Anyone Catching Them Yet

[Fisherman45]

Was up in N Pine county and found decent fish in emerging pads and pencil reeds with square bills and small swim baits. Water was 48-50.

 

 

[Lals]

I will do my first bass fishing in MN this weekend.  I am looking forward to it for sure.  Water Temps have been in the low 60s in Ottertail County.   Many should be thinking about or are spawning.  I heard that 64 degrees is the magic number for the full blown spawn.  I would prefer them being in more of post spawn mode.  I will let you know how things go.  I will be fishing for a few days in Ottertail County starting Sunday afternoon.

[Lals]

Came back from Ottertail County on Wednesday last week... pretty good trip overall.  Lot's of fish but just 6 over 4lbs with 1 over 5lb.  We fished up there for 3 days.  Water temps were in the high 50s mostly.  Most fish we caught were  pre-spawn but certainly wanting to spawn.  Chatterbait, Swimbaits/swimjigs and flukes worked the best.  Seem like we spent most of our time catching males.  It was a late spring for sure.  I not a big fan of fishing the spawn.... We saw some beds but no females.  I prefer fishing post spawn period.

[Duffman]

Fished a south metro lake on fishing opener, was far from alone in doing so. I only had a couple hours before I had to return for a early mother's day celebration. One bass on a jerkbait....17"?

 

Fished another couple metro lakes the following week, one lake was a bust, so moved to the next. Caught some fish on rubber worms, seemed to be awfully shallow, when I checked why, there were some males on shallow beds. Can't see them from the canoe unless I'm right on top of them. Figured I would give them a break until post spawn.

 

Fished from the boat up north on Memorial weekend. 50-52 degree water, so everybody was in pre spawn mode. Caught a dozen Largey's on senko's fishing an emerging bullrush line next to deeper water. No size to any of them. Switched to the cabin lake the following day and caught a few on spinnerbaits, largest was 18".

 

Going to try the metro again today after work, I see that the cottonwood is waiting for me (Grrrr). I'm hoping the bass are in post spawn locations by now.

[Duffman]

Been a slow summer for.me, starting to get into some fish, but I went 1 for 4 this week. Why yes, I did salmon fish a couple weeks ago.

Anyway,  hooked up with the first fish, seen he was gonna jump, went for the stick the rod tip down in the water trick and dislodged the lure.......decent surface swirl for my effort.

 

Second was gonna jump, let 'em..........tossed the lure.......4lb range. *shakes head*

 

Then I landed a 20"er, big shoulders, but mid summer skinny, probably crack 5 lbs in Sept.

Biggest fish since a 4.4 lb fish in June.

 

I'm hoping it picks up in the next three months.

I'm not the only one out there, that I know from the competition I see, gotta be one of you willing to put forth a report?

 

 

[Wanderer]

The Miss in my area has been junk all year overall.  When people get on fish it’s been a “spot” thing rather than a pattern.  I’m hoping the next couple months will be salvageable.

 

I’ve just done some small lake pan fishing aside from my muskie trip to Canada in June.  The panfish have been going really well.  I’ve learned to get away from my typical mini tubes and fish micro Rapalas for better success on larger crappies and gills.  

 

The summers just seem to get busier or shorter.  We’ll have friends at our place this weekend so maybe a little barge fishing off the toon.  I don’t expect anything too serious until I hit Ely later this month.

 

Sad thing is (for fishing anyway), my mind has been on duck hunting most of the summer.  New gun for this fall busted the sporting clays up pretty good last weekend.  Got a pintail to grass out yet and just got an invitation to Washington State over the winter for sea ducks.  Really looking forward to that one.

 

Just gotta slam a few good smallies and I’ll be fine.

[Duffman]

Finally, had a decent day.......or shall I say hour.

Last week was a bust, one 3ish fish in 4 hours.

I target bigger fish, so just avoiding the skunk can be challenging some days.

 

Just let out the hound and had a smirk appear on my face, I see It's full moon out there.

That always helps.

Got out on the water at 3:00 today, missed 3 out of 4 bites right away.

 

Changed up my retrieval speed and cadence and it was on..........for a few minutes.

All my action occurred within the first hour of my four hour stint.

 

4 cookie cutter bass.......

3.87 lb

3.94 lb

4.12 lb

4.16 lb

 

Spot on spot, the two 4's were back to back.

I'm running cranks.

 

Good luck out there.

The Fattening is coming up soon.

 

 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Duffman
Fattening deserves a big F.

[Wanderer]

Nice bag of fish there Duff!

 

I was out for about an hour and a half last night and managed 9 bites; 4 bass and 5 pike.  Only 1 bass and 2 pike made it to the boat though.  Horrible conversion rate.

 

The bite is still on reaction baits for me.  Buzz bait, spinner bait, rattle bait, jerk bait.  Nothing on plastic which is usually my go to.  It’s been weird with all the short bites lately.  I’ve had very few fish that have crushed the bait.  Earlier I figured it was a food thing - they were just too well fed.  I’m hoping that’s still the case cuz those bass have DEEP bodies on ‘em.  I’m starting to wonder though if the pressure is getting to them.  We’ve had a noticeable uptick of new fisher people in the area.

