Category: Fishing Reports

On June 26th thru July 1st I found myself back up north again. This time it was to fish my first muskie tournament of 2013. What I had high hopes and much anticipation for was only a meager little event in which the lake gave my tournament partner Steve Peterson and I a brutal ass-kicking.

My 79yr old grandfather joined me on this quick trip; nowadays a 5 day trip for me is a quick one. We hadn’t gone up north together by ourselves in a few years so it was refreshing to have an elder with me rather than any fishing buddies, or go by myself. Since grandpa is no longer fit, and suffers from a bad hip, he can no longer join me in the boat for long hours. I fished by myself for much of this one.

At this time, conditions had finally progressed into a typical summertime bite. Fish early and late, and go deep. Water temperatures ranged anywhere from 72 to 76 degrees on the lakes and river I fished, and feeding windows were short. The “experts” said lakes were still running behind. On weedgrowth, yes, but on temperature I beg to differ.

Throughout the week and the days before the region had been rocked by a lot of rain and thunderstorms. Each day it rains, many lakes are gaining water. But the more it’s been raining, it’s been more difficult to make my first float trip of the year.

One of the few highlights of my weekend was christening the 14ft jon boat I rebuilt and restored. Here she is, fully rigged and ready to go in the water for the first time on the Wisconsin River. The flow was still high and somewhat fast, but manageable.

My “Musky Jumper” floats, and fishes beautifully. No leaks, tons of storage space, room for two (almost too much for even just myself), and excellent handling. The 6 horse pushes this boat faster than it ever did with the old 12 footer aluminum v I previously used. I was excited to finally fish with this for two hours before a thunderstorm and hail storm of epic proportions forced me off water. Luckily I didn’t venture too far downstream and go on my typical 2 mile long float. Apparently it rained three inches during the 90 minutes I was forced to wait in the car back at the boat landing.

When I return later this month, a full day float trip will be my first priority.

With thunderstorms and a lot of rain putting a halt in my fishing activity outside of this brief float trip the first two days, I was regulated on my backyard. It gets boring for me quickly out there, but it did not disappoint. The crappies didn’t seem to mind, as I found them in amazing numbers, and sizes which seldom happens for me unless it’s early and late spring. I found them stacked in wood, fooled by a combination of jig and plastics, and hair jigs tied by my friend Jim Gronaw (River Critter Hair Jigs).

At one point on Wednesday evening I was catching them cast after cast. Most were 10 to 14 inches, with all the others being smaller, encompassing a variety of different year classes. One of my many goals for 2013 was to catch big crappies and get some good photos. Mission accomplished!

Many of you folks might be thinking the following; “Well, did ya keep them?!?”

I like to release all of my big panfish. On my little lake, all the big ones go back.

Biologically speaking, a lot of my lakes up north have been raped of big fish and all they contain now are stunted 7-8-9 inchers. Overharvest, continuous keeping, and keeping of little guys. It’s real bad to the point WI is considering establishing size limits and reduced bag limits for crops. Some unexploited gems are still out there, however. Despite their prolific breeding, not a lot of lakes are able to sustain populations of large adult fish. This occurs due to exploitation, and slow growth rates. My little lake is one of these places that I will continue to keep the big ones in.

After telling my pal Jim Gronaw about my success with his hair jigs, we talked about the concepts of catch and release and catch and keep. He had some interesting things to say. (NOTE: He writes for In-Fisherman and specializes in big panfish species):

