Cold rainy weather is right on time...

[shiltsy]

Right on schedule, a cold blustery front moved in just in time for my weekend fishing trip in Northern WI. I'm going with my dad and brothers, and they don't fish as much as I do... I'm hoping we can fight through the weather conditions and get some decent action.

Anyone want to provide some motivational words of wisdom for fishing in 50 degree rainy weather??? There must be some silver lining somewhere that I can use to build our confidence!

Gander is running a great sale on their fishing/rain gear, so that's a DECENT start...

Shiltsy

[CatchPhotoFilet]

stay inside and watch the gophers vs Wisconsin

[shiltsy]

Delete last post, delete last post!!!

[Cecil]

better than 40 and rainy!

[shiltsy]

Thanks Cecil, now're talkin'...

Might have to see if the crappie or walleye feel like biting if the bass bite is dead.

[grab the net]

We have our annual fall brawl scheduled for this weekend. Lovely outlook weatherwise. We are just gonna put the rain gear on and fish hard. Making a list of lakes to hit over the two days. Try and be on traditional big fish lakes at the prime times. Locally the fish have been on a tear. We are going to be up in Ottertail County. Good luck to ya.

[shiltsy]

Same to you Grab... I'll follow up next week with an after action review...

[jwhjr]

This is also the weekend I'll be making the last trip up to Lake X. We had rain last year as well, but Sunday looks to be the better of the two days this year. Hopefully we'll still be able to find them.

[Craigums]

Correct me if Im wrong but sunday looks to be really nice, will the sun shining it should push fish shallow right?

[Cecil]

Tough to say, with this much rain it might take more than a day to get them fired up...

[bassfshin24]

cold weather and rain hasnt seem to slow down the bite...went out this afternoon on a small metro lake and in about 3 hours caught about 10-15 bass and probably the same amount of northern. Biggest bass went 20 inches and 4.12lbs. Most fish were on spinnerbaits over the weeds. Caught few topwater fish also. Headin out again in the morning

[shiltsy]

Here's my follow-up from the northern WI trip as promised:

The weather was ridiculously bad on Friday. Driving rains, 20-30 mph winds blowing from the N/NE down the main lake (Lake Chetac) and temps hovering around 40. The rest of the weekend it rained on and off with air temps in the lower 40's and water temps in the mid-upper 50's. We fished it hard from dawn to dusk with only a couple hours off the lake for lunch each day.

We obviously had trouble getting a consistent bite, but had a decent amount of nice size largemouth and decent pike during the trip. I also managed a few undersized smallies, which is always fun. My dad is more of a panfish/bobber kind of guy, so the highlight of the weekend was seeing him catch some nice largemouth ranging from 1.5 to 3 pounds. Given his fishing experience and gear, he was fishing a good-sized buzzbait with a little zebco closed face reel and short rod. Thank God I at least forced him to replace the 10 year old line. He could barely keep that buzzbait above water reeling as fast as he could. That happened to be exactly what the bass wanted to see. He caught more good sized bass on that buzzbait throughout the weekend, than the rest of us. After experiencing that fight, he is hooked on bass fishing. Pretty good story about technique vs. expensive gear.

Natural colors took far more fish than bright/flashy. We had the best luck with a natural colored buzzbait (red and translucent/gray that I've never seen anywhere else), swim jigs with a grub trailer and soft plastic swim baits. At first I thought the tiny swimbaits were all that would catch fish, but I caught a very nice pike (that I lost boat side) and a 3 lb LMB on a 5 inch money minnow.

As I mentioned, the bite was sporadic. It would turn on for an hour or two and turn off just as quickly.

The folks up around Lake Chetac were great to be around. There are a lot of nice lodges, campgrounds and some of the most beautiful scenery in Northern WI. I don't know if I've ever seen so many Bald Eagles in one weekend.

Finally, if you are a crappie fisherman, this lake is on an absolute TEAR. The lodge owners go to great lengths to build and sustain a solid fishery and would love to have your business next spring.

If you're into Northern, send me a private message and I'll point you to an area of the lake that will produce.