Small Mouth Report

[Mr. Pike1]

Greeting from the lake Vermillion. The report from day two is:

Well, first and foremost day two on the V was picture perfect. There were Eagles, hawks, turkey voltures, and a piliated woodpecker. We also a little chip munk on the deck that eats peanuts from your hand.

Anyway the report. The presentation was:

- Senko, I used Rootbeer and cinn with green sparkle

- Tube, watermellon with pepper

- Mepps number 3 spinner, Gold

- Blade bait

- Number 5 joined shad rap. Looks like crawfish with red under belly.

- Misc Jerk baits

The bite is now very very good for the smallies. The key is location. I recommend fishing only shady area of rocks, docks, or other shaded structure, The first cast of the morning was the joined shad and fish on right away. It was early and the fish won the battle and was lost at the side of the boat.

I got 20 plus fish for the 3 hour I was out. 90% came on the tubes and senko's, which makes sense as I was fishing with them 90% of the time.

I would gues 70% of the fish were 15 and 16 ers but 30% were the 17-19 inch fish. I had one pig hit me in the shallows and took me deep and dragged me a bit. I got this one right by the boat and it spit the senko right back in my face.

Anyway the good news is the smallie bite is back to what I am used to. The stable weather and the mayfly hatch being over appears to have improved the bite.

I will be back out in the AM and report

[Ray Esboldt]

I'm jealous. Have fun up there. Thanks for the report.

[Mr. Pike1]

Greetings again from Vermillion. The day three report is:

It was another picture pefect morning with low winds and the smallies with there feed bags on. I did a 7-noon run today. Today I went over the 30 fish mark. Size was 16-18 and I would guess I missed close to 10 fish today. A few twisted me around the docks and a couple spit me at the boat and to my horror a few were clean misses right at the point of the bite.

Today 95% of the fish were on senko's as I fished the senko 95% of the time. I dont know that color matters with the senko but for the record I used smoke rootbeer green/copper flake (my alltime favorite), cinn with greeen and black flake and cinn with red blue flake.

Today I also caught a bonus musky on the senko. It was small and under 5 lbs. Later in the morning I was bringing my senko in and right by the side of the boat a monster musky took a couple of swips at my senko. The intial splash and stike at my bait almost gave me a heart attack. This one was more in the 45-50 inch class.

Soon I may need to actually begin to target musky as over the years I have had multiple run ins with big skies while fishing bass. To be honest I was shaking for 5 minutes after the fish struck at my bait. So for musky guys I would recommend large plastic biats fished slow in the shady areas of the bays.

One final bonus was again the scenery. In one bay there was a clearing and a bunch of deer.

Oh and Deitz I have now surpassed the 200 bass mark for the season. However, I do not think I will hit the 1000 bass mark you have set as a goal. I will however easily surpass the 1000 fish mark. I have a few more days up here and hope to push the 300 mark it the weather and the pattern hold on. Oh it will also help if I can eliminate missing 10 fish per trip...Ouch

[Deitz Dittrich]

Congrats dude... great report.. I highly doubt I will hit the 1000 bass mark either.. fishing has been tough for numbers...

Got to love them smallies... what an awesome lake

total count as of today....247

[Mr. Pike1]

Deitz, I am at 231 as I had to back out the musky, some pike, and rockbass that I had clicked in after the catch. I got trigger happy.

I am going to go out Thursday and Friday morning for the to 5 hour runs and then the rest of each day is really family time. So if the weather holds I will get out for a total of 10 more hours. I would have to do 7 fish per hour to hit the 300 mark. That is doable, however with my recent miss rate of 2 fish per hour, rapping around docks and getting cut off, getting stuck in rocks etc, I am experiencing more down time then I should.

I will bring out the same rigs as I have previously as I am covering a lot of my basis. I will add a perch shad or floating rap just as a test bait. I would guess 95 percent of the time I will be using the senkos and tubes.

Man the one that spit me out at the boat was 20 plus and shaped like a football. I would have liked to get him/her on board for an official measure. I was hoping for a 22 er to top of the trip.

