Shallow Water Action...

[Matt Johnson]

Woah... it's been way too long in between reports... let's try and get caught up on things a bit...

Been spending the majority of my time targeting bass over the last few weeks... with most of the success coming in the shallows, especially as of late. Buzzbaits, shallow cranks, jigs... but mainly wacky-rigged Comidas continue to produce fish. Also tried pitching some live suckers the other day in hopes of picking up a few monster walleyes in transition but no takers... not even the bass or pike grabbed the live bait, everything came on artificials.

Find shallow rocks and/or gravel lately and it seems like you find the fish too. Mainlake islands or points with shallow hard-bottom flats are hot right now... water temps soared into the upper 60's the last few days which helped some too. However, water clarity is getting worse but I only contribute the excellent shallow water bite partially to those dingy water conditions. No complaints here I guess.

Here are a few fun pictures from the last few weeks... had a good day in the Chisago area with a couple clients...

A nice double!!!

Mark's 6 pounder!!!

A very fat short fish!

Looks like the warm temps are only going to stick around for a couple more days... then 50's for highs and we can expect more toothy critters roaming the shallows... might also see a lot of the smaller bass vacate the shallows leaving only the big toads Break out the buzzbaits and jigs and let the games begin!!!

[tweedlap]

Hey Matt,

When was Michael Moore in town?

tweed

[Deitz Dittrich]

Nice fish Matt and guest!!!!!

[TruthWalleyes]

Hey Matt,

When was Michael Moore in town?

tweed

Michael Moore doesn't Smoke...Cigs in pocket

[Ray Esboldt]

Nice, Mattie.

[Matt Johnson]

Made it back out to the Chisago area on Friday. Took out a great family with quite the excited 5 year old boy by the name of Ben! Ben was quite the angler!

We targeted a lot of the same spots we fished throughout the previous week... shallow, shallow, shallow! Hard bottom areas also continued to produce the biggest fish. We couldn't muster any giant 6 pounders this time out but we did stick several in the 3 pound range with a ton of smaller fish mixed in. Weather was nice and they all came on wacky-rigged Comidas (senkos).

Water temps dropped in the last few days too... on Sunday they topped out at 67 degrees and yesterday they barely broke 61, with most of the day in the upper 50's. The drastic change put a damper on the aggressive fish and the amount of big ones found in the shallows. We considered moving out deeper but the smaller fish were keeping us active in the shallows so we stayed put.

Here is one of Ben's many fish...

Ben was also quite the minnow man taking care of all the minnows in the minnow bucket... and he also touched every fish we caught Ben was definitely the MVA... Most Valuable Angler on Friday

Looks like we're going to see similar weather the next week or so... with highs in the upper 50's and low 60's... should make for some stable fishing and soon we'll see average water temps in the mid 50's which should help stir more activity...

[zzz]

nice fish