METRO LETS Big MArine

[wastewaterguru]

Was on the lake last night with Mr. Clean and had a lot of fun on the lake. Lots of shallow weeds and floating weeds, and deep weeds and in-between weeds. Caught bass and northerns on a dozen or so different lures. Couple of quality bass, but the northerns were just a little on the small side. It's a beautiful lake.

PArking is limited.......

Dennis can we bump the tournament time from 7 AM to 6 AM to ensure we get spots at the metro events???????

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"Just a sCRAPPIE CAT, BASSking on an EYE-jerking SUNNY day, PERCHspiring to avoid PIKEological addiction."

Here....Fisheeeeeeee!!

[mrclean]

WWG I had a great time, thanks again. I think we should move the ime to 4pm-10pm.Thanks for showing me a couple new tech.

[Guest]

Changing the time to non prime hours is something that was being discussed after the last event by a few of us... Prior Lake was pretty much nuts after lunch... Is this another really busy lake?

What about going from 5 a.m. -1 p.m. without a lunch break and having a lunch type break at the final weigh in to B.S? This may be earlier than a lot of guys want to get out, inlcuding possibly my partner 5-9 a.m. or so would be great for fishing and the crowds at the launch would be zero at 5 a.m. I'd sort of like to keep it 8 hrs. of fishing time if possible... 6 a.m. start as WW mentioned would help out with the boat landing factor and give another hour of good morning fishing... It would be nice to eliminate some of that 11-4 fishing time, especially if we get another blue bird sky type day... I like Mr. Cleans idea for prime-time fishing, but it may be difficult to get a spot at the ramp during mid-day?

[Aquaman01]

Can't speak for my partner, but I'm good for whatever time. Weeds, eh? Hmmmmm Looks like a little pre-fish is in my future.

I second 8 hrs. (at least ) of fishing time.

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Aquaman
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Peace and Fishes

[Lunker]

I'd be fine with any time but I'd say keep the same time we've been using.

[wastewaterguru]

I guess one of the other issues with moving the time up is finding bait stores that are open. I don't have a problem with any of the times suggested, but we should definately keep the same format of 4 hours than another 4 hours. 6 to 10 AM then 11-3 puts us there earlier than most and gets us off before the pre-dinner crowd.

Prior is really bad from 10:30 to 12:30 and again from 4 to 6. If you miss those times at the ramp, it is not bad at all. I would assume most of the metro lakes have similar time periods where the ramp traffic peaks.

It was just a suggestion.

I'm going camping this weekend, so my prefishing is going to be limited to maybe one more evening.

See y'all.

[wounded minnow]

I like the times the way they are now. I think if the weather is nice, we might have to deal with more boaters than we would like. That's just an additional challenge, but nothing any of us can't overcome.

[Lunker]

Boy, it was just one of those days. Planned to go to Big marine at about 7, ended up waiting for my bro until about 9, got lost finding the lake, finally got there, the battery was dead. Jump started it with the truck, went to the other side of the lake, dead again, used the trolling motor battery to get back, put back on the trailer, got pulled over driving home, etc, etc, nothing went right.

Ended up fishing a total of about 20 min in the windiest day this summer, caugth a northern and a few bass, but it was terrile day. At least we can get the problems sorted out by the tourney!

[LuckyFish]

Sure hope it's not windy on the 29th or I'm toast. My jet won't handle the waves. Oh well there's always the trolling motor. I plan on prefishing Mon or Tues. if the rains are over by then. Keep the post on prefishing going I can use all the help I can get.
Lucky

[mistermom]

Was out on BM this a.m. from 6-9 lots of little northerns and a couple of small bass, no panfish or walleyes. Nobody in the lot at 6:00 and 12 trucks at 9:00. Catching northerns should be no problem. Getting size might be a problem. I agree with WWG its a beautiful lake and quite a bit undeveloped still.

mm

[Lunker]

I doubt parking will be much of a problem. There are quite a few spots, and it was never full yesterday. Also, people can park along the edge of the parking lot and along mayberry trail, so I'd think parking should be no problem that early. It is a beautiful lake, and I'm looking forward to actually fishing it once or twice this week before the tourney. Of the fish we caught, only one was legal, and barely, but there will be a lot of fish caught on sunday im sure.

[Guest]

We made it out today to check out the lake and get a little fishing in... talk about some small pike... some of those fish are true "hammer handle" size...

It is a very nice lake and peaceful. There were 21 parking spots at the ramp open this morning at 7 a.m., so I don't think we have to worry about parking.. only a total of maybe 10 boats on the lake later in the day.

Anyone know where the closest bait store is?

[Dennis Steele]

I don't know much about BIg Marine but I did scout this one very early just after ice out the only problem I can forsee is getting all twelve boats at the ramp at one time for wiegh ins.

