Fishing Log: Fish Lake Reservoir -- Fredenberg Township, MN

I've written up about Fish Lake before, so this post will probably be quite a bit quicker than usual.

Adam and I headed out to the same dam on the north side of the reservoir a few days ago to target pike and largemouth under the late summer sun. There was significant algal blooms hanging along the rocks extending about 5-10 feet out into the water. We used spoons and stickbaits for the first hour or so with little to no luck other than a few random small hits that never resulted in hookups.

We were only able to fish for approximately and hour and a half between other obligations we both had, but there was one smashing success to end the day on. After Adam dragged his spoon up through the algae and a boil of water erupted just as he pulled it up, I decided to see just what was lurking underneath the mat of lime green.

I rigged up a red and white 1/2-oz jitterbug and started casting lengthwise up and down the shoreline, chugging the little bait in a retrieve-and-pause technique. After a handful of casts I was considering going back something else, but then as I was finishing a cast, the bait exploded 5 feet from me.

A 32" northern had latched onto my bait, and my 10 lb monofilament was the only thing holding on. I instantly regretted not having a leader on. Seeing what had my bait, I quickly loosened my drag and fought with the fish for a good 2 minutes, letting him have his runs with the line. When I felt he was suitable handleable, I drew him near shore and was able to snap a few pictures.

A beautiful day on Fish Lake with a beautiful fish to show for it. It doesn't get much better than that.

Tight Lines!

Fishing Log: Lake Holcombe -- Holcombe, WI

A few days camping at Pine Point County Park in Chippewa County, Wisconsin is good for the soul in so many ways.

The fishing? Not so much.

Lake Holcombe is a fickle beast, in kind terms. I love the lake. It is absolutely gorgeous, very scenic, and it feels great to really open up all four cylinders on Pop's eighteen footer and zip up and down the ~4000 acre flowage. However, the fishing can often times be incredibly frustrating.

This recipe has multiple factors to it. One, there is significant leisure and sport traffic for most of the summer. This makes fish extra wary during the day. Moreover, the lake sees a high amount of fishing pressure year round, making fish even more skittish than normal. All of this combines to make Lake Holcombe an incredible challenge when it comes to catching consistent fish. But what am I here for, if not a challenge?

The predominate lake species are Walleye, Musky, and Pike. There are bass present in some of the backwaters, but make no mistake, this is not a lake to head for if you're looking to rip some lips. The way the spring has been going for me, I figured I was bound to hook into some pike. So that was going to be my primary focus.

The first day, Thursday, May 21, we arrived at the campground and the family and I set up the camper. Beautiful campground, if anybody is wondering. That evening we headed out for a sunken island in the main straightaway of the lake. We worked the sunken island for about an hour and a half, working crawler harnesses and small crankbaits over it as we trolled back and forth. Lake Holcombe is one of the select inland waters you can troll on in Wisconsin. The fishing wasn't particularly productive, but we did manage to hook into three eater-sized walleye. All three smashed the harnesses from below, making hookups almost trivial.

Fish Count: 3 walleye

The next day we worked back bays and eddies for whatever was looking to smash some stick baits. I hooked into a handful of rock bass, each measuring around 10". The most remarkable catch of the morning was a ~12" rock bass hitting my 2 3/4" Daredevle red and white spoon. A lunch and relaxation period back at the camp was followed by an evening on Cranberry Lake, an offshoot of Lake Holcombe that can be accessed underneath a bridge. This got us away from the main hustle and bustle of the lake.

We fished Cranberry for 3 or 4 hours in the late afternoon and evening. A Texas-rigged Senko pitched in some flooded timber yielded a smaller ~13" largemouth bass for Pops. I was sticking to my Rapala X-Raps. I felt like they were my confidence bait for the weekend, and I was eventually rewarded. A few other hookups with bass and a few very large black crappies kept our attention glued to the water until just before dark, when we motored back on the flowage and headed in to the campsite for the night.

Fish Count: 3 walleye, 2 rock bass, 3 largemouth bass

The next day, Saturday, I decided to set my sights on the north end of the lake. We filled up the tanks in the 18-footer and headed north up the flowage, reaching a few long spindly back bays with shorelines of rock and fallen timber. This looked like Pike central, and I decided to fish accordingly. I rigged up a gold-colored X-Rap on my Medium-Light spinning tackle, because I was feeling a little risky. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes of working the bay's shoreline, I hit success. I casted into some growing submergent vegetation. The water was near gin clear in this bay, and I saw a flash of shimmer as my X-rap got caught on some early-growth lily pad stalks. I yanked to pull it free from the early growth, and in an instant a black log shot in from a peripheral and inhaled my lure. My heart rate shot from 6 to midnight, and I worked delicately to corral this beautiful pike with my tackle. There was no horsing to be done here, I had to really work this fish if I wanted to land it.