Not all lakes are capable of producing or sustaining quality panfish species, regardless of angler pressure or harvest.But at least in my neck of the world, many anglers continue to harvest only, and I mean ONLY, the top-end crappies in any given system and complain when they have to settle for smaller fish. Given the cyclical nature of crappie spawns and growth dynamics, and the ancient concepts that we can ”never’ fish down a fishery, it’s a wonder there are any good crappie waters around. You can fish down’ size’, but almost never fish down ‘numbers’ in a panfish population. In my 61 years of fishing, I have seen many prime fisheries gutted due to the glut and overharvest of ONLY the larger bluegills, crappies or perch in a given system. Most of these have yet to return to their ‘glory years’ of producing 14 inch crappies or 10 inch bluegills. Releasing big panfish just makes sense. I keep mid-size fish for a meal. And it is no crime to keep a hard-earned trophy.But I am thoroughly convinced that if more anglers would release large panfish that our waters would benefit greatly. It works for bass, trout, and muskies…it works for panfish as well. Releasing of big panfish is the final frontier in catch and release fishing. It is sad that most of today’s panfish anglers, far more skilled than their those of even 10 years ago, refuse to believe that they have any part or responsibility in creating and maintaining good fisheries through good catch and release ethics. Keep what you want, but don’t complain when the fish are all dinks. Quality panfish lakes need to be treated with care.

After my first two days of leisure with the panfish, it was time to finally concentrate on the muskies. On Friday the 28th, I began prefishing for Sunday’s tournament with the WMT Muskie Country Series. It was a one-day event on one of my home lakes in the area.

I prefished Friday from 6am until 12:30pm. It rained the entire time and I didn’t see a musky. This was really bad. I had never gone fishless like this on this lake in all the times I’ve fished it for muskies. I knew immediately that things wouldn’t be good for Sunday.

The next day I prefished with Steve, out of his dad’s brand new Lund Pro V 1775. I was assigned the duty of driving this sexy beast on the water and navigating us. In nearly 7 hours we could only raise one musky. Better, but still not good.

Sunday was the big day and we were team no. 5. Blast-off was at 6am and a total of eleven boats fished until 3pm. Only one muskie (45″) was registered for the event at 8am. It was caught from a 10 to 15ft developing weedline that was being fished by three to four other boats at the same time……. Practically anyone’s fish, really…. This would be the only catch amongst the eleven boats competing. The lake was off. Dead.

As for us, I had one undersize tiger swipe and miss near boatside. When the event concluded at 3pm, we learned by checking our phones thru Facebook that the winning team proceeded to leave the lakeat 830am following catching the 45″, hoping the lead would hold and no one else would catch. I’m not a fan of cockiness but that’s what it seemed like to us. It was demoralizing to learn that we really had no chance to compete on this day. I wish we knew how to have overconfidence but at least we showed gamesmanship and humility by fighting it out until 3pm and busting our butts trying to catch something from the dead sea.

Faring poorly on our first showing of the 2013 season, Steve and I will be fishing a few more events this year.

Outside of this event, I did get to fish elsewhere for muskies and worked one of my favorite action lakes where I had been bringing several 40 to 45 inchers to boatside throughout June. Following my day-1 of prefishing Friday evening, I found an awesome window from 6pm until 9pm in which the rain dissipated, the clouds broke up, and the sunshine came. Fishing with my favorite Curly Sue near open water I raised five, caught one (my largest of this subpar muskie year, a 42″ beauty), and lost one. The lake is about 250 acres in size and it felt good to finally bring a nice one into the new net I had bought the day before (Frabill Conservation Series).

Following the Sunday tournament I was going to fish that evening, and again somewhere the next morning before it was time to return to Chicago. I was going to go back to my same lake from Friday evening and do muskies, and if they were bad again I would go look for big smallmouth bass the next morning.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do either. After I launched solo, I put the boat in reverse so I could leave from shore. In the process my boat’s remote control locked up, got jammed, and broke. In the process of un-jamming it the boat did a 360 near shore, I crashed into some guy’s pier and somehow avoided additional damage to my boat. With the control being broken and without a way to continue operating my boat I was out of luck. I was told to never fish angry but was pissed off beyond belief because my day of fishing couldn’t have gotten any worse at that point. I didn’t even make a single cast and returned to the house to open up my control and find that a few pins inside broke.

The next morning I took it into the shop for my repair guy to examine the Evinrude and its control unit. The control was indeed broken and needed a new pin. Additionally, one of the cables used for the throttle locked up and froze too. Luckily the boat broke at a good time for me because Fourth of July Holiday Weekend is my lone excuse of the year when not to fish and be on the water. With that being said, it could have been much worse. Luckily I will be back north again next weekend for a quickie with my dad to get the outboard fixed, and get me back on the water again. Unsure with the cost of repairs, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

In six years of fishing from this boat 50 to 75 days per year, I was fortunate to never have a mechanical break down like this until now.

