LOTW Reports?

[MUSKY18]

We are heading up there a week from tomorrow. Anyone have or heard any reports on the fishing?

[cbrooks]

See if you can fish in the boat with Richard Pearson again . I'm just kiding. I haven't made it up there yet this year.

[MUSKY18]

I have fished with him enough! Pretty sure that I will be running into him while we are up there however.

[cbrooks]

Man, I would love to fish with him or Doug Johnson.

What part are you fishing out of, NW angle or Morson? Take this with a grain of salt but I talk to a guy at a boat luach a couple of weeks ago that had fish going on double 10 up at Whitefish Bay. He said the algea boom was starting up there. Seems kind of early. I wished I had more solid info. I'm curious to hear how the fishing is up there.

[MUSKY18]

Yes the Angle. We stay at Sportmans on Oak Island and head out from there. Depending upon the fish and the day we go every direction. Having been going up there for the past 16 years, we have a pretty good "milk run" of spots!

Yes, Doug J is a awesome guy. Wanna talk about a sniper with a fishing pole. Puts his bait perfectly where he wants it. Class act all the way around!

[cbrooks]

I thought I read/heard somewhere Doug Johnson fished every shoreline at lake of the woods. He's getting up there in age. i plan to booked a day ot wo with him next year...if he's still guiding that is.

16 years of fishing LOW with people like Pearson. Sorry to get off topic but I got to ask(I'm a newbie to the angle). Whats your biggest fish caught up there? Whats the biggest you have seen?

[tearin' lips]

I haven't personally fished the angle or whitefish, I normally stick to the Sabaskong area. I haven't made the trip this year, but my buddies have. They have been seeing about 14 fish a day and getting a hook in one or two. The biggest I have boated is a 45" there, but we have seen a few piggies. Looking to go there after this heat wave gets over with.

[jsondag]

GOING OFF! Last week my buddy and I landed 26 muskies with 4 in the 50 inch class. Lost another dozen plus. Bycatch included a 31 inch walleye and several Slough sharks up to 40 inches. It was awesome!

[MUSKY18]

I thought I read/heard somewhere Doug Johnson fished every shoreline at lake of the woods. He's getting up there in age. i plan to booked a day ot wo with him next year...if he's still guiding that is.

16 years of fishing LOW with people like Pearson. Sorry to get off topic but I got to ask(I'm a newbie to the angle). Whats your biggest fish caught up there? Whats the biggest you have seen?

The biggest that I have personally boated up there was 49.5", last year over in the Tug. Biggest I have seen is probably in the 53-54" range, on several different occassions. Fishing with Chad Cain two years ago up there and he rasied an absolute GIANT. Biggest fish I have ever seen in my life. Last year we boated 28 musky in a week, with an average size of 42-43.

[crazy cooter]

Me and my brother are heading up to the Angle at the end of July.Staying at Angle Outpost.Usually fish the Sabaskong area.And we were lucky enough to have booked Doug Johnson on the first full day of our trip!

[Scoot]

I'm heading up for the better part of a week this coming Monday. Can't wait to get up there. I've been fishing LOW since I was "knee high to a grasshopper". First time I fished there I was probably five years old and it was the late 70's. I spent most of the Summer for most of my childhood there. God's country...

We take a family trip up to the islands on the Canadian side every year. This will be my son's second year to be able to go- can't wait!

[401TE]

Jerry, got any tips on what was working for you guys? Lures/types of spots? Scoot, please post any current info you have from this week! I'm heading up next week and any help would be appreciated.

[Scoot]

Scoot, please post any current info you have from this week! I'm heading up next week and any help would be appreciated.

Sounds like we'll be up there at the same time-- I don't leave for another week. I'll be up there the last five days of July.

[MUSKY18]

Sounds like we will all be up there pounding the water to a froth at the same time. We are there from the 23rd thru the 30th.

Cooter.....will probably see you on the water when you are fishing with Doug. Fish alot of the same spots/areas that Doug does. He will definately put you on some big fish. Hang on when he starts flying through and between the islands!!! LOL

[Scoot]

And we were lucky enough to have booked Doug Johnson on the first full day of our trip!

Cool- you'll have fun with Doug! He's forgotten more about muskie fishing on LOW than most will ever think about knowing... He's very open and honest, so pick his brain and take notes- he's got extremely valuable nuggets in almost every response.

[401TE]

you boys want to compare notes next week then? i'll be up the 27th thru the 1st. we'll have 3 boats fishing out of our cabins, staying on Flag.

[cbrooks]

I'm jealous of all the people hitting LOW this coming week. Good luck up there and let us know how it went. Musky18 maybe you will break the 50 mark this time

My biggest fish up there is 45-48 maybe(never measure it just a guess).

[Fred_Bear]

Five of my buddies and I fished the angle last week for the first time. With the warming temps we expected to be fishing rocks with big blades and prop topwaters but we had WAAAYYY more action fishing gliders/suicks and side to side topwaters in the weeds. 11 fish in our boat in 4 days ranging from 18" to 50.5" and considering we were all newbies and everyone we talked to said fish weren't going strong yet, we were quite pleased with our results.

[jsondag]

It should pop next week when it starts to cool - Wish I could be there! 401TE, we had most our luck on Phat Daddy's and Spinnerbaits, with some bigger blades after sunset. Rock/weed combos held bigger fish while sandy bays and weedy bays held numbers of smaller fish. Didn't see much on bald rocks. Wind was a serious factor for our success. Fish the "Rules" of musky fishing LOTW, windblown shorelines and points, and current breaks and neckdowns. The classic patterns get it done up there.

