"just one more pass" bowstring report

[jigglestick]

I took my kids out to bowstring yesterday to try our hand at some walleye action.

I could tell the bite was going good, about every guide I know of was there.

this only added to my insult, as I spent the first four hours of my trip practicly skunked.

thank god for the hammer handles or my kids wouldn't have made it to the good fishing we encountered about 9:00 p.m.

we fished out of the south landing north to the first point by the duck blind and then worked our way north.

we started out in 12 FOW and worked our way on a drift, using the sock in 15 - 20 mph winds out of the west south west.

this brought us into a pair of boats that was working an area in 7-9 FOW pretty hard.

a couple bumps on the first pass then nothing. I don't like crowds so we headed north to the next ledge and tried to encounter various depths looking for a winner, starting at 16 FOW and moving into 8 FOW.

no dice.

further north we headed, working the windy east side and all we could produce was some smallish snakes.

with the clock ticking towards evening, we headed south back over the first area where the two boats had left a couple hours earlier and still nothing but perch taps.

looking at the gps, we headed a bit west and south to a depression that came from slightly deeper water up into 8-9 fow area.

the kids were getting quite restless at this point when I agreed that one pass and we would call our selves skunked.

just as we were about to pull out, BANG! the first walleye commited and we were on the board.

the kids looked at me with that look. they knew exactly what that meant...another pass.

it paid off right away.

45 minutes and nine walleyes later, we ran out of shiners and headed home.

jigs went in lighter colors from white to watermelon to blue in 1/4 oz while it was windy to 1/8 oz once the wind layed down.

it was almost dead calm when we encountered the walleyes and it

was off shore in 11-12 FOW.

trying to just ease the boat along slowly and jigging straight down did the trick.

some times that "one more pass" is actually worth doing.

that's why we always say "just one more pass".

good luck out there

take a kid fishing and be patient. their just kids

[glenn57]

jigglestick, thanks for the update. i plan on hitting the bow sometime this next weekend. i will use the acess off cty rd 35 being its the closest one. my understanding is you used jigs tipped with shiners, not lindy rigging, correct? and you had your better luck on the east shoreline. ive only fished bowstring in the winter for the most part and fieh out in front of a blueish-green house where you any where near there?

[Coach1310]

Nice report! Great to hear of kids having some fun experiences on our beautiful MN waters. You know you have them "hooked" when they give you the "one more pass" look!!

[jigglestick]

Glenn,

we fished the east side on the south half of the lake mostly, but we did not find any walleyes there. the area we had our success in was an area half a mile off the east shore.

with the number of boats out there in the middle, I'm thinking there are plenty of fish moving off shore now.

[glenn57]

thanks jigglestick. i will bring the lake map and gps to look for structure, or follow the boats. what is the best type of bait for bowstring. i also got abit of info from lisa i think we are going to hit winnie also. my wife is way more receptive of winnie than bowstring even though bowstring is 15 minutes from the cabin.

[WalleyeWarrior]

you'll be able to find the structure with the gps and i'm sure there'll still be boats out there. i was there saturday and sunday (crestliner w/ 115 johnson in case any of you saw me out there). i did pretty well, but it certainly isn't as much fun when you've got 15-20 boats all working the same area. i much prefer to be off by my lonesome, but i couldn't find any fish that way.