July Morson reports

[Wild Thing]

Anyone been up in the past 10 days?

We're heading up Thursday for a few.

start talking!!!

[Tolens]

REEFS

19 feet of water.... minnows , not ever reef is a winner but when you find a sweet one WOW!!!

Musky are active , Hope to rise a few this afternoon

Here's some fish we got on Monday

[Tolens]

Cheers

Rob

[Eastwind]

Driving up Tuesday the 10th. On the water and golf course the 11th thru 13th.

Plan to check lots of reefs.

[Wild Thing]

Golf course?!!! East Wind, that's blasphemy!

Lots of boats out Friday and Saturday, among the most I've ever seen. Most reefs had a couple boats. Almost like Minnesota!

Tolens was dead on in is post. Some of my best July reefs were flat out dead... but a couple held a ton of fish. Still nothing big this year (my neighbor up there got a 30" this morning so I know they are out there!) but tons of 16-19 inch fish.

Why they were on top of all reefs on June 9 but not on July 9 is beyond me. Hope they come on back up because it has been good, but the usual mid-July CRAZY good.

Once again my daughters outfished me.

16-19 feet deep off the sides. Crawlers, of course.

75 degree water.

algae bloom already starting a bit.

BLUEBERRIES are getting ripe, my wife was so busy picking she never even fished!

Back up July 20-29. Hoping for sunny, hot, flat calm days every day. Maybe that will bring them up on the tops!

Take care all!

[Eastwind]

Golf course, yes I know, blasphemous. This is my anual "Family" vacation up there with my wife. She likes to fish but does not want to be in the boat 8 hours or more per day, as the fishing buddies and I do. We've "Compromised" and added golf and just plain hangin' out to maintain her interest in joining me on one Morson trip per year. I know that "Compromise" can be a dirty word to us guys but, it boils down to one more trip yearly for me.

[Shorelunch]

Was up Thursday - Sunday. We bass/muskie fished with the kids Thursday (was windy). Caught a few bass and a small musky up in Burrows Bay. Kids (and I) had a blast.

On Friday, fished reefs west of Manitou and south of Sunset with varied success like mentioned above. We trolled spinners to locate fish and sat on a few schools with jigs and minnows. Largest was a 25". Caught walleyes in 15-25 feet. Also found a huge school of jumbo perch. Live minnows and plastic leeches out caught night crawlers for walleyes by 5-1 in our group.

Saturday headed to the reefs east of Dawson channel. There were probably 2-4 boats on every primary and secondary spot I wanted to fish Saturday morning. Never seen that many boats out there. So I looked around on my GPS map chip and tried a "new spot" and did fantastic. Trolled spinners to learn the spot and caught walleyes in 15-24 feet, with many nice eaters and a 24" as the largest. Again, minnow and leeches out fished crawlers for us. Also took the boys bass and muskie fishing by Dawson channel. Caught a couple bass and had a smaller muskie or northern miss a top water.

Bass and muskie fished Sunday morning before heading home. Caught a couple of bass and a northern back up at Burrows. Back up in a couple weeks.

[Wild Thing]

"Live minnows and plastic leeches out caught night crawlers for walleyes by 5-1 in our group."

Shorelunch, that's amazing because we had boats near us jigging with minnows who literally never boated a fish. And we were slamming them on crawlers.

Very odd. I guess every situation is different.

Also heard a lot of marine band radio chatter of folks not catching any fish for hours on end. I'm amazed when i hear that.

I know the Canada Day - 4th week is often the busiest of the year, but would be interesting to know why it was so crowded.

Had a couple jerks hone io my reefs, block my drfit and throw out markers... jerks who only know two reefs and fish there no matter who is there before them.

[Eastwind]

Hopefully, the "Boat Chasers" are gone by Wednesday. Driving up tomorrow and on the water Wed thru Sat. Always fun! Love to chase around trying new reefs.

Walleyes in the morning, smallies in the evening.Don't get no better than that!

Will post when we return.

[Shorelunch]

"Live minnows and plastic leeches out caught night crawlers for walleyes by 5-1 in our group."

Shorelunch, that's amazing because we had boats near us jigging with minnows who literally never boated a fish. And we were slamming them on crawlers.

Very odd. I guess every situation is different.

