Lake Vermilion Musky Fishing Reports

[Capt. Quicksteel]

Thanks. I like Urban Cowboys posts. It's been a little odd this year. I think it's because of the clear water. For example, the smallies we usually catch on plastics etc have been deeper and we have had our best luck on rattle traps and deeper stuff. When I started looking for muskies this year I downsized to small bucktails and have been burning them over weed beds. I've been putting 40 inchers in the boat no problem so far. Hopefully now we can start to move them a bit better on the rocks and with bigger baits and maybe get a bigger fish. I'm going to do some trolling this weekend too. Glad I don't have to compete with the tournamnet yet!

[urban cowboy]

Do a ton of people pre fish the days before the tourney. If so, are we talking like early in the week or later in the week. Does anyone know how many anglers will be fishing in it???

[Esox_Magnum]

I fished during the MI tourney last year, something like 160 anglers, another 40 guys in our camp and never felt crowded. The one time I hit the spot you told me to try cowboy we were 1 of 3 boats in the area all day and only one there after dark. We just picked a bad day to make that run....

[urban cowboy]

Thanks esox. That is a nice spot .

Are you talking the day of or the day before?

Like usual, I am hoping we will get our quality time early in the week. I am sure there will be some jousting on Thurs and Friday. It normally picks up later in the week anyway.

[Esox_Magnum]

We hit it about the same day a big front hit. Ride was just a bit rough but the Skeeter made it nice and dry. Howling winds blowing into the prime spot made boat control trickey at best,having the POS Maxxum on the bow didn't help, be alot better now with the Terrova in place... Hoping to make a mid week run up there agin this year during better conditions...

[seaner]

is the time around labor day a good time to hit up skis up there?

[Muskyhunter52]

Cowboy there is 50 boat max so not very bad at all. Not sure when people will pre fish, if they do probs later in week. I know I'm coming up Wednesday sometime so that I have atleast 2 days to pre fish.

[Muskyhunter52]

Seaner yes it is, in the past I have done very well during then.

[Foreverfish1]

Hey guys,

Just got back from my trip up to Vermilion. I didn’t have any way to get online up there so I couldn’t post up to the minute reports but I’ll post how I did now. On this trip, we (my cousin and I) spent 3 days fishing for muskies on the West and 1 day on the East side. We didn’t see a single muskie on the east side (East of Oak Narrows) and caught all 4 of our muskies on the West side. We caught all 4 fish on the rocks and didn’t see a single fish in the weedy bays they were in earlier in the year. All the fish were caught either at dusk or in a very cloudy or stormy period. We had no luck whatsoever during the midday sun. They were all caught on 4 different bucktails so they only pattern we found lure wise was that it had to have some spinning blades and a bucktail. We tried many other baits (top waters, crankbaits, soft plastics, and trolling) without a single fish. Here are the pic’s of them (hopefully, if I can figure out how to post them)

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Me with our first fish, a 41

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My cousin with his 43

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Me with my 44

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Me with another 41 on the last cast of the trip!

The one thing we really keyed in on was the weather. Unless it was dark (we saw 1 monster after dark) or windy/cloudy/stormy, we didn’t see a single fish. Also surprising was that we only had one true follow, from that monster after dark. We saw some fish take swipes at our baits mid cast and the ones we caught were out mid cast but none followed us up to the boat. That was probably a good thing though since we’re pretty inexperienced with the figure 8.

Goodluck to anyone who tries for the Big V ski’s, they’re tough but they’re out there!!

[chaffmj]

Nice fish! Thanks for the pics and report.

[Captain Acorn]

I WAS UP THERE THIS LAST WEEKEND AND GOT THIS NICE 51"

[Capt. Quicksteel]

Those are some nice ones. I should have headed west. Like was said, the east end was pretty quiet last weekend. 4 follows and none boated. Hardly anyone fishing either, considering how nice the weather was.

[Captain Acorn]

accually I caught that on the east end and I had another one on that was in the mid 40s

[delcecchi]

Those are some nice ones. I should have headed west. Like was said, the east end was pretty quiet last weekend. 4 follows and none boated. Hardly anyone fishing either, considering how nice the weather was.

Actually not that many people fishing on the west end either, considering the terrific weather and upcoming tourney. Water temp was 78 degrees, light wind. I was out this afternoon and didn't see a single musky guy on half of head-o-lakes and most of wakemup.

[ZebraMussel33]

Nice fish!

Were you out fishing with John P by chance?

Zebra

[Captain Acorn]

YES I WAS WE HAD A GREAT TIME

[urban cowboy]

Foreverfish, nice fish, sounds like a great trip.

