Another Weekend of Short Hours

[WIGuide]

Unfortunately for the second weekend in a row, my time on the water was limited. I did manage to get out all 3 days, but not nearly as long as I wanted to. From here on out, my Friday fishing will be even more limited as the Jr. High basketball season has started up so I'll only have a few hours after work to fish. This past Friday, I got out with a friend though that I haven't fished with in a long while. We ended up boating a few small northerns in our limited time, but it was good to get together and catch up again. Water temps on that particular lake were in the 50-52* range. We had plenty of bites, but couldn't capitalize on them.

Saturday my dad and I were planning on having another bass battle. Unfortunately the TM repair shop hadn't sent out his replacement cables yet, so he left early Saturday morning to pick them up in hopes of a quick repair and to have enough time to get to our next scheduled lake and fish. Unfortunately it took longer than anticipated and I headed out to at least get a few hours of fishing in. The lake I chose to fish Saturday had considerably warmer water, with temps being between 58-60*. It was similar to the previous weekend where the fish are still confused as to where they should be. In my few hours on the water I caught 3 and lost 3 with the biggest being just over 18 1/2". I did manage to break in my new St. Croix Premier Crankbait rod that I won the previous week from sending in for one of their giveaways. I was happy with it's performance as the little 15 incher it pulled in was a hard fighter for being a small guy. The rod handled him as good as I expected. 

Sunday, I was out on the water to provide a guided trip I had donated for a cancer benefit the previous winter. The father and daughter I took out had put off the trip all summer and waited until now to take it as it's set to expire at the end of open water season. Both of them are new to fishing and with this time of year being challenging to catch fish, I elected to case after some northerns. With a cold front coming in and water temps again dropping to 50-52* I knew it was going to be a challenge. On top of that the wind was very gusty blowing 15-20 mph switching from west to north. They gave it their best shot but only managed to bring in 3 between the two of them and the father got snapped off by a pretty good one. I ended up fishing along with them to make sure they had enough to take home for a meal and I missed far more than I caught, but got them enough for a meal.When the wind switched around it was as if someone flipped a switch and the bit shut down for a good hour. Not only did the bit itself slow, we went from seeing fish actively chasing down bait and splashing all over to absolutely nothing. Baits that we had success with were shallow jerkbaits, oklahoma bladed spinnerbaits, and hollow belly swimbaits. Pictured below was Katie with her little northern that she was pretty proud of but not entirely sure about having to hold something as slimy as a northern haha. 

[jr231]

That northern looks like perfect bait for a big northern ha-ha. Shouldve nose hooked it and let it fly . 

Good read. Thanks for posting. 

[WIGuide]

12 hours ago, Yeajray231 said:

That northern looks like perfect bait for a big northern ha-ha. Shouldve nose hooked it and let it fly . 

Good read. Thanks for posting. 

No doubt, they may have had a better chance at catching a bigger one had I just done that lol. 

["hamma"]

That smile says it all,...Kudos to you for donating your time for such a cause.