Morson LOTW June report

[Shorelunch]

Who's heading up this weekend? We're heading up for the wknd in a while. It will be interesting to see if the walleyes are still deep or moved up to shallower water. I don't believe there's been too many warm days since Memorial wknd.

[Sumander]

One of my partners is on his way up there this morning. I would expect a report from him sometime over the weekend. I will be heading up next Wednesday morning through Sunday. I will post if I hear from him. Sounds like he will be hiding from the wind today.

[dirtking]

we'll be up there 6/13 - looking forward to it!

[benelli_dude2002]

Gonna be heading up tomorrow for a day trip. looks like the weather is going to be a little warmer and not as windy ( i hope ). Might get to fish with Wildthing not sure yet. I will post a report tomorrow night when i get back. Good luck!

[Shorelunch]

I had an interesting and fun weekend of fishing. Fairly decent weather both days with the vaunted east wind. I caught about forty 12-13 inch walleyes along rip-rap shorelines trolling spinners with the occasional 15 incher. Looks like a good class coming up in the next few years. When I fished points with a drop off leading into rip rap/sand shores, I found nicer fish 15-17 inches. Fished with both jigs and spinners. Biggest was 26" and also caught a 17" smallie that was pig.

Funny part was that when fishing the points, it would be about a 20 minute bite and then nothing. Back up in two weeks.

[Wild Thing]

Wow, a Morson report! I haven't seen one of these in months. Thought everyone had stopped fishing. Or maybe I didn't look hard enough... This HSOforum is getting too crowded, too much to sort through...

Anyhow, had a short trip to Morson.. mostly chores and stuff but fished a few hours on Saturday.. north of Rabbitt.. with Benelli Dude and his dad... three boats... caught some 12-14 inchers, enough for a family meal... Gulp and jigs, 12 feet... wife caught a fat 19-inch smallie full of spawn... her second nice bass of the season, she got an 18-incher over Memorial Day...

On Sunday stayed closer to the cabin and caught a few, but still nothing to write home about...

fishing was actually better Memorial Day weekend... ...water still cold, 53-56 degrees... oak trees aren't even fully leafed-out yet... no mosquitos... very late spring... there was a frost away from the lake on saturday morning and we had the heat on all weekend, even a fire in the fireplace.. in June!

The pine flys are out so the walleyes should be on the sand soon, if the water warms up...

Back up in 11 days...

Take care all...

[dirtking]

Good reports! Thanks

[benelli_dude2002]

A day well spent i must say. had to work a bit for our fish but we got some. nothing big maybe 16-17 inch was all. Biggest fish was in dads boat which was about 23 inch and he let it go. My buddy and I used gulp, my dad and 2 kids were using minnows and they had caught more fish even a few crappies mixed in there with the walleyes. THe guy i was fishing with, i thought was moving too fast as far as working jigs and I had nothing heavier than 3/8 oz but then he had Fireline on also so maybe that made a difference as far as cuttin through the water. It was cooler out on saturday, had frost in town here when I left for Morson but at least it didnt rain. I did get a blast of cold water when my fishing buddy hit a wave wrong and he told me that i make a good wind break cuz he never got wet. Kinda woke me up though. Had a fish fry back at my folks when we got in. Like Wildthing said no mosquitos. Not sure when I will get up again. I will be working this weekend. Take care

[Tman2]

Heading up this weekend with the wife and son. Will be throwing mostly for smallmouth, with the assumption that my son will pick up his first ever muskie.

I agree with WT, it's getting harder to locate the stuff you want.

[Sumander]

Fished from Wednesday afternoon through Saturday. Had great fishing. One of my partners boated a 31.5" walleye and my brother got a 28.5" eye! Every thing on jigs and minnows. We had a possession limit for 4 guys of 15-17" fish by noon on Thursday. Found them anywhere from 9 fow to 25 fow. Best bite seemed to be in the 16-18 fow. Water temp was around 54 degrees on wednesday afternoon. Lake went flat Saturday afternoon and we saw temps pushing 64 degrees.

Headed back up the next two weekends, after that it will be working on putting my marriage back together.

[Shorelunch]

Sum, thanks for the post - sounds like some good fishing. What type of structure did you find the nice eaters and the biggies?

[Sumander]

Shorelunch, Found most of the fish on rocky shorelines with deep water nearby. Tried two different sand spots with no luck. Saw one of the BVR guides fishing reefs on Saturday!

The big one came out of 9 fow on shoreline like I described.