I knew Prior was going to be very difficult and I was against fishing this lake.It wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected and I had a good time although I still can't walk straight from bobbing up and down so much!
Some of the remaining lakes may be very tough for access and may be difficult to fish due to the amount of pleasure boaters.Waconia and St Croix are going to be very busy.
I though about the amount of traffic and pressued fish before deciding to help with the Metro Division.I knew it would be tough.I ended up a river rat due to these very reasons and this was years ago when it was'nt nearly as bad as it is now!That being said,I think that living in the metro one accepts the traffic on the lakes in its borders.I still fish lakes a little and take my family boating at prime recreation times.I know that fish are pressured and its going to be a mad house on a lot of the lakes.Everyone in the league is dealing with the same problems.Its just testing our abilities to catch fish in these conditions.

Knowing how some of you feel about the traffic I think we should take a little time at lunch to discuss this at B.M. and see if we need to adjust our fishing times according to the body of water we are going to fish.
I am always open to suggesstions and new ideas as long as they fit into the format of LETS.

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Minnesota River Guided Fishing
"fishhead"
[email protected]
www.mnriverguidedfishing.com

[Lunker]

I agree with your thoughts dennis, but I don't think traffic will be to bad for this tournament. It sure wasn't for any one this weekend.

As far as parking for the weigh in, you are right, it may be difficult. Both sides of the ramp are wooded, so beaching won't be to easy, although there are a couple spots where people regularaly beach thier boats and it is worn down enough for boats, but probably only 2 of them. Then the two docks, which only probably the outside will be able to use because of poeple putting in, so thats ony room for about a half dozen at most, what do u all suggest?

[wastewaterguru]

Mr. Clean,

I am going to cancel for Wednesday. My partner is going to be able to get up there this week so I'll make him chip in for gas and bring up my boat again.

I think I am going to still shoot for Wednesday night as long as the storms cooperate.

[Dennis Steele]

WW
You use that trailer this weekend?I got the sled off for you but it doesn't look like it went anywhere?

[wastewaterguru]

Nope, I managed to put that task off for a couple days. I would still like to use it, but not sure of the date yet. I need it to move some equipment to one of our customer's locations.

If you need to put the sled back on it, that's fine. I can get it off if I need to.

How was your vacation???

[Dennis Steele]

I'll just leave the sled in the grass.that much less to mow if I ever get to it! )
All I can say about our trip to Rainy is I can't eat another walleye,I am stuffed!

[Guest]

Well, our team missed out on Prior due to unexpected conflicts but we are ready to go for Big Marine. Fished it last night and caught some pretty good size bass (one Hawg!) and some average sized northerns. We look forward to next Sunday! See you all there.

Team Hogg

[LuckyFish]

Did the ol' run & gun on Big Marine today. Caught some 2lb bass and some under that size but still league "legal". Rain and wind chased me off around 11:00 am. Hope to get out one more time and pattern some walldos. Didn't get even one northern though, something I figured would be a pest while hunting those bass. Also ran into a nice pod of fair size sunnies. Good luck prefish'n everyone and keep those reports coming.
Lucky

[Guest]

Anyone who hasn't been to the lake, here are a couple of maps to help with directions to the landing. Mistermom had good directions posted, but it was on the Prior post. We went the way he recommended North on 35 up to 97 East and then jog back south on 15 South to Mayberry Trail East.

[wastewaterguru]

Well, we got out there again last night. It was a little brutal on the lake. Even when the rain was coming down so hard I couldn't see my rod tip, we were still catching some fish.

We got a good limit of bass in about the first 2 hours we were out.

No northerns last night though, but we weren't trying to target them this time.

Ate at the Old Log Cabin restaurant on 97. I had some kind of Klondike burger with onion and cole slaw on it......very tasty. Good spot to stop Sunday night if anyone else wants to......Yes they have a bar.

Good luck and see ya'll on Sunday.

[Guest]

Come on WW, give it up... technique, depth, location, gps coordinates, etc... just kidding of course, glad to hear you guys did well.

[mistermom]

The north launch has plenty of trailer spaces but it doesn't have plenty of space for 12 boats at the docks all at once. People are gonna have to hang out in the bay for take off and weigh in times.

Or Aquaman and I were looking at this island on the northwest end of the lake in the second bay. It's uninhabited and I suppose it would be trespassing; but you wouldn't be jamming up the launch at 11:00 if you went there. The SE corner of the island looks doable for beaching boats.

Does anybody know of a good spot to beach at 11:00? I'm just afraid of totally jamming up that launch. What are peoples thoughts?

mm

[Dennis Steele]

There is a resort on the lake and I asked them if we could use there facilities but the answer was no.It a seasonal place.There is also a veterans camp on the lake and I also checked into that.Talk about rules!No go there.Sounded too much like boot camp and I did not enjoy that the first time around!
We may have to take the option of fishing the whole day with no break and coming in at 3:00.We can do our wiegh ins when the boats are pulled out.Might make a mess of the ramp at 3:00 but we have done this in the past and it has worked out OK.
Thoughts?

If guys want to hang out after WWG found a nice "restraunt" just a couple miles away from the ramp.Sounds like the food was good if not interesting.(cole slaw on your burger?!I am going to give that one a try)