[Tim_Anderson]

For those heading up...

Just got back from a few days on LOTW. We boated 22 musky and pike, 36-46 inches. We had one outstanding day, but otherwise we had to work for them. Weeds were dependable, or a weed/rock mix. We didn't see much for fish on the bare rocky points, islands, reefs, etc. Even the rocks that were very close to weeds seemed to be void of muskies. Pike were much more common there.

The fish we caught in the weeds were healthy, broad and fat. They are obviously feeding well, and are there for a reason.

Best fishing was in front of west/southwest/northwest facing sandy bays with the big lush green cabbage patches. Our fish came from the outside edge, or they were tucked into the weed patches that were deepest. Most of our fish came on spinnerbaits, working them slowly through the openings and lanes. The "pump and drop" seemed to trigger them pretty well. We had some really violent strikes by the boat, and you could see the whole thing happen!

For whatever reason, many of the bays that have traditionally shown up with cabbage now have none. Many of these face east/southeast/northeast, but there are still plenty of bays pointing west that have little to no cabbage. I suppose the crawfish are taking their toll. In any event, if you do your scouting for weeds, and maximize your time fishing the best spots, you should have action.

Having said that - we did pull into some bays "scouting" and noticed one small patch of green cabbage and said "what the heck lets try a few casts" and there was a fish there. Sometimes it doesn't take much to hold a fish...

Believe it or not, we caught a number of fish in the "almost weed-choked" marshy, spawning type bays. The ones that were far away from the main lake were not as good, but the ones close to bigger deep water were great. And the big pike were really going in there too. Water temps were 73 to 78. Makes a guy wonder about the theory that big pike like the deep cold water in summer. Yes, they do, but I think good food trumps!

On our best day, we saw 35 and caught 8 I think. Worst day we saw a few and caught zero doing the same thing. Proves LOTW can be fickle as well, just like home.

There is a bloom going on up there. Water is sort of a brown/green and you'll find that some areas are clearer than others. We saw one foot visibility in some areas, and four foot in others. The clearer the better, I think.

For me, the jury is out on the wind. I respect anyones opinion - obviously Jerry and his crew had a good wind-driven bite, but that wasn't the case for us. That probably had more to do with the barometer and their attitude than anything. I think about the poor visibility, and on top of that, all of the turmoil in the water when the waves are crashing. Yes, wave action stirs up the food chain, but to some extent, those fish down there must be on information overload! Doesn't it make sense that with the massive surface disturbance, and all of the turbulence, that they would have a tougher time feeling and finding your bait? In any event, our best fishing WAS NOT in the wind, however, the biggest fish of the trip WAS. We were bouncing around in a 20 mph wind in a weedy neck down area, and I was beginning to wonder what the heck I was trying to do when BAM, this musky shows me that it is capable of absolutely crushing my bait with little to no visibility and two footers. They never cease to amaze me. That was more an isolated case though, that we couldn't seem to duplicate. We definitely did better in calmer water.

Ok, we did catch a few burning small bucktails like showgirls. Got one on a glittertail after sunset. Got a couple on the topraider sunrise and sunset. And one fish on the shallow invader. But overall, the spinnerbait was money. Black/Gold. Brown/Gold. Yellow/Gold. Firetiger. or just all black.

Pike were the best surprise. We had a couple fat 43 inchers, and numerous that were 41, 40, 39 etc. They had the most consistent bite, and we even caught them at night.

I'm going to update my site this afternoon/evening with some photos if you want to catch some highlights.

Best of luck if you're heading up there. No matter what, it's always a blast.

Tim

[cbrooks]

Excellent report Tim. Sounds like you caught some trophy pike.

[MUSKY18]

Nice report Tim........It is almost the complete opposite of mine!

We boated 24 Musky and numerous other pike over 37". I would say that 90% of our fish action came off of plain rock structure. Depending upon the day, it would be either the windy side of the structure or calm side, but rocks is where it was at for us. Biggest fish of the trip was a 50.75" that was caught the first night we got there. Blades were about average on the numbers of fish following and hitting, but the stick baits were HOTT! Suicks, Bobbies and Burts were moving and catching the majority of the fish. We fished up around Skeet Island and I had a Walleye colored Burt that was bringing fish to the boat like crazy. I moved two musky that were well into the upper 40" range, landed a 40" pike, then bounced it off a rock and cracked it. No more Burt.

The fish that we moved off of weeds, weed/rocks combinations seemed to be mostly smaller fish in that 36-40" range.

Water was pretty dirty in some areas like Tim said, but other areas were really clear. The water around Skeet was the best for us. SPent some time finding new spots and while not all of them produced fish, I know they hold fish and will hit them again next year.

[cbrooks]

Any recent reports. I imagine the algea bloom is in full swing. I'll be up there this weekend.

[MuskyBrian]

I thought it was a little slower last week as opposed to my trip the first week of July, definitely saw less fish but I saw bigger fish last week so that was th trade off...

There were a few days of big winds last week and a few days of annoying in and out storms, rocks were more consistent in terms of fish contacts but the big girls clearly were showing themselves more in weeds although they'd be there one hour and gone the rest of the day in weeds...I got 8 fish alone up to 49.5, a "slow" week on the woods is still better then just about anywhere else...and only speaking from my boat, double 8's have clearly outfished cowgirls both trips, food for thought

[cbrooks]

, a "slow" week on the woods is still better then just about anywhere else...

Your darn rights there. I'm going with a friend who has a place up there so he has his spots...fortunate for me. I'll post a report when I get back thanks for the post Brian. I'll keep the double eights in mind instead of the tens.