[Tman2]

Went up this weekend. Only fished one afternoon for walleyes, nothing big, but was productive and we had walleye for dinner (12 yr old son caught some too). Same type of spots as Sumander, 10-18 ft of water. Slow trolled jigs with minnows, then switched to plastics when I knew fish were present. Plastic seems to weed out the smaller fish for us. Even fished a couple of reefs at the west end of Sunset. I was good, the other was not (farther away from shore). Interestingly, I fished for smallmouth on reefs with my son and we didn't see one muskie. I thought the smallmouth fishing was off from the usual.

Weather was absolutely gorgeous. Saturday, Sunday and Monday had light winds with the lake almost flat with plenty of sun. If the trips were all like that I'd wanna go up every weekend.

[Tman2]

Forgot to mention that the neighbors had good luck with the walleyes. Said they threw back 3 over 20 on Sunday. They did catch a few on sandy shores at dusk. Water temp varied from 61-67. It's been very cool up there (apparently this last weekend was the nicest yet). I was surprised at how much dead reeds I noticed still standing, and how little new growth there was/is.

[dirtking]

We also found fish deep last weekend and earlier in the week. 10 to 30' I caught a 28" walleye in 30'! 20 to 22' was the hottest for us.

[Shorelunch]

We're taking off for the weekend this afternoon. My cousin and crew caught a lot of fish on sandy/rip rap shoreline in about 6-8 FOW last weekend (all during the day). Another boat caught a 11 pounder in the same bay. It will be interesting, as always, on if they're finally up shallow or if they're still in 20 feet - or both.

Have a good weekend everyone.

[Tman2]

FYI: water temps were low 60's last weekend. I think it was supposed to have a chance for rain each day this last week, but am not positive. Anyways, good luck!!

[benelli_dude2002]

Went up to Morson for the day with the family. Had a great meal of meat on the grill. 4 of us went out for a couple hours around suppertime. Didnt have to go too far to get our fish. 8-12 ft is where we got most of them. Jigs and minnows. 21 inch was the biggest and the rest were eaters. Even a few nice crappies mixed in there and some bigger perch. Got a few on Gulp but live bait was working much better this evening. Fishing was much better than it was a few weeks ago when I was up there last. Hope to get up in the early part of July again for a day or two. Good luck!

[Shorelunch]

We had a very nice weekend. Weather was blue bird sky on Saturday with a light wind. We found fish trolling spinners on some reefs and humps by islands or shorelines. My 8yr old caught and released a 36" northern while trolling spinners and a 26" walleye with a jig (both were our biggest for the weekend).

On Sunday we fished on points in 8-12 feet and along weedlines in 9 feet with jigs and Gulp minnows. Caught lots of small wallys (10-12") and nice eaters around 15".

[Sumander]

Had a large crew for us this past weekend. Partner, myself and 4 guys, 3 who had never fished LOW. Starting Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning at 11:00, 6 of us caught a ton of fish. The biggest was only 24.5". We kept a possession limit of nothing but 16-17" fish. Comments from 3 rookis were that they were spoiled for walleye fishing in Minnesota.

Once again caught fish on reefs and rocky points. Water temps exceeded 70 degrees at most places we tried. Consistently caught fish in 12-15 fow. Most were caught on jigs and minnows although we did use GULP for awhile on Saturday afternoon.

Sure seemed to us like the bite was way better in the morning than the afternoon. although we were not on the lake past 5:00 any day.

Back up Thursday with some hunting buddies. After 3 straight weekends I am pushing the limits with my spouse.

[Wild Thing]

Shorelunch, what lake were you on Saturday?!! We had whitecaps and 15-20 mph west winds on Saturday on our lake of the woods! It was even rough in parts of the Sunset! Yes, it did calm down to flat by about 6 p.m. but from noon-3 it was howling pretty good. Amazing how much I hate wind and notice it more than other people.

Caught fish. Walleyes are moving to the reefs, not fast and furious yet but okay. 71 degree water. Used my last minnows of the year, will go to all crawlers now. Gulp did OK but I did notice more drops with Gulp this time than ever before. Hit, pick up, nothing on the other end kind of thing... maybe last year's Gulp is too hard?

Biggest walleye was 19 but several in the 15-18 range, okay but not great... did here on the radio of at least two 29s caught...

Saturday night was perfect on my favorite reef... flat calm, 78 degrees, beautiful sunset, plenty of small walleyes then bam, caught a 42 inch pike on a spin/float rig! She cleared the water twice... my father in law almost messed up the net, but we got it in for the photos... fun way to end the day.

Home for a while then back up for 10 STRAIGHT DAYS over July 4!!!

Take care, all.

[Shorelunch]

Shorelunch, what lake were you on Saturday?!! We had whitecaps and 15-20 mph west winds on Saturday on our lake of the woods! It was even rough in parts of the Sunset! Yes, it did calm down to flat by about 6 p.m. but from noon-3 it was howling pretty good. Amazing how much I hate wind and notice it more than other people.