Till my next post after next weekend……. I don’t know where I’ll be fishing again, but it’s gonna be someplace good.

I recently returned to Chicago (briefly till next trip) from my second major trip of the year. I fished June 1st thru the 16th. As always, I had an enjoyable yet challenging time catching my two favs, big smallmouth bass and muskies.

During my few weeks of fishing in May, I got spoiled by all the big bass that were caught. With the bass either spawning now (conditioned on beds and not hungry), finishing up spawning (definitely not hungry), and quickly transitioning into their summer period modes (feeding but more difficult to locate), I likely won’t be experiencing outrageous action with infinite numbers of 18-19-20-21 inch fish for the remainder of this year. Going forward, catching them is going to be work. Unlike last month, June has required a lot of work for finding and catching big active bass. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for later this summer and into fall.

Despite the recent lull in bass activity, during the first three days of the month before my pals joined me in the boat , I fished solo, and enjoyed whatever remaining prespawn fishing was left. I focused on the largest lakes on the map which are deeper, clearer, colder, and contain lower population densities. Despite having to fish them long and hard, I caught several nice ones pushing 20 inches. Unlike last month, absolutely none of my fish were hitting jerkbaits. It was entirely a shallow power cranking deal, as well as a 5 inch swimming grub affair along with the occasional tube jig. Less than a week later these same exact lakes I fished contained spawning smallmouths and beds all over the place….. The awesome spring bite died on me just like that. The good fishing had to end at some point. I didn’t bother working the spawners because they seemed conditioned, were previously fished based on hook marks I’d seen, and wanted to spawn quickly before their season opened on the 15th. These smallmouth bass are smart.

After I gave the bass fishing a rest, my friends fished with me.

On this trip I was joined by my two good fishing buddies, Brian Malack and Christopher Stolarski. Both of them drove up separately from Chicago to fish with me. A total of 19 lakes and 1 river was enjoyed with these two fellows during my two week stint. Brian joined me during half of the first week. Our plan consisted of driving off into the wilderness to fish backwoods wilderness lakes, and find new water with hopes they’d be muskie havens. Based entirely on top secret confidential intel they are havens, but they still need to prove it. These places were promising due to location and lack of public access but due to conditions we mightily struggled to catch muskies while battling coldfronts, rain storms, and below average water temperatures. We caught five muskies that week, with the notables being his 41″ and my dinky 36″ and raised a few lethargic dandies from some favorite action waters we fished. We have plans to fish again in the fall, and to focus on more backwoods places we didn’t have opportunities to fish such as rugged float trips and accessing even worse places and fishing them out of my new jon boat. Meanwhile with Chris we fished the second week together for a multispecies combination of muskies, smallmouths, largemouths, and whatever else was willing to participate with us. We caught some average bass, most of which were spawning (no super giants like last month) and found the muskies being more active but still very difficult to catch.

Due to the late spring and delayed spawn and below normal water temperatures, muskies were lazy, lethargic, and disinterested throughout the entire first week of the month with Brian. As the sunshine came out and water temperatures warmed during the second week, more muskies were seen and lots of opportunities were had. A total of 61 muskies were raised (five of which I raised or almost had which were 44 to 49 inches) with Chris but unfortunately all we could catch were six. I guess a 10% catch rate isn’t too bad considering the type of young season it’s been thus far and my limited time. And at this writing as I came home this weekend, people were catching muskies all over the place, making me envious and infuriated over the fact I couldn’t have picked a worse weekend to return from fishing.

Below are some photos from mine and Brian’s first week adventure….

Brutal boat landings were visited….

Lakes that didn’t allow access due to its lake associations and inhabitants were fished…..

But we caught muskies and a few decent pike from our go-to lakes and enjoyed exploring new waters that will someday be fished again…..

