Heading out tommorow somewhere?@!?@?

[Paul]

Well after some stupid very stupid very very very very very stupid boat repairs that I should have caught early and prevented, I will now attempt to head out fishing for the first time in weeks. Are things starting to pick up on area waters?

(edited for stupid spelling error )

[Dahitman44]

Big C is starting to get better.

Pelican has been ok -- but we did not do well last night

[Schmeckdawg]

Agree with the hit, pelican was slow last night, although did have an extremely large muskie follow! Pretty neat to see, since I do not fish for them.

[fisherdog19]

I agree, Big C has been treating me well for crappies until dark, and night crank bite has been good. I have picked up 13 walleyes and lost about 6 others in two trips. One lasted til 2am and the other til midnight. Shallow shad rap in 8-10 fow running approximately 1.5-1.7 mph about 150 ft behing the boat. The key I think is that I run with my front mount trolling motor. I've seen plenty of guys running thier gas motors, not catch a thing and then leave cause they think it's no good.

[zelek]

I haven't been out much either lately Paul. I heard the night time crank bite on Big C was pretty good the last week of July, but it was virtually non-existent for me last night. I spent a lot more time using slip bobbers and that went pretty well however.

I noticed that some of the walleyes I cleaned this morning were stuffed full with mayflies. I'm surprised they were even willing to bite anything.

So how did you do this weekend?? Anyone else want to chime in??

[Paul]

I just got done cleaning up from day on Sallie. I got several small walleyes. some of those majestic 8" ers, got some nice pike and one muskie. Ya a bunch of dinky perch too. I got into a mixed school of perch and eyes and they were hitting my #11 purple taildancer trolling in 28 fow. Used meduim suckers on jigs for eyes and pike. Got the muskie on my second cast with a 9" tandam spinner with bucktail bottom. (I saw him follow my jig back so I was ready for him with a musky pole in que). Over all had a great day on the water. Good weather, not to hot, not to cold.

[Dahitman44]

Z-man --

Good to hear from you. The eyes on Pelican are full of shiners. They even spit them out in the live well. Crazy.

Bite is slow -- but was good, so I hear. Plan to get out at the end of this week when I get the special section out. Hate that extra work -- kills my fishing time.

[Code-Man]

We decided at the last moment to go down to Ottertail last night. Figured would get minnows in Ottertail. WE WERE WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! No minnows other then fat heads and huge suckers. So we used some extremely small leeches and some very poor looking crawlers. Ended up getting 4 eyes and three nice ones. It died about an hour before dark. My .02 cents

[copterjohn]

He he, another musky after I leave. Thanks!

If you run out of leeches, or want to just blow 20-40 bucks, we have had outstanding luck with the Berkley Gulp leeches. While up last week, our crew did better on the artificial than the real deal and the perch and gills don't rob them as easily. The Fleet store ran out of Gulp and we were done and back to puny leeches from the corner gas station. Couldn't get em to hit minnows. Anyone else brave enough to try the gulp yet?

Our biggest eyes were on the shallow edge of the weeds in 9 fow, probably tucked back in, while the dinks were easily graphed in 26-29 fow. Over the past many years in the August heat, our best walleyes in the phosphorus filled Sallie and Melissa are in 7-15 fow in the cabbage and they hit some wacky presentations. Rattle traps over the top, small shad raps on 100-150 feet of line running the weed edge. X-raps worked well last week. You don't think of walleye as super aggressive, but the 26.5" photo I posted hit a spinner ripped over the top of the weeds. BTW, secchi in Sallie is now down to three feet. Ugh. However, I recall when my grandfather used to have to run a small outboard clamped to the dock just to blow the "green paint" back out to sea so we could swim. The lake is making slow progress each year as the phosphorus nodules held in bottom sediment slowly decay.

[Paul]

Copter, I use gulp all the time. Was using some 3 inch purple with flake gulp grub tipped with suckers when I caught most of my fish. I find sometimes tipping gulp with minnow or crawler gives some movement to the bait when drifting on the bottom.

PS I usually catch and release several muskies per year on Sazllie and hundreds of pike. We stay at a buddies cabin across the road from Sallie on Munson. Not to far from the public access.