Caught fish. Walleyes are moving to the reefs, not fast and furious yet but okay. 71 degree water. Used my last minnows of the year, will go to all crawlers now. Gulp did OK but I did notice more drops with Gulp this time than ever before. Hit, pick up, nothing on the other end kind of thing... maybe last year's Gulp is too hard?

Biggest walleye was 19 but several in the 15-18 range, okay but not great... did here on the radio of at least two 29s caught...

Saturday night was perfect on my favorite reef... flat calm, 78 degrees, beautiful sunset, plenty of small walleyes then bam, caught a 42 inch pike on a spin/float rig! She cleared the water twice... my father in law almost messed up the net, but we got it in for the photos... fun way to end the day.

Home for a while then back up for 10 STRAIGHT DAYS over July 4!!!

Take care, all.

WT, I agree on the Gulp. The smaller 'eyes pick it up and drop. We've been using the 4" minnows (shad), but the nice eaters and big girls seem to hit it. We didn't buy minnows yet this year and had good fishing. Next Spring, I want to do an in-boat comparison between Gulp and minnows. I think as long as the Gulp is in the juice (moist) it's just fine.

I should have said light winds to start the day. The wind did pick up Saturday afternoon in our neck of the woods too, but the breeze felt good and our fishing picked up with the wind. Saturday night was picture perfect. I love fishing in the wind up there - especially in larger waves (a strong walleye chop) on the reefs.

How do you use the crawlers up there? I usually use them with bouncers and a two hook spinner harness. I'm not yet confident in this presentation though - have done ok with the Gulp crawlers (nice for perch bites) but imagine the real crawlers are better? I have much more confidence trolling grubs, minnows and even leeches.

[Asandir]

I was up with wife and 2 daughters over the weekend and just got home today. We did well, catching all the walleyes we wanted in the amount of time the girls would let us fish.

Used gulp and crawlers that I brought across the border. Still too cheap to buy minnows up there. Gulp did ok, but agree they didn't seem to want to hit it as hard as they have in the past. For the crawlers we did alot of slip bobber fishing, just alot easier with the kids. Saturday from 10 to 12 we couldn't handle 3 lines at a time and was alot of fun with walleyes up to 26.

Musky fishing was slow, seen some fish and caught a lil 35 and one big northern at 42. After my 4 year old seen that she didn't want to fish anymore heh.

[Wild Thing]

Hey Shorelunch

As long as they are on the reefs, ALL I do is use bottom bouncers and crawler rigs. Period. Nearly all my 25-plus fish have come on this outfit, including several 28's, a couple 29's and a 30-plus...

I like spin/float combos or spinning corkies or anything with a couple-3 hooks.

Use at least 1.5 ounce bouncer and fish them as straight up and down as you can... but when the fish are kind of spread out on the reef tops, there's no better way to catch them... you have to get used to feeling the rock bottoms, but you'll get FAR fewer snags than with jigs or lindy weights.. and you can usually just jerk them free without backing up...

ALWAYS use a float to keep the hooks out of the rocks...

I've got my wife and kid and all newcomers on this method and we catch tons of fish.. I pick flatter, bigger reefs for the newbies to keep the direction and depth changes down...

the best part is you can go as fast or slow as you want. When the water warms up I like to go pretty fast and it seems to turn the fish on, just the opposite of what most people think. traditional jig guys hate it, but it works at the right time..

good luck

I'll be up there in 9 days!!!

[Shorelunch]

Hey Shorelunch

As long as they are on the reefs, ALL I do is use bottom bouncers and crawler rigs. Period. Nearly all my 25-plus fish have come on this outfit, including several 28's, a couple 29's and a 30-plus...

I like spin/float combos or spinning corkies or anything with a couple-3 hooks.

Use at least 1.5 ounce bouncer and fish them as straight up and down as you can... but when the fish are kind of spread out on the reef tops, there's no better way to catch them... you have to get used to feeling the rock bottoms, but you'll get FAR fewer snags than with jigs or lindy weights.. and you can usually just jerk them free without backing up...

ALWAYS use a float to keep the hooks out of the rocks...

I've got my wife and kid and all newcomers on this method and we catch tons of fish.. I pick flatter, bigger reefs for the newbies to keep the direction and depth changes down...

the best part is you can go as fast or slow as you want. When the water warms up I like to go pretty fast and it seems to turn the fish on, just the opposite of what most people think. traditional jig guys hate it, but it works at the right time..

good luck

I'll be up there in 9 days!!!

I agree, I too am a bouncer/spinner user and fan and use darn near the same setup. We did good trolling spinners with grubs this past weekend.

As far as crawlers go, I imagine you use real crawlers, right? We can take them across the border as long as they're packed, correct? Have you tried the Gulp crawlers with much success?