 

The side action: Had a couple turkeys glide by and up to their roost next to me about 10 minutes after watching a nice 10 pointer stand up out his bed.  Yawn, stretch, [PoorWordUsage] and watch me fish for bit before wandering off to feed.  Bad photo but better n nuthin.

 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Wanderer

[Duffman]

For this episode of the Duffman & Wanderer bass show I present to you the third week of August.

 

Wed is my usual day to get out. I figure it's before the Thurs night leagues and gives some space from the weekend warriors. Wife had a work party at our house, bonus water time for me. Too bad it was on one of "those" days. Sloooow. Talked to a regular, he agreed it was slow and chimed in "Two days ago though"

Argh, that's all I needed to hear after only catching 3 bass in 5 hours. One went 4lbs, a 2ish, and a sub pounder........those little fish aren't usually where I'm fishing.

 

Gave it another go today...........short biters for me all week. Dealing with some pea green soup water, today was already clearer than Wed. That 4 was blind in one eye, seemed to be a lateral line strike. Maybe that's why they are short?

 

Had some action today at least, a smaller class of fish,  2.5 - 3 lb range. A half dozen, missed a couple, had two pop off, seen one.......20" class fish. Did the usual #@&%$,!, and casted again.

I think I need to sharpen some hooks. 

Still cranking, although I jig n pigged today for a tad......I never jig n pig.

Forcing myself to try other things.

 

It's always interesting observing fellow fishermen. There's pressure everywhere these days. You recognize folks that look like they know what they are doing, and others that don't have a clue.

I think I seen a 12" screen on a kayak this week!. I watch what people are using on a spot, and once they move on, I have no problem moving in. Fishing seems cyclical, some years are better than other's. That's fishing, hope you are out on the days when the "HOT" bite is going down. 

 

Tune in next week for another episode.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Duffman

[Lals]

Good to read the reports.  I will be coming back to Minnesota to fish mostly for Bass in early October for 3-4 days.   Last year was kind of weird during the same time.  Water temps were around 54 degrees.  Fish seemed to be scattered deep and shallow.  Only a few2 over 4lbs.  Hopefully, we will do better this year.  Here is my thinking on setups

 

2 rods with jigs... One with Fluoro and the other braid

1 Rod with a T-Rig Brush Hog

1 Rod with a Cutter worm

1 Rod for Spinnerbait/Chatterbait

1 Rod for Squarebill/Rattle Trap

 

2 Spinning Rods -- Wacky Rig and Drop Shot

 

Other considerations will be Flukes for sure and maybe a Carolina Rig.

 

 

[Duffman]

The weather has been so unstable and cruddy the last couple of weeks. Didn't even get out this week, but spent last week up in Itasca County.

Fished three different lakes, didn't hit it too hard, mainly because of the weather.

Wasn't having any luck at the usual spots using the usual tactics. 

 

Found a nice Spro frog that a shore fisherman must have snagged on a log about a month ago. Never really have frogged much, but I do love top water fishing. Figured nothing else was going.......let's give it a go. Holy smokes is that ever a frustrating way to fish. I was getting some hook ups in the bullrushes,  but actually getting them to the boat was a whole nother deal. No break offs, but they would get off. But I did land enough to keep at it. Lost one big girl, but most fish were in the 2-3 lb range.

 

It just hasn't been my year, we went camping later in the week and the Mrs came out with me one evening where we set up on a deep water point. She outfished me 4-0, my fish got off, hers didn't. I went back the next night in the rain by myself and only had one hook up, seen it..........nice fish........then it came unbuttoned. So I tip my hat to her 19.5" smallie for being the largest bass of the week.

 

 

 

[chaffmj]

Nice Fish Mrs. Duff! Here are a couple of Bass from last week on Basswood. I did post these on FM so I am sorry for those of you that had to look at them twice. 

 

 

 

[Wanderer]

Yah Mike, it’s REALLY hard to look at great fish pics more than once... 

 

I think I’m really close to being done with open water this season.  Hard to say that but I’ve got hunting in the head pretty good.  The river weeds are blowing out right now.  Lots of heavy mats that I hate fishing in.  Going out for deer in the morning; ducks next weekend.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Wanderer

[Duffman]

Ha! You can't fool me, that top one is a fat eelpout. *chuckle*

 

Look at how thick those two are.

That chunky back on the bottom one......nice!

 

 

[chaffmj]

On 9/13/2019 at 8:58 PM, Wanderer said:

Yah Mike, it’s REALLY hard to look at great fish pics more than once... 

 

I think I’m really close to being done with open water this season.  Hard to say that but I’ve got hunting in the head pretty good.  The river weeds are blowing out right now.  Lots of heavy mats that I hate fishing in.  Going out for deer in the morning; ducks next weekend.

 

Good luck with the hunting Tracy.  

[chaffmj]

Went out to Basswood today and the smallies were still biting, The walleyes were very spotty but the crappies and bluegills cooperated. Here are a couple of pics of some of the bass we caught.