A two minute fight finished with me holding a 28", 7 pound beauty of a pike. It was slightly overcast at the time, around 11 in the morning, with almost no wind.

The rest of the day we fished back bays, and we all continued to hook into hammer handle pike. None neared the size of my first of the day, but they were all fun to work into the boat. The lures that worked best on the pike that day were Rapala X-Raps in sizes 08 and 10, silver-blue and gold. Also, Daredevle spoons, the red-and-white and black-and-white varieties hooked us into some aggressive pike.

Final Fish Count: 3 walleye, 2 rock bass, 3 largemouth bass, 6 pike

After a fun few days of fishing, the weekend wrapped to a close and we had to get headed back to reality. The flowage proved tough, once again, but its resistance eased slightly, as we began to understand it's nuances more over time. As always, persistence and confidence are key when working a new body of water.

Tight Lines!

Fishing Log: Fish Lake Reservoir -- Fredenberg Township, MN

Walleye opener in Minnesota is more or less a federal holiday. It's a terribly exciting time to be an Angler if you appreciate walleye, pike, or just plain getting out on the water and enjoying the (hopefully) spring like weather.

Mother nature had other plans, however. We awoke on Saturday, May 9th to 50 degree overcast skies with 5-20 mph gusting winds from the Northeast. A cold front had rolled in over night. Things were going to be difficult, but its the Minnesota walleye opener, what are you going to do, not fish?

I've written before about my less than gracious opinion of shore fishing. However, it's better than not fishing at all. So, with our tackle boxes and a few tackle setups, me and my fishing buddy Adam headed out to the St. Louis Bay.

Our first destination was the Munger Landing, where I fished last year on opener. I did a detailed fishing report for that spot if you want to know more about it. For now, I'll jump to the meat of it: the spot isn't really smashing, and the dock was filled with anglers. It made no sense to me, with weather like we had I thought we would be alone. Alas, we loaded the truck back up and headed further up the estuary to a more secluded landing.

Upon arriving at the Boy Scout Landing in Fond du Lac, we were met with the exact same situation. The parking lot was hectic as can be, and the dock was filled from edge to edge with people bumping elbows. The exact opposite of a peaceful day on the water. I wasn't going to have it.

We got back in the car and broke out Plan F: make a drive inland for one of the Arrowhead region's vast reservoirs. We figured heading 30 minutes inland would get us away from the hustle and bustle, and hopefully give us some room to spread our wings a bit. Our destination? Fish Lake Reservoir.

Fish Lake is a very large reservoir, an impediment on the Beaver river. The lake has respectable populations of walleye, pike and crappie. This day, we were going to head for the damn on the northwest end of the reservoir. About 150 yards of rip rap lie on either side of the small dam outlet. We arrived and found the rip rap completely free of fishermen. Our placement put us in a little cove with the wind directly in our face. The combination of rocks, steady wind blowing in, and a secluded eddy away from the main lake basin looked very attractive to us.

We expected the shallow water adjacent to the rip rap to be holding walleye, and as such, rigged up basic 3/8-oz jigs and minnows. We casted the entirety of the little inlet for about 30 minutes, with little luck. Then, with the suddenness of a broken shoelace, it happened. Adam had his jig and minnow bottom bouncing in, about 20 feet from shore, when his line drew tight and his pole bent over.

"Fish on," Adam shouted. I set my tackle down and ambled over the rocks toward him. A few quick drags drew line away from shore, but his Abu Garcia Cardinal STX-20 performed admirably in working the fish in. A flash of white belly had us thinking he had walleye, but upon closer inspection, it was a trim, 24" northern pike. He quickly landed the fish, unhooked, and released before I was able to snap a picture. "We'll get a pic of the next one," he said, a little unsure if there really would be a next one on a day like today.

27"

Deciding to act upon the new found information, I figured I would break out my best pike confidence lure: Daredevle spoons. I rigged up a 3/4-oz red and white spoon on my medium-heavy Fenwick, and on my first cast out into the bay was greeted with a thump on the end of my line. After reeling in a 27" pike, I casted again in the exact same spot and drew out a much slimmer 20" hammer handle. We had hit a theme, and stuck with it. Both of us rigged up spoons and continued to crush the pike the rest of the morning.

