Better late than Never

To loyal followers of this blog, I apologize. No lame excuses. All I can say is that it was a very busy stretch with two vacations and a new job that included some travel. The new job is great. Vacations were too. Now I promise I will get back on track.

Newsworthy updates:
The fall run of Kings looms very near, but yet so far. The harbor and surrounding inshore waters are about as warm as I have seen in years. This is just after some of the coolest water I have seen in years lasting well into midsummer. After a horrible winter, we had a streak lasting from April 1st till mid-july where we caught at least one trout or salmon every weekend during that period. I don’t know when I did that last. Maybe never. I am hearing reports from shore anglers that this is the worst spring and summer that they have had. I beg to differ. Till recently, it was great.

So for now we wait till the water cools. The Salmon will be in soon. Their clock is ticking no matter what the water temps are. It would be nice if it cooled off because they would be in by Labor day.

June Trip
The June trip to Minocqua was great. Tons of Bass. Lots of Smallmouth in the shallow rocks and mid lake hard bottom humps. Wacky worms on wacky jigs and jigging spoons were the ticket. A couple hundred bass caught and released.

July/August Trip
The July/August trip to Minocqua was also a bass extravaganza. A couple hundred again including a 50 bass morning and a 81 Bass day. And the 81 day we didn’t even fish between 10:30am and 5:00pm. We also caught some nice walleyes by accident. Most of the Bass were deeper than usual but the water temps were in the uper 70’s so it wasn’t a surprise. The big walleyes came on Mann’s 20+ crankbaits. Some pike and bass too. It’s a great crankbait if you really want to get down 18-20. We used 15# fluorocarbon line and low gear ratio reels to ease the pain of the deep cranks.

We had one 20” walleye with a huge bite mark on it (see photo). That gets the imagination going!

Storms Rattlin Flat Warts
In an earlier blog I was pretty excited about the re-introduction of the Storms Rattlin Flat Wart. I said that I would report back so here it is. They suck. They look the same but they aren’t. I guess I am not surprised. The new Storm seems to want to change something with whatever they touch of the old Storm designs. They changed the rattles, they don’t “Hunt” like the old ones did, It’s hard to get them to run straight. I’m very disappointed. The best substitutes out there are still the Flicker Shads and the #5 and #6 Fat Free Shads.

Tubes for Lake Michigan
This spring was outstanding for pearl tubes on Lake Michigan. This summer was terrible. Can’t figure that one out. Live bait was key all summer. I don’t like it that way, but that’s the way it was. If you could get large lively baits, you could catch fish. Even during the Coho blitz back in May, live alewives outfished everything.
Getting back to tubes, if you aren’t fishing pearl tubes out there you are missing some great action. Three-eighths ounce heads and pearl white Gitzit tubes. It’s that simple. I will be doing an In-Fisherman piece on this for spring 2012 (shameless plug). Pearl Gitzits are at Fleet Farms and Cabela’s now.
I’ll end it there for now. Again, I am very sorry for the gap in the blog.

Tight lines and smooth drags!
Marc