jemstone90

The Minnesota Bound Crappie contest for Minnetonka has been moved from May 5th to May 19th if that tells you anything!

Pro Logcatcher has a pretty sweet boat but mine is better for trolling

I have been using braided lines almost exclusively after I lost my 7th or 8th BIG fish using 17lbs mono. 80lbs Power Pro is the same diameter as 17lbs mono and cuts threw the weeds better and isn't bitten threw nearly as easy. It has NO memory, casts further and smoother and doesn't kink up in ringlets when you pull 10' of it off your reel. The Power Pro Super8 is even better for casting, and from my experience the Nano-fil will out cast them all but only comes up to 17lbs test from what I have seen. Another advantage is being able to buy different colors so you can tell what pound test you have on what rod. You know an obsessive compulsive fisherman when you see he has 8 rods in the boat and a few hundred dollars worth of fishing line in a bag just in case.

Gary Yamamoto Chikara Crankbaits long or short bill both work well and have a good compacted active wobble and produce almost as many fish as Fat Heads.

I spend about $20 a week on live bait. Fat Heads and Sucker minnows are my bait of choice, Having found a pawn shop and a Salvation Army that have been liquidating bait shops for years in Minnesota, and sell new rods and reals for next to nothing. I have $1500.00 of UN-opened tackle that makes Dicks Sporting Goods happy but their $2.99 long billed Gary Yamamoto Chikara Crankbaits have caught me more fish than anything else except live bait.

Gary Yamamoto Chikara Crankbait Sexy Shad https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/gary-yamamoto-chikara-crankbait-15gyaucrnkchkr200lur/15gyaucrnkchkr200lur?

Power Pro Slick8 and Nanofil are the two best lines I have ever used. They will outcast ANYTHING I know of and I have been told the Nanofil will out cast the Slick8, and I believe that may be true. I bought some cheap braided, and I found out why it was so cheap. I use it for hanging flower pots from my deck because it is like fishing with rope. Good braided will cut threw most of the weeds and comes in high visibility colors, like yellow, and white. Around sun set or early morning us old farts have a hard time seeing the Moss Green to tie knots.

Like a lot of you I have hundreds of dollars in tackle that is still in it's original package, and I spend a lot of time in sporting goods stores looking for something else I don't have. I catch more Bass on Fat Head and Sucker minnows than anything else except maybe leeches! In Lake Minnetonka if you throw out a Fat Head on a hook with a bobber and don't get some action in about 30 seconds reel it in and cast again. If you don't have fish in the boat in about 15 minutes, its time to move to another spot.

You can never have enough Rods, Reels, or Tackle.

Living in an apartment on Lake Minnetonka that has docks on the lake, one of my neighbors was fishing out back and had a game warden come up to the dock in a boat and issue him a fine for about $145.00 for fishing without a license. It's a lot cheaper to fork out the $23.00 up front, and not have to worry about the water patrol or game wardens. About 50% of the fee goes to the DNR’s fisheries section which has a yearly operating budget of about $35 million. Just do your part and buy a license!

I have been wearing long sleeved white or light colored shirts for years. I have at least a dozen of them that are just for fishing. Some are heavy and some or very thin or linen, depending how warm it is in Minnesota when I go fishing. When I went out on March 28th, the day out after the official Ice Out on Minnetonka the high was 65 degrees. I pick most of them up at garage sales, thrift stores, Salvation Army or Goodwill, and never spend more than $3 on them. When I get a hook stuck in one, tear on or get one stained, its not painful to throw it away and grab another one.

3 years (Spring of 2014) ago I bought a 15'-8" 1978 Glastron with an 1978 85HP Johnson Javelin outboard (with Trim & Tilt) and a Shorelander trailer. The whole thing was cheap ($700) but appeared to be in good shape. The motor started right up, the floor was solid and the trailer had forever plates. I took the time to change the oil in the lower unit and I bought a Minn Kota trolling motor and spare deep cycle battery as a backup to prevent me from getting stranded in the middle of the lake. For 3 seasons I have used it 2-5 times a week and it has never failed. I did replace the main battery (575 cca) with a new Duel Purpose 700cca battery, and the solenoid on the lift motor. After the first year I took the time to replace the impeller on the water pump and bought $10 dollars worth of Walmart black and white paint for the trailer. I have been boating for 3 years for less than $1000.00. I don't impress the rich people around the lake but I get many comments about the great shape my classic boat is in.

I have a bottle of fish attractant in one of my tackle boxes. I am sure I used it right after I bought it, but if I felt I had better luck using it I would be on my second or third bottle by now. I use a lot of Berkley Gulp which comes in a stinky juice that seems to work well for me. I do soak some of my lures in the Gulp juice and like I said, It works well for me. The Chartreuse grubs, mullets and worms have been killer for Bass, Northern, and pan fish although the 3 inch Gulp minnows like in the photo below work well too on Lake Minnetonka, MN.

Lake Minnetonka, a 14,000 acre lake just outside of the Twin Cities Metro has a lot of Large Mouth and on a typical outing most of the season, the fish will run 1-4 pounds. The biggest Bass I picked up was the one on my Avatar, it ran about 5lbs. I am using an ultra light or light action rod with 10-15 lb braided and usually a steel leader. I picked up 1 little Bass (see photo) and there is another Large Mouth Bass swimming around with my 1/16 ounce jig and a small Chartreuse Gulp grub, because I used the 10 lb mono that came on a brand new reel I was trying out for the first time, fishing for Crappie off the dock out back. The water was low and when I pulled the fish up by the line, it broke. I changed the line to a 20lb Braided Fireline before I did any more fishing.