When we went to the local bait shop on our way back to Duluth, we asked the clerk if he had heard anything from fishermen about their mornings. "Slow," was about all he had to say. Upon further probing, he more or less said that the cold front combined to make fishermen antsy to get off the water, and fish tight lipped. When we said we had each caught a handful of pike in the previous hours, he remarked we were some of the only successful fishermen of the morning that he had heard of.

The lesson here? Play the cards you're dealt. A windy cold day could've turned us away. Our first two fishing locations being overcrowded should've. But instead, we stuck with it, and decided to stay focused. We were rewarded.

I like to think, if you spend enough time on the water, it all evens out in the end. The bad days are offset with the really memorable ones.

I'm not just talking about fishing anymore, am I? We'll leave the philosophy for another post.

Tight Lines!

Not Just 'Yak Angling Anymore

She's not gonna win a beauty contest anytime soon, but it's a boat. Courtesy of some very loving grandparents who are almost too good at junkyard picking, I can get on some bigger bodies of water now!

She's a fourteen footer, with a beautiful little 9.5 Johnson kicker on the back. I got her to a local lake and she buzzed around just fine. I'm going to work on a few kinks that need sorting out with an engine that has been around since the Nixon administration, but with a pricetag of "you haul it out, and it's yours," I'm very satisfied. I'm very much looking forward to casting a line or two very soon!

Now, this doesn't mean I'm swearing off of kayak fishing, but it does provide a solution to some of my problems that I highlighted in my last post of last summer. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few more posts on this summer!

An Issue & A Break

Well guys, I seem to have run into an issue. I am simply under-equipped with just my 9 foot kayak to fish a lot of these lakes I was hoping to hit this summer. I have been working a few of the lakes over the past few weeks, and I have a few blog posts working in my drafts. But I just don't feel good publishing them. I am so limited in the scope I can cover of these bodies of water, it doesn't feel as though I'm getting a very good feel for the lakes themselves.

I can maximize a range of about 1 and a half miles out before I have to stop myself. I will just be too beat trying to get my kayak back to where my vehicle awaits. Kayaks built for fishing, with a nice keel and top-of-water design would significantly improve my setup. I love my kayak, she's one of a kind, but she is just too hard on me for now. I'm going to brainstorm to see what I can put together for next summer that will leave me better suited.

Until next time.

Tight Lines!

Fishing Log: Carver Lake -- Woodbury, MN

I've always been hesitant to give an answer when the following question comes up:

"Would you rather catch a bunch of small- to average-sized fish throughout a fishing trip or rather catch just a few really superb fish?"

Lots of the time, I feel like all I want to do is catch fish, and whether those are small or large, I don't really care. But then there are other days, when all I want to feel is a 5 pound weight on the end of my line, even if it means using larger lures and decreasing the breadth of your net. This past trip, I definitely leaned toward the latter.

It was a sunny afternoon without a cloud in the sky when I headed to Carver Lake on the southern edge of Woodbury, MN. There is no public boat landing, and access to the lake is tough. I had to carry my kayak from the parking lot a good quarter mile to the beach where I was able to put-in. This distance made me wonder if anybody really brings canoes or kayaks down to the water. I certainly thought more than once about turning around and heading up to Powers Lake, only a short drive away. However, a lack of fishing pressure made me optimistic about Carver Lake's potential.

Once I put in, I paddled across the entirety of the 60 acre lake to reach the Western shore. I located a bay surrounded by cattails and bulrush, and decided to work my way into the middle of it. As I eased in, several large fish sitting on the surface made ripples as they darted into the weeds sitting only 10 inches under the water. This made me quite optimistic for the first few casts. However, I wasn't using the proper gear, as I would quickly find out.

I still had my ultralight rod and reel rigged up with a Strike King KVD squarebill 1.0 crankbait that had caught me the 3 nice bass on Powers Lake a few days earlier. Since I wanted to get started fishing, I casted towards the mouth of the bay, and cranked it down to a depth of about 2 feet before letting it rise a bit and then cranking some more. A couple of casts later and I felt a sharp tug on the bait and then the whole operation fell loose. A weightless reel-in presented me with exactly what I expected; a frayed line and a lost lure. I take time with my knots so I know it wasn't a knot-break and no bass could've ripped it off without me feeling more of a fight, this was a clean bite-through of the 6-pound ultralight line; a pike. Not having my pike rod rigged up, I decided to switch to my baitcasting outfit rigged up with a small chuggin-mouth variety Spro frog. I casted a bit into the cattails and hopped the frog out from the cover into open water; I've managed to perfect a nice hopping-motion which involves drawing the line taught and then jerking up quickly with the rod. This is a very realistic presentation for a frog moving in cover. No bites or strikes, but I certainly loved the action the popper-style mouth added to an already splashy frog design.