Yeah, I was surprised, too. Trolling spinners - all three lines had hammered gold spinners, but the live minnows and plastic "Impulse" leech hands down out fished crawlers. Usually not the case, obviously. Also caught walleyes and perch on jig and minnows, with jig and crawlers catching perch. This was the case at a few different reefs at somewhat different locations (i.e. Ball park and out by Dawson Channel).

WT, were jigging crawlers or trolling w/spinners?

[Scoot]

Great reports, fellas! I'm headed up there in two weeks- can't wait!

[Wild Thing]

Shore - strictly spinners and crawlers, almost all hammered gold. 1 chartreuse because my 6 year old thinks it's pretty, but she also catches fish on it!

That's all we ever run when they are on the reefs, until fall.

We're mostly out west by Dawson.

See ya on the water!

[Shorelunch]

Here's a few photos from over the 4th. Smallie is my son's first; walleye is a fat 25".

[Eastwind]

Great pics Shorelunch! My wife and I just got back from LOW after three days of fishing. We didn't get large numbers of fish but got our fair share of good eaters with a few larger ones thrown in. My wife got her personal best, up to date, a nice chunky 27.5" 'eye. Between us we also landed a fair number of them over 20". Winds were very nice to us so traveling was easy on the boat and body. Now I've got to wait until October to get back out on my favorite lake.

[Tolens]

Nice pics shorelunch ... fished 21 to 23 fow had plenty of eaters , minnows and a jig .. seen less boats on the water today july 15 .. heard of some over 50 inch muskies being caught in the last week .. looks like it will cool down in temps the next couple of days then back to the high 80's by the weekend

Have a good one

Rob

[dmoore]

Just got back from 10 days at our trailer at Mylie's. Good fishing, not great. Had to work harder for them. Many of our usual spots were not producing. Fished a big reef to the West and did very well dragging bouncers, spinners and crawlers. Fish were off the reef in 20-25 FOW. Worked shorelines East of Morson and got our bigger fish there. Also spent some time in Miles and caught a lot of fish around the islands and NE corner.Had to do a lot of sorting to keep the ones we wanted. Many of our friends fishing with jigs didn't do very well. Seems the fish were scattered. Some nice muskies caught out of our camp. I didn't have enough time to try for them. Back in two weeks.

[Wild Thing]

Rock Bass.

Just got back from 9 wonderful days at Morson. Did just about everything one does on vacation at the lake with kids!

Fishing was hit and miss. But it's pretty clear the walleyes have mostly left the shallow water basin reefs.

We caught fish up to 27.5 on the reefs but REALLY had to work for them some days. A few here, a few there and some usually incredible July reefs actually SKUNKED US! First time ever for that. Had some great hours here and there (with multiple fish over 24) but no great 3-4 hour period like we usually have in July at this time.

We had by far better fishing a month ago in June, more fish per hour caught.

Water temps ranged from 75 degrees on the morning after a rain to 80 degrees on a sunny afternoon.

In my opinion whatever the walleyes feed on the reefs have left and so have most of the walleyes. So the rock bass moved in the walleyes absence. We caught as many or more rock bass as walleyes on some reefs. I have NEVER seen so many rock bass.

Anyone going up, good luck but think MID TO LATE AUGUST for patterns. Everything continues to be a month ahead of schedule.

Anyhow, lots of fish fries and campfire weenie roasts and swimming and fun and brought some fish home and kayaked and tubed and swam and peddle boated and had a blast. Great weather. Fished every day (No 3-day blows out of the northwest!)

Take care all!

[Shorelunch]

Spent the weekend up at the cabin. Went to some nearby reefs and small islands by Manitou Friday night. Caught some walleyes on jigs and minnows - and a couple northerns, smallies and perch.

Went out to the reefs by Dawson Channel Saturday morning (beautiful day) and did very well numbers-wise. Trolled spinners with live minnows, crawlers and also plastic leeches, but my mom's yellow Twister Tail (grub) out produced everything. Fished in 15-23 feet and caught probably 40+ fish between two spots. Nothing over 20 inches, with most being 15-17 inches. Went into Burrows Bay muskie and bass fishing in the afternoon. Caught a few northerns and bass - boys had a good time.

Sunday morning the wind was blowing pretty hard out of the west, so we went up to the area north of Sunset channel. We caught a lot of small eyes with a few decent sized fish in between. Fished points and a few reefs. Our neighbor also went up that area Sunday morning and did really well (not sure on structure).

Back up in a couple weeks.

[jerkin'm]

Thanks for the reports guys, will be in the area for a week starting Sunday..Will try and put the info to good use...