Link to FISH REPORT 2008 FISH REPORT 2007 FISH REPORT 2006, FISH REPORT 2005, FISH REPORTS 2004, FISH REPORTS 2003, FISH REPORTS 2002
July 28 Paul, Tony, and Bill joined Wendel and I for a trip on a windy day. The wind just doesn't seem to want to quit blowing this year. There were 1 footers in the bay and when we rounded the point we had 2 footers. One down wind troll was all we could take out in the deep. 2 fish came over the back from 145 feet. The water would be calmer in the bay so we went in and set up in 60 feet. When we got pushed into 45 feet the back two down riggers went off, a nice double on trout. We worked the 40 to 60 foot with lines set at 40 and 30 feet with sliders on. Dipseys were set at 60 and 70 feet. Our catch was 8 trout and one salmon. A large brown, 9 to 10 pounder, hit a dipsey and we had fun trying to get it in. The reel fell off the rod, one guy was on the rod and one on the reel. The fish came within 2 foot of the net and that was it, it started thrashing and shaking its head and that was it. I was able to touch it's tail with the net as it took off for deeper water. Ohhh well, that sure was exciting.
July 20 Uncle Bob and Aunt Marge are up for a couple of days, the weather report says calm seas so out we go. Aunt Marge had never caught larger trout so it was a new experience for her. The fish were back into the 135 foot rock piles and it didn't take long and we had our 12 trout. A couple of larger trout came off the suspended lines at 90 to 100 feet. It looks like the summer trout are starting to show up in numbers.
July 14 I was right, the brothers have arrived but with hangovers. It is a good thing that the lake is calm. We started trolling in 135 feet and picked up a couple of small ones. Then they seemed to disappear. We only had 3 trout in the box by 10:30. Our drastic move didn't pan out so we came back to where we started. (You don't leave fish to find fish) It didn't take long and we were into the fish again. Many doubles came aboard and we ended up catching 19 trout and one salmon. It was a shame to have to release a couple of nice 4 pounders that hit while we were pulling lines. The fish had moved out into 155 feet and were close to bottom. There were schools of pink salmon cruising the surface feeding on 2 inch minnows. A guy should go after them with a fly rod. That would be a blast.
July 13 Joe Petersen and his brothers are up and we went out for an evening fish in the bay. We caught 4 trout and headed in for cocktail hour. Looks like the brothers are going to have a good time.
July 11 Mike and his sons Brent and Brock are up and want to try for trout. We loaded up with the crack crew of Emil, Ed, and Bruce and headed to Manitou in a stiff 10 to 15 MPH wind. One trout came aboard in about 5 minutes. Then one of the guys yelled, "look out for the float". We were heading right for a well marked trap net that had just been placed out where we troll. We avoided the net and pulled lines to head into the bay. Fish were found on the bottom in 175 to 180 feet. and some other fish suspended at 123 feet. We ended up with 7 trout for the trip.
June 22 to July 3. I joined the Schneiderhans, Ed, Ed, John, Scot, and skipper Mark for the "trip of a lifetime". We took a 38 foot Marine Trader trawler called the Mazurka, (search for Mazurka Blog) from Chicago to Duluth. The boat has a single diesel and traveled at 7.2 knots max. It is a 829 mile trip from Chicago to Duluth so it took a long time with an engine breakdown and some weather delays. Felicia has some photos posted on her site. http://lifeaboardmazurka.blogspot.com/
June 16 Wendel has a new Fruno depth finder on his sailboat and it is a dandy. It will show fish comming to your cannon ball at 150 feet. It is quite the unit. We went out and fished on the bottom in 165 feet and caught a nice catch of trout. All the fish came off the bottom and we even were watching out lines some time instead of playing with the depth finder.
June 10 Joe Langdon wanted to get his boat set up for fishing so we took it out and set up in about 130 feet. We found some trout in 140 feet near the abandoned nets. We fished between the nets and caught 9 nice trout. It took a few lure changes, leader changes, and release changes to get fish comming on board. The most important change was to his releases. They were releasing too easily and the fish were not getting hooked.
June 2, Calm at last, calm at last, so we headed out to the same place we caught trout 3 days earlier. You guessed it, "you can't catch yesterdays fish". Two hours produced no fish in the 150 foot depths so over to the area that is full of abandoned fish nets that have been down there catching fish for years. The boat was carefully guided between the "ghost nets" and there were some fish near the bottom on some of the humps in that area. In two hours we were able to pull our lines with 9 trout in the cooler. Joe will have a full smokehouse this week.
June 1, Still windy, so the crew jumped in the pickup truck to look for some white fish. We found a few at the mouth of a local river. Four minominee's ate our small offerings and they made for an excellent breakfast the next day.
May 29 It was a nice day when Joe, Ernie, Emil and I headed out. We headed out to the lake trout grounds and started in 140 feet of water. We didn't get a strike until we hit the 150 foot depth. The fish seemed to be from 150 to 165 feet down and were hitting a spoon trolled slow at 1.8 mph. They are still a little sluggish. After a couple of doubles, a few singles and some training for Joe we ended up with 8 trout. We did try the shallows and caght one large trout in 20 feet, then we had a hit on a line 4 foot down and had another large trout right up to the boat and lost it. The sun was shinning and with only 1 foot seas we had a fun day on the lake. The salad bar at camp was calling us as it was well stocked with olives, mushrooms, pickles, and asparagus that was used to stir the well fortified tomatoe juice.
May 28 Joe Peterson, Ernie, and Dave helped to launch the Kala Moikka in the afternoon. We headed out and caught 1 splake and 2 trout in 15 foot of water using surface plugs on long lines and planner boards. The fish were running from 4 to 6 pounds.