My wife has the biggest of the dock at 19.5 with a bobber and worm.

One pattern I have found is the fish are still in small groups. Where you get one you usually can pick up 2 or 3 more. I also have found that the size seems to be the same in each group. So when I get an 18 or 19 it is usually followed by another.

* Make that 237. I went down to the dock and got 6 smallies. 2 18" 2 16" and a pair of 15". I also got about 15 rock bass with a couple real close to the state record mark of 2lbs

[Deitz Dittrich]

cant wait for the report!!! I usually make a trip up there every spring.. and have not the past 2... you make me feel like I am there in some way!...

[Mr. Pike1]

Deitz, Make that 237. I went down to the dock and got 6 smallies. 2 18" 2 16" and a pair of 15". I also got about 15 rock bass with a couple real close to the state record mark of 2lbs. All on my panfish pole with 4lb test line bobber and worm...Great fun !!!!

My inlaws have a cabin on Echo point so I have been fishing hte lake now for 4 years. MT net from the Vermillion forum has a cabin right across the bay. We have come up here every year the 2nd week of July as our wedding anversary is July 12th.

I have found a few walleye spots as well and as I have posted many run ins with Musky. But when the smallie bite is this good I can not pull myself away to chase the eyes.

Last year I put a post in for when I was kyaking. A musky hit my paddle and almost capsized me. I was in a calm bay at dusk and the lake was like glass. I heard the splash, looked to my right and saw the musky attacking my ore. That was really freaky as in the Kyak you are very low to the water and I felt like I was eye to eye with the beast...

[dan2957]

Hit the 200 bass mark tonight. 48 bass trips so far this year with a 4.17 fish caught per trip average, I call it F.C.P.T.A. haha. The 600 fish mark is still reachable.... I think.

[Mr. Pike1]

Dan, good to hear you have got the 200 mark as well.

Todays report.

Another picture perfect day. I saw my first wild black minks

I was only out for four hours. Primarily using senkos. I got 20 bass nothing over 18 and again missed many that twisted me on the dock polls.

The big story though is as follows:

As some of you may know I primarily target smallmouth when fishing Vermillion. I have also over time documented many run ins with Musky. From hitting my paddle while kyaking, attaching my senko's while fishing docks, and yesterday one splashed at the side of my boat and almost gave me a heart attack when I was lifting my bait.

Today I was chasing smallmouths in the shallow bays and the water was crystal clear. I was fishing a dock and a monster musky slowly swam from the dock to the sandy shallows. I decided it was time. I slowly dug out my musky pole and tossed a bucktail right at him and on tht one and only cast if was fish on !!!! The fight lasted 15 minutes or so. Once I had him beside the boat I realized one key thing. My net that I use for walleye was of little help. I tried but all that really fit was his head. He was tired out so I tried getting my hand under his gill to lift but he took a snap and I decided this was not a good idea. I then tried to lift by the tail. This was another bad,bad idea as he took off and I almost fell in and lost my pole. I tried to wave a couple of boats over so they could help and do a quick photo but they thought I was simply waving and forged ahead.

I measured the best I could with the fish at the side of my boat and it was 50" without the tail pinch. I had not brought my tackle box so no camera to at least take pictures of by the side of the boat.

Anyway I got the lure lose and let the monster swim free. This is now offially my biggest fish to date and will be great memory from this years vacation.

[Andrew Erickson]

wow thats awesome way to go!

[Flipnripem]

This fish was not caught by me and I am waiting for confirmation with a picture with the tape on her. 25 inches If I`m close that fish is around 9 lbs. C/R. I`ll let you all know.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Very Sweet!!!!!!Bummer on not getting a pict!

[Mr. Pike1]

My wife was waiting at the dock with a camera and I thought about dragging the fish back but was quite a ways away from home base and this would have surely done more harm to the fish then good. I am a catch release guy by nature so I did what I thought best for Mr. Musky. Maybe we will hook again one day in the future when he is 55 or 60" !!!