Just got back from the V. The first day we where on the lake it became very obvious that the majority of the weed spots we usually fish did not develop this year. The weed lines were not defined at all and were very spotty. (I don't know about the entire lake, just the 8 weed lines we normally fish) With that said, we abandon the weeds after 2 days and focused 100% of our time on east end rocks.

Water temps are very high. Feeding windows seemed very short and the night bite was non existent. The majority of our action came on fast buck tails. There were two days that it seemed like fish where everywhere and the other days we only moved a couple fish. We boated 2 fish, a 47 and a 53 and dumped 2 other 45 plus fish on those active days. We fished a lot at night, 3 of us with a line up of, 10's, 13's, slow top water and nothing! Every year we usually catch multiple fish at night but the bite just never turned on. Overall the fishing was tougher then years past but I am always happy no matter what. Beautiful lake and a great time.

Couple questions...

How has the night bite been all summer?

Has anyone else noticed how down the weeds are?

Good luck to all.

[Foreverfish1]

urbancowboy,

My best weed spot last year had totally different weeds growing in it this year and they weren't growing nearly as deep. Last year we could fish the defined weedline and had good action there but this year we didn't see a fish. I thought it was maybe because we went later in the year this trip and the weeds had died back but it sounds like maybe the weeds just had a down year this year.

[james_walleye]

How many fish were booted in that tourney Saturday?

[Silver Scale]

Rusty crawfish are probably responsible for the demise of some of the cabbage beds. I have seen some of the best tobacco cabbage in along time though but then again the rusties don't seem to like it.

There has been virtually no night bite yet and very sparse daytime activity either. Population down, too much forage, pressure? Hard to say what the cause is. Probably something completely different.

[Silver Scale]

How many fish were booted in that tourney Saturday?

Don't know. I'll have to kick that one around.

[Capt. Quicksteel]

It seems a little strange this year. Last 2 weekends I fished the rocks hard and really saw nothing. I did see some in the standard weedbeds but nothing big. I had the same resluts at night....zip! Nothing to do but keep on casting!

[urban cowboy]

I hope its not the crawfish. That would be kind of sad. There is one very popular community spot that always produces fish that was only up to like 4 ft and very spotty. It use to drop off at like 9ft.

[Sorgy]

fishing has been spotty. No real patterns are emerging for me. I have yet to see a fish over 50. I really mixed up all of my spots over the weekend. Weeds, rocks, Deep water sunken humps- open water ect. We are seeing very few fish follow. I did see a fair number of muskies Sunday night surfacing out in the Abyss- Where all of the fat tulibees are swimming.

The thermocline on Head o Lakes Bay was not as pronounced as it was the weekend before- There may have been a big blow durring the week. Water temps were in the 76 degree range even in the morning. There does not appear to be any tulibee die off so far this year.

Good Luck

Steve

[CaptainMusky]

A buddy was out yesterday and had 5 follows. He is a novice musky guy and caught his first last week out there a decent 38". He also saw a much larger fish that day, but instead of 8ing it he pulled the lure in because "it was over a foot bigger than the other one". LOL

All of the fish he saw yesterday were right before moonrise which is what I expected.

I am heading up there either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning and give it a good shakedown or two.

[urban cowboy]

One of our most active days came after an over night thunderstorm with lots of rain and wind. IMO, water temps cooled down, fish got active that morning into mid afternoon. over a dozen follows, boated 1 fish and lost another. Super hot and sunny in the afternoon and next day, water temps 75 plus only seen one fish.

[delcecchi]

If a "blow" last week weakened the thermocline, that thing will be gone after today. Steady air temp between 57 and 60 with howling northwest or north wind. Occasional mist just to make it nice. Yesterday water temp was still 75 or 76 before the showers moved through.

What does a muskie look like in deep water? right on surface? Rolling around?

[PostFrontal]

Higher water and colder water temps further into June may have had something to do with it. Mayfly hatch was about 2 weeks later. We found some weedlines shallower, some further out from where I had marked on the sonar.

And, yes, tougher fishing everywhere this year. Did have a buddy catch 7 last week up there...but only 2 on bucktails...

[thrax]

Hmm, I wonder if muskies all rolling around out in the abyss can be biters?? (insert chin scratch for comedy)! They sure can!!

Fishing where the fish are is a key factor. If pounding weeds/rocks etc and no fish are showing and you can't even just eyeball some laying around on Vermilion, that means they are generally not there. Go to where they are and do stuff, some kind of stuff. They will bite, and often the catch rate can and will blow away shallow stuff.

[Steve Foss]

Go to where they are and do stuff, some kind of stuff.

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