10/19 Musky Report

[Medford Fisher]

Hey guys, just thought I'd write up a quick fishing report from this past weekend. I hope you're all able to get out on the water or in the woods to enjoy the fall before it's gone...not much of a fall this year so far though.

We were up in Oneida and Vilas this past weekend for a little over 2 days of fishing with mixed results. We fished three different lakes - 2 of them produced, while one didn't. Fish definitely seemed to be in a chasing mood as we probably had 12-15 different fish chasing suckers around throughout the weekend, but not willing to eat them. We did have 3 fish grab suckers and hooked up with one of them. We let our good friend, who became a father recently, take it as he hasn't been out this year, and I was glad we did so. After a great hookset and a tough fight, we netted a 47" fatty - his first for the year and a personal best...congrats Seth!

Fish were found in several places, but the 15' break is where we had most of our action on one lake and deep weed edges (16-20ft) on the other lake. We also got 2 mid-30" fish on Shack Attack Curly Sues and had several more follows on the Sues and Suzy Suckers. Fish didn't really seem to be chasing crankbaits that much, with only one hit on a 10" Jake ripped hard that got off boatside and no other follows. As the water warmed up a bit over the weekend, mixed with the wind, we found fish to be a bit shallower just inside the deeper weed edges on Sunday.

I'll be back up there this weekend with my brother, fishing Saturday with Gary Myshak (Gare's Guide Service) as I won a free day from him a while back. I should be able to get a report up after this weekend as well.

Good luck to everyone hitting the woods/water this weekend. Be safe and have fun...won't be much longer and lakes will be starting to freeze over...and then it's major editing time!
(I'll get pics of this past weekend's fish on here after classes today)

-Jake Bucki

[Mark Benson]

Jake:

Good to see the report, I know ya been fishing, but hadn't seen much on the write up side. I have been on a drought on the water as we puppied up and I have been spending all my free time in the woods with the two labs, one 10 and the other just turning 16 weeks. Been getting in to some areas with good grouse numbers and woodcock for a period of time. While most including myself had thought the weather had sent the timberdoodles south, I heard last weekend while at R&H that there were still some good numbers to the North and west of us.

The ticks south of town have been ridiculous and to the north very tolerable. The night of the Pack-Vike game, the wife and I picked well over 50 of them off still crawling on the dogs coats after an hour walk. I went north after that. Two nights ago, after hearing the ticks weren't so bad to the SW of town, we spent an hour picking three dozen of them. So if you are mobile and want to stay away from the ticks while hunting the woods, stay north til the ground freezes or the snow covers it for good.

I am off to southern WI to hunt geese and pheasants with my family and my uncle and his kids!!! Then on my return, I hope to get into the boat a couple of times before it all ends.

Mark

[Medford Fisher]

Mark, sounds like you've been outside at least. Also, sounds like you got a couple nice pups getting trained well and enjoying the outdoors too ( I hate seeing all these little worthless "dogs" that have to sit indoors all the time in the cities).
While we were up north driving around last weekend, we saw a bunch of grouse. The two guys I was with are big hunters so they were regretting not bringing the shotgun along...would've made for a few nice meals! Turkeys are all over the place up there and the whole drive over/up from Eau Claire. We also saw two coyotes, both with nice coats. And then, as usual, a ton of deer and a nice buck at that. Lots of wildlife out and about at this time of the year.

I was finally able to get on the computer and get the pics up. The 47" is from this past weekend and the other from the weekend before. 47" on a sucker and other on a Curly Sue.

-Jake Bucki