After Brian returned home, Chris fished with me and we immediately resumed with my bass fishing activities. By now, bass were observed spawning everywhere on every single lake we fished. However, we got into some action with smaller males fishing with spinnerbaits and crankbaits, and had to resort to the occasional bed fishing with plastics when that was our only option at catching anything. When we got bored with that (which was very quickly), we put away our bass gear a couple days earlier than expected and finished out the entire week chasing muskies. Below are some bass with Chris.

No giants, but fun action size.

During the second week, the musky fishing had finally picked up as more fish were seen and followers were almost being converted into strikes. Finally some action, but not nearly good enough for satisfaction. Lots of followers and interested fish were coming on topwaters, softail phantoms, dbl 8 blades, curly sues, and downsized bucktails. Lots of fish active in shallow water while some even out in the open in deep water. Here’s a few I caught along with my PB Wisconsin walleye that was accidentally caught while musky casting. I don’t fish much for walleyes in Wisconsin anymore due to overfishing, excessive pressure, and tribal spearing. Not worth the time and effort to me but this guy made me think otherwise.

One of Chris’s goals prior to his trip with me was to catch a 40 inch muskie. During our fourth and final day of musky fishing, and on the last lake we fished, he was rocked by his new personal best, a 41 incher. He credits this fish to the new casting reel he had to purchase out of emergency the night before because his crappy old Okuma broke during a hook-set of a 30 incher, his favorite topraider, the new spool of 80lb Cortland Masterbraid I outfitted him him, and my knowledge in lake selection. It all happened so quickly for him and it was awesome.

WE LET ALL MUSKIES GO, FOLKS!

Despite the mediocre fishing and late spring and summer, it was a fun, satisfactory two weeks of fishing. I got to fish with two good fishing friends, get a lot of laughs, make upcoming plans with one of them for a future fall trip and finalize our end of summer Lake of the Woods muskie trip, and be on my own leisurely carefree schedule. While the fishing was slow to me for the most part due to my unbelievably high standards, I enjoyed the explorations I made on new water, and enjoyed learning more things about my go-to lakes and rivers that I had previously not known about, and saw the most muskies in a week-long period that I have ever seen in Wisconsin.

The only bad thing about this year is I have yet to make a float trip or wade outing on any river due to high water and weekly rainfall, and I still haven’t set foot in my new fully outfitted jon boat….. depressing. Likewise I didn’t find the time to include more multispecies, nor fish a few places I’ve been dying to fish this year.

Looking forward into the summer, my next up north trip begins middle of next week as I return to fish my first muskie tournament of the year; my first ever WMT circuit event with buddy Steve Peterson. I’m looking to fish up to five days, so hopefully we fare well on my home waters the event will be on, and hopefully I put some fish into the boat and make up for these last two weeks of no big muskies… they’re in every lake I fish, just gotta make ’em bite!….. Following that, my month of July is open but will likely be spent working and truck shopping. End of July I will return to the north for an extended period, throw in a week of Canadian Muskies the first week of August, followed by a week or two back up north, and then we’re looking at fall….. I don’t want to look that far yet.

I’ll report again following next weekend’s tournament and will post some videos that I keep forgetting about.

Mosquitoes are the worst they’ve ever been this year. No matter what you do or the gallons of ‘skeeter spray you apply, you will not be protected from them. While muskie fishing last Friday evening, I still had around 30 to 40 of those Wisconsin state birds swarming around me. That explained why we were the last remaining boat out on the lake and why it was desolate by every single homeowner at 8pm.

Questions, comments, or feedback you can reach me through my page at www.ragasfishing.com

Thanks for reading.

I recently returned from a two week adventure to the north, only to do laundry, produce a few videos, watch the Blackhawks win, and catch up on a few unimportant work related tasks. Other than the hockey and videos, it’s been a real pointless week in my opinion. Since I don’t have much time to write my usual daily summaries these next few days, as I leave for my next two week trip in a little over 48hrs from now, I will lay it all on the line for you guys in this post…. I’ll eventually catch up to the daily summaries in the next week, and post them at a later date. I always like to revisit my old words during the future. Continue reading Northwoods Report: May 12-25, 2013