Anyway going forward I am going to keep a camera on the boat just in case. 99% of the time I at least have my cell phone which I can take a quick picture. Being up in the great Northwoods I vowed no cell and went with a handheld on the water.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Thats an great story. Congrats on doing what was best for the fish. When I read the story I laughed when I read you tried to get him in your walleye net. Not to be mean, just a funny mental image.

All this talk about bass counts made me want to tally mine. Ive been keeping track of the fish Ive caught this year and so far Ive got 60 bass over 12" in 14 trips (4.3 avg). It could be higher if I wasnt trying to multitask between muskies and bass. Though, for muskies Im averaging a quarter of a fish per a trip

[Fishin4Life]

Quote:

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Thats an great story. Congrats on doing what was best for the fish. When I read the story I laughed when I read you tried to get him in your walleye net. Not to be mean, just a funny mental image.

All this talk about bass counts made me want to tally mine. Ive been keeping track of the fish Ive caught this year and so far Ive got 60 bass over 12" in 14 trips (4.3 avg). It could be higher if I wasnt trying to multitask between muskies and bass. Though, for muskies Im averaging a quarter of a fish per a trip

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I always wondered what a 1/4 of a fish looked like to catch, must be a sight. LOL

[Mr. Pike1]

Turnupthefishing, I am sure if anyone from there cabin or shore was watching they were having a great laugh. The sad part is that you would think after the first time of having the fish head for the most part in the net I would have realized this was not going to work. However, I tried this on 3 occassions all with the same result. You can's fit a 50" fish in a 10" deep rubber net.

The worst was the tail grab. I had the front livewell filled with water and and was dead set on putting this beast in the livewell (which by the way after measuring tonight is only 44 inches across) to have a photo done on the dock at the cabin. I don't know what the heck I was thinking in the first place as the fish simply would not have fit. But I was running on adreniline and I was not thinking logically.

I set my pole down with a bit of slack, some waves were hitting me from the backside making it less that a sturdy position. I reached down to the tail with both hands and got a good grip. All seemed well until I tried to lift the fish. First off he was heavy as heck and second and most important he did not agree with my plan. He took a quick dart and I almost fell in. I gained my composer and quickly grabbed my rod before he took of with that.

So my heart was already pounding from the experience of catching the fish and then I had a second rush of adreneline as I almost took a dip next to a toothy critter.

So after this I think what if I slowly pull the beast back with me to the cabin. I actually started my motor to move forward with this ridiculus idea and then killed the motor and thought my god face the facts and let him go.

Well great idea except I did not have my tackle box and the old treble hook was wedged nicely in his huge jaws. I have 50 lb line and a 60lb fireline leader so simply breaking the line was not an option. Thankfully I did have a needle nose in my little tool box and worked the hooks free.

Tonight I am feeling the after effects of the tail grab move. I have a bad back to begin with and the that move combined with whatever crazy spin move I did to not fall in and somehow manage to grab my pole have me in some serious back pain

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Quote:

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I always wondered what a 1/4 of a fish looked like to catch, must be a sight. LOL

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Ill tell you this, they dont fight very good. Like pulling in 'dead weight'

[ocf]

I was fishin off the dock this mornin and a stupid pike chased all of my fish away so i made 4 casts and hes on the fish are just comin back now, i caught the fattest bass i have ever seen this mornin when trollin for walleyes it was really fat for only 16 inches

[buzzin for bass]

Great Story Mr. Pike. I sometimes find it amazing how little can be going through my head either during or right after catching nice fish. The last good pike I caught slice and diced my hand and my fishing partner's hand. We both got way too excited about that fish. Even though there were two of us, a camera, and the proper net we ended up with zero photos and two cut hands.

Congratulations on the gigantic fish, now I've only got 10 inches to go to catch up, so far I've only got one muskie at 40".

[rangerforme]

Where is Echo Point at on Lake Vermillion?

[Mr. Pike1]

Rangerforme, it is on the East side. Not to far from the casino.