Heddon Zara Spook.

A half hour of no bites along the weed edges and increased wind from the west made me head around a point and work my way back into a secluded northern bay where the wind wasn't putting a chop on the water, in contrast to the eastern edge of the lake. I took out my biggest bass lure, a Heddon Zara Spook, and rigged it up on my medium-heavy tackle. 14-pound monofilament would probably do much better against toothy pike, was my thinking. I kept my kayak about 30 yards from shore and casted inwards, aiming for downed trees or obvious cover spots. The heavy weight of a large, cigar-shaped lure like the Spook means that with just a bit of practice, you can have pinpoint accuracy in casting.

After about a half hour of me working my way along the shore, moving slowly northwards, I was just beginning to think maybe the Spook was too big for any predators to take a bite at considering the water temperature was still hovering in the high 50's. Right then, I was greeted with a sight for sore eyes; a big-bodied 30-plus inch pike bursting from underneath a downed hemlock going airborne after my lure. This pike made my heart race like it hasn't in a very long time. The fish went under and I felt my line go tight for only a second, and then -- slack. The lure rose to the surface. Figuring maybe it would strike again, I quickly re-engaged the 'walk the dog' technique and crossed my fingers for another chance.

No more strikes came against the Spook, but it definitely reminded me of why I love that lure: the strikes may not be numerous, but they are dramatic and they always come from big fish. A bit of sadness of missing out on such a large fish began to come over me when I casted again and again around the hemlock and surrounding downed trees hoping to elicit just one more strike from the monster of the bay. A large mature fish like that learns quickly, and rather than pressure him too hard, I decided I would target him another day.

I was about three quarters of my way around the bay when I made the switch over to a 1.5-sized Strike King KVD squarebill crank in Firetiger, this time a bit bigger and on my pike rod. Walking the dog is a strenuous activity on the arms, and one can only do it from a kayak for so long. Long casts in shore and then outwards along the sloping rocky points with the crank yielded me no catch for the first 20 minutes or so. The sun was beginning to set and I had a half hour of toting gear around the park before I could get headed back, so I didn't have much longer left to fish. I began to wonder if the long walk with all of my gear and my 60-pound kayak on my shoulder was going to leave me with nothing to show for my day on the water other than two encounters with pike. I had no strikes in the bay, and worked my way out to the main lake, planning to slink my way along the north shore back to the beach, essentially doing a big circle throughout the day.

Just outside of the mouth of the bay, I casted the large crank into an opening between two trees. The lure was only in the water a couple of seconds before I felt a weight on the end of my line. No sharp tug like before, but rather just a sense of heaviness. I jerked upwards to set the hook in whatever had struck at my lure, and the line went slack.

Personal Best Largemouth.

"It couldn't be," I thought to myself. I had already lost the pike, and now this mystery fish. I exhaled, and casted right back into the same spot. This time, it was clear; a lunker bass snatched the lure off the surface only a split second after it landed. I must have practically hit the largemouth on the head with my cast! I quickly set the hook and reeled to pull the behemoth out from the cover. The hook was set this time, the only way it could be lost again would be if he managed to wrap my line around some weeds or tree limbs, and I was determined to not let that happen. A quick fight ended with me hoisting the 4.5 pound, 21" personal best largemouth into my kayak. The Fenwick HMX spinning rod in medium-heavy had the perfect amount of backbone to horse him out of the cover, while my Mitchell Avocet Gold IV reel has an excellent drag system that quickly tired out the stunner. A couple of quick photos later, and he was released into the water, free to spawn and make thousands of little versions of himself.

Only a couple of bites were had in the three hours I fished Carver Lake in Woodbury. However, all of the bites had character and a good fish on the other end of them. It's a terribly tough lake to get a boat into, but there are ample shore fishing opportunities. I'd recommend the lake, and I plan to go again sometime soon when I'm feeling ambitious enough to make the trek with my kayak.

Fishing Log: Powers Lake -- Woodbury, MN

As Etta James so eloquently said, "at last."

