the upper north bay where I thought I would have good luck. Not today I guess. All in all it was a great day to be out, glad to have some nice weather again before fall gets here.

[MedicineMan]

rundave, I've never had that good of luck in the northwest bay. That bay is good for Bass and Panfish for the most part. You can catch some dandy Crappies back there in the spring. But anyways, I'm most likely going out tomorrow around 10. Hopefully the fish will cooperate.

[Ole the Guide]

Hey Med Man,
Was that you today heading back to the access around 11:30? I was in the bullrushes in a red Tracker.
I've been meaning to meet up with you to say hey but so far haven't connected. I might go out Tuesday am for a while. If you see me stop over!
Ole

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"Please release me let me go"

[MedicineMan]

Well, I was out from 9:30-11 and caught 5 Bass. Then I had technical difficulties so now I'm back home fixing them. I plan on getting back out in about an hour.

[MedicineMan]

Yup, that was me Ole. I've seen you around many times before if that was you. How did you do out there? I got back out on the lake around 2. Fishing really spotty, I ended with 14 Bass, nothing else. I hope to get out again this thursday.

[MedicineMan]

Here are a couple fishing pics from last thursday. The Walleye was my largest Medicine Walleye to date, 22 inches.

[Juan Grande]

MedMan,

Those Medicine Lake bass look really stocky. i don't know if it was the same fish, but in several pics you've posted the bass look short and thick.

[Ole the Guide]

Hey Med,
I ended up with 5 nice ones (c+r) over a couple of hours. I was messing around trying some different things and killed some time. I tried the humps but didn't have much luck there. I have to work on that presentation.
My biggest was 19" followed by two 18"'s, a 17.5" and a fat 16.5".
It was a quality over quantity kind of day. Boy those big ones really fight hard once they know they're hooked!
I didn't make it out today as I'm heading over to Annandale for some pm fishing with a friend.
I'll catch you out there sooner or later. If you want to email me it's: [email protected]

Later,
Ole

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"Please release me let me go"

[Juan Grande]

MedMan,

I agree, I'd rather catch the thick ones. It kind of makes you nervous when you start pulling in skinny or sickly looking fish. Especially if you fish the lake a lot and you want the population to be healthy.

You must have learned a lot going out with the DNR. Were you surprised at the size of fish that were caught or where they caught them?

[MedicineMan]

Juan, I did learn a lot in terms of how the DNR goes about things. They really do a lot that people don't give them credit for. In terms of fish biology, fish structure and so on, they were amazed what I knew. I feel proud to know that I'm such a huge dork! I really wasn't surpised by fish size/numbers. I was however surprised by how huge the Bullheads were. I'll post a couple pics later, but those things were massive! I was amazed at how fat some of the Northers were. We caught one that looked like it was pregnant. Its gut has hanging down at least 4" from its body. I wasn't as surprised by what we caught compaired to the DNR guys. They were truely amazed by the number and size of the fish we caught. We caught something like 48 Pike in one day in the two gill nets we had set up in the south end of the lake. They were also surprised at the number of Walleye's we caught. The head Fish Specialist thought we would only catch a few, we ended with quite a bit more than a few. That was one really good piece of information that they came away with. A couple other things I learned was that Medicine has a really strong 2001 Northern class. The majority of the Pike we caught we from the 2001 class. One other thing we found out that the majority of predator fish we caught were female. This is good news in terms of breeding, more females=more eggs.

[MedicineMan]

Hey Ole, what humps where you working? There are only 8 of them you know. Some of the humps you can catch Bass anywhere on them. On some of the other humps you can only catch Bass on a certain spot. Maybe we can meet up someday and I'll show you a couple tricks. If you'd like some info, shoot me an email: [email protected]

[MedicineMan]

Here are a couple pics I have from my trips out with the DNR.

[This message has been edited by MedicineMan (edited 08-17-2004).]

[MedicineMan]

Juan, a lot of the Bass I catch in Medicine are what I call "footballs". Most of the Bass I catch are between 17"-20", and a good majority of them are footballs. I can tell you that I'd much rather catch a 16" football than a 20" pancake! I do have to say that I have never caught or seen a really skinny fish in Medicine. When I was out with the DNR we were pulling up Northern's, Walleye's and Bass that had massive guts on them. We pulled up one Walleye that measured 25" and weighed 8 pounds. Medicine has a very good forage base, and a very strong predator base. The predators weed out the small weak fish so the fish that do make it get BIG!

[CrappieMagnet]

That 1st pic looks like you are wearing some really awesome camo medicineman!Did you turn into the invisible man overnight?

Cool looking pics!

CrappieMagnet

[Juan Grande]

MedMan,

I didn't know the "Predator" was a fisherman.

Cool pics.

[MedicineMan]

Hahahaha, what the deal is is this. Neither of the DNR guys want their picture posted on this website. So I went into photoshop and did a little editing. But anyways, I'm going out for a couple hours. I'll give a report by 1, later.

[EBass]

I was like WTF! Who is this masked man? I thought about the Predator movie to - LOL

Is that a huge bullhead on the bottom pic? Dang that is the bully of bullies.

[Juan Grande]

MedMan,

Yeah, I remember you mentioning that they didn't want their pics posted. You did such a good job editing him out, it just looks like the Predator in camo mode with a pair of gloves on holding a nice walleye.

Either that or the forest has taken up fishing.

Just giving you cr*p, thanks for posting the pics.

[MedicineMan]

Well, just got back from the lake. I caught 4 Bass, lost something big and a few Crappies. Not bad for being out there for an hour and a half.

Ebass, that Bullhead was average sized. We caught many more that were larger than that one.

[MedicineMan]

I would just like to say that if anyone would like to ask me any questions pertaining to Medicine Lake, they're more than welcome too. Just shoot me an email.

[This message has been edited by MedicineMan (edited 08-19-2004).]

[Ole the Guide]

Hey Med Man,
You've got mail.
Ole

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"Please release me let me go"

[MedicineMan]

Wow....that really didn't turn out the way I wanted it too......

[This message has been edited by MedicineMan (edited 10-08-2004).]