Monday, May 24, 2010

It was nice to just spend a few days relaxing this past long weekend with my wife and daughter. We all made the trek up the cottage to take in Mother Nature's early summer weather and soak up some sun. As usual they were wrong with their prediction of rain for Saturday and Sunday . The weather was amazing on all 3 days. While at the cottage I had to resort to dock fishing as family and chores took priority over going fishing in the boat. My dock adventures yielded high numbers of fish but not the ones I was after. The first fish I caught on a grub was a small 12" catfish, then I probably caught close to 50 Rock bass with some chunky Sunfish thrown in. When I finally did make it out on Monday morning I wanted to make the most of my time on the water and I was eager to catch some walleye and panfish.

I hit the water on Monday morning hoping for the best as I was limited to only a few hours tops. First stop the spot where I lost the monster last week but nothing so I moved on to Margaret Island. Was ripping a Rapala X-Rap in Hot Steel through the weeds and was able to hook up with one small walleye in the 13" range. That was it for there. Tried another couple of spots and no walleye to show for. I did lose some grub tails a few times so I assume walleye nibbled them off on short strikes. I worked weed edges, I worked the scattered stuff with various baits but only managed one.

I now decided to move shallow to try for some panfish and came onto a large school of bluegills, perch and sunfish. I was hoping for some crappies to be mixed in but nothing. Site fishing for panfish can be quite fun and I really did enjoy it. Managed to catch a dozen perch and kept them for a shore lunch. Kept a few bluegills and sunfish in the livewell for a pic or two but the were released as the blues were very dinky. The sunfish were surprisingly very big, 9-10" range.

The reviews were mixed from the guys out on the lake. Lots of small ones being caught, to nothing at all. Nice to know that these small ones can only get bigger in time thanks to the new slot size regulations.

Why do the weekends always come and go so fast?