Yesterday's plans included a fishing trip in the evening somewhere in Woodbury, MN. I wanted to target a smaller pond, after having no action on Lake Marion. Well, mother nature had different plans. A downpour started mid-morning and poured on and off for the rest of the day. On top of that, gusting winds reaching over 25 miles per hour kept me off the water for the day. Certainly not weather for fishing, that's for sure.

On Tuesday, May 20th, I awoke to gorgeous fishing weather. I stepped outside to start loading up my kayak to find the air stickier than epoxy. The humidity level was hovering around 90%. Temps were sitting in the 60's around 9pm, but they were sure to rise as the sun grew higher in the sky. I decided to head to Powers Lake in suburban Woodbury, Minnesota.

Powers Lake is 60 acres in size, with a maximum depth of 41 feet. It felt slightly warmer than other waters I have fished so far, with the water probably hovering around 52 or 53 degrees. The slightly warmer water increased my optimism for the day. I decided to target the northern end of the lake and then work my way down the northeastern shore of the lake, looking for pike and bass in the shallows.

Not a single gust of wind.

Upon arriving at the landing, I found placid water with a faint fog sitting over it. There wasn't a pip of wind to be felt for the first hour or so. Normally, I would've gone on a topwater frenzy with these kind of conditions, but the cold water didn't really help my case there. There were countless mosquitoes sitting on the surface, with no bites coming after them. If these insects felt comfortable sitting on the surface, no popper I had in my tackle box would do me any good. I targeted downed trees and other cover with a Mepps "aglia" spinner for awhile, with no reaction. I then put on a Rapala crankbait in "purpledescent" color pattern, casting out from shore into deeper water hoping to find suspended pike. A switch to the same Husky Jerk I used on Lake Marion yielded no fish either. The north end of the lake was crystal clear down to 5 or 6 feet, and with the help of polarized sunglasses I would have been able to see anything moving around. An hour or so of no results made me abandon the northern end and decide to explore the northeastern shore.

Another hour and a half of no results along the northeastern shore had me as frustrated as I've ever been fishing. I was trying everything I had in my tackle box; spinners, swim jigs, swimbaits, Senko worms both wacky-rigged and Texas-rigged, spoons, and jerk baits, among others. After three hours of futility, I decided that it probably wasn't the baits that I was using, or the way I was presenting those lures, but that most likely I just wasn't where the fish were. With such clear water, I should have at least seen a few largemouths in the shallows on spawning beds. Almost ready to throw in the towel, I decided to cut across the lake and fish the south shore, heading north towards the fishing pier.

First bass of the day: 12 inches.

I reached the other shore and rigged up a square-bill Strike King KVD crankbait on my ultralight setup. I chose to go with an orange crawfish pattern, figuring that this would be the most realistic bait choice up close to shore for largemouth. A dozen casts later and I hooked up my first fish of the spring from my kayak, a 12-inch largemouth. I used a method of continuous retrieve, pulling my rod tip up and then letting it down slowly to add even more action to the lure. The KVD crank has a distinct tight wobble, with a darting side to side action when the rod tip is jerked. A bit later I snagged another this way, drawing him out of the reeds. The water clarity aided me in seeing him dart out from the weeds to nab the crankbait as it shimmied past the cover. The excellent factory hooks on the crank hooked him on both sides of the mouth, allowing for an easy retrieve.

Lastly, I passed the fishing pier and wanted to cast just a few more times up near a culvert leading to an overflow area. I figured that there was a chance a big pig was hanging to the edge of the culvert looking for easy pickings heading to and from the drainage ditch. I pitched the crank right up to the mouth of the passageway, and quickly dove it down deep with a hard jerk to my left. It hit like a train, peeling drag off of my ultralight reel. For a couple moments, I was

Best of the day.

worried I had snagged a pike, figuring it would bite off the crank from the 6-lb test in a second or two. Just after thinking this I was greeted with a dramatic jump from the lunker at the other end of my line, a 16-inch largemouth. A drawn out fight ended with me pulling him into the kayak, with most of the work being done by the drag-system. I've never had a bass take 3 full, separate runs of drag from my reel, but this one did. A quick measurement and photo in the boat, and then he was ready to be released, unharmed.

The lake didn't follow the script that I had planned for it, but perseverance ultimately yielded me with two respectable bass and one nice lunker. A great day on Powers Lake was had with perfect weather throughout. As the spring turns to summer, this lake will most likely only get better. As the water continues to warm and a weed line develops on the drop offs, I plan to target for pike again. Until then, bass will be your most likely target in the shallows for now.

Tight Lines!