Steve Herbeck
08-29-2011, 01:44 PM
water temps currently 69-71 depending on section of the lake,weather,wind,etc. thermocline 28-32'. weather for the most part has been pleasent,a few hot spells,a few storms but not many and none bad,a few windy days but not in a row,few if any bugs,so all in all it has been for the past few weeks a pleasurable time to be in canada on vacation.
walleye fishing has been thru the season and remains to be very good to excellent. the patterns have solidified pretty much into a reef,deeper humps,and off points bite in the main basins regardless of lake section with key depths to look at being in the 28-35' range.big eagle,portage,VB,and western arm basins all been good.unless it's a deep hump in that depth range which they then can and will be on top look for the more gradual tapering fingers and flats off the shallower structures.lindy rigs and big dace best presentation. crawlers and jigs catching some fish and now that the fish have moved a bit deeper and off the sharper breaks and tight corners and points of bars bottom bouncing should work good too.lots of fish 16-25" with enough fish 26-30" being caught to keeps interesting with trophy potential daily.now they we've dropped in to the 30'+ range and using bigger bait some big pike 34-42" are being caught while fishing walleyes too.a few big bass starting to show up a bit shallower than the walleyes so in a couple weeks the bass will start bunching up on the bars for some great fall action. in the meantime a couple 4wd lakes danny has been fishing have consistantly been producing 75-100 15-19" fish on leeches.
not many fishing lakers recently but a week ago danny had the hanson group out on eagle and they boated a bunch 8-15# avg with a couple big kickers 20-to 25# trolling spoons.reports from others are that the creek to creekwater is unpassable due to low water and busy beavers but trout biting on buzzard and other portage lakes off eagle. 65-80'. trolling cowbells, jigging spoons and tipped jigs.
with muskys i've seen it better and i've seen it worse.flashes of excellence with the right conditions and somew tougher days in between.lots of followers,nippers/lickers,not T boning baits much.for every fish boated 5-6 are being on and off or lost. perfect example,the spanky boys were up a week ago and boated 7 or 8 fish but in a week had on and lost 23 and some big ones.for as much as i get out these days with the large expereinced musky guide staff i have on hand and need to keep busy i had a great end of june /july avg a 50 every 2nd/3rd time out but went into funk first part of aug and couldn't seem to do anything right consistantly untill we figured out just what was making things so sporatic between spots and sections of the lake. but here is what is or has been/was going on because water temps are now slowly dropping and it could change soon. last week 5 50's killen 53.5,heddon 52,mike 51.5,scott 50.5,conner 50.5, i especially what to congratulate young 9 yr old nathan smith on his 50" and 44" last week,then the next day his dad trevor boated matching bookends to cap off thier trip dreams .
been avg 2-4 50's a week past few weeks with alot of 38-46" stuff and more 45-49's than 50's even though alot of big fish showing up here and there. problem is for every good fish we have boated it seems 5-6 get on and off mainly because of the way they are hitting and nipping. reason being i feel is we expereinced the same heat waves in july most of the midwest did,water temps went to an amazing 86 degrees for about a week-10 days. we then had a bunch of winds and some cold fronts that mixed the water column up,cooled it off like a big bowl of hot soup and dropped temps back into the 70's,currently 69-71. but what it did was create water temps that were within 1-2 degrees from surface to 28-30'. they are and can be anywhere so essentially it has scattered the fish from up on top of structures and in weeds to off breaks suspended,deeper off breaks,and in between. much like behavior during turnover time.makes you fish it all. got to fish classic summer time stuff because there are fish there but you also got to fish the deeper breaks with baits that will get there.most fish coming off shallower structure if not caught drop below the boat and keep going,very few are you able to go back on and work,at least right away,eventually they may come back up or be replaced by other fish cause it's a good stop sign type of spot.fish 5-6 good spots see nothing and the next one has got 3-5 on it,one day or for a few days one section of the lake is hot,the next not and it's another section,one day or 2 it's all rocks,one day off shallow the next all coming up off the deep breaks straight up, then it's mostly weeds so you got to keep searching and mixing it up,etc,etc. for the most part last couple weeks most of the bigger fish have been coming to net north of the match line.mid to end of last week and already starting this week seeing things start to change. more hits out and seriously and more fish coming off were they should be so i feel we in an upswing up and coming into sept/oct. i predict an awesome fall catch up binge.
still got a few slots open in sept and first week of oct for some great fall fishing coming up.
i'll keep in better touch here on thru just been swamped with a full camp of good people ,went through being sick,and it was just tough keeping up with everything.feel'n better and ready to rock!!!
good luck to all!!
herbie and the staff at AML
walleye fishing has been thru the season and remains to be very good to excellent. the patterns have solidified pretty much into a reef,deeper humps,and off points bite in the main basins regardless of lake section with key depths to look at being in the 28-35' range.big eagle,portage,VB,and western arm basins all been good.unless it's a deep hump in that depth range which they then can and will be on top look for the more gradual tapering fingers and flats off the shallower structures.lindy rigs and big dace best presentation. crawlers and jigs catching some fish and now that the fish have moved a bit deeper and off the sharper breaks and tight corners and points of bars bottom bouncing should work good too.lots of fish 16-25" with enough fish 26-30" being caught to keeps interesting with trophy potential daily.now they we've dropped in to the 30'+ range and using bigger bait some big pike 34-42" are being caught while fishing walleyes too.a few big bass starting to show up a bit shallower than the walleyes so in a couple weeks the bass will start bunching up on the bars for some great fall action. in the meantime a couple 4wd lakes danny has been fishing have consistantly been producing 75-100 15-19" fish on leeches.
not many fishing lakers recently but a week ago danny had the hanson group out on eagle and they boated a bunch 8-15# avg with a couple big kickers 20-to 25# trolling spoons.reports from others are that the creek to creekwater is unpassable due to low water and busy beavers but trout biting on buzzard and other portage lakes off eagle. 65-80'. trolling cowbells, jigging spoons and tipped jigs.
with muskys i've seen it better and i've seen it worse.flashes of excellence with the right conditions and somew tougher days in between.lots of followers,nippers/lickers,not T boning baits much.for every fish boated 5-6 are being on and off or lost. perfect example,the spanky boys were up a week ago and boated 7 or 8 fish but in a week had on and lost 23 and some big ones.for as much as i get out these days with the large expereinced musky guide staff i have on hand and need to keep busy i had a great end of june /july avg a 50 every 2nd/3rd time out but went into funk first part of aug and couldn't seem to do anything right consistantly untill we figured out just what was making things so sporatic between spots and sections of the lake. but here is what is or has been/was going on because water temps are now slowly dropping and it could change soon. last week 5 50's killen 53.5,heddon 52,mike 51.5,scott 50.5,conner 50.5, i especially what to congratulate young 9 yr old nathan smith on his 50" and 44" last week,then the next day his dad trevor boated matching bookends to cap off thier trip dreams .
been avg 2-4 50's a week past few weeks with alot of 38-46" stuff and more 45-49's than 50's even though alot of big fish showing up here and there. problem is for every good fish we have boated it seems 5-6 get on and off mainly because of the way they are hitting and nipping. reason being i feel is we expereinced the same heat waves in july most of the midwest did,water temps went to an amazing 86 degrees for about a week-10 days. we then had a bunch of winds and some cold fronts that mixed the water column up,cooled it off like a big bowl of hot soup and dropped temps back into the 70's,currently 69-71. but what it did was create water temps that were within 1-2 degrees from surface to 28-30'. they are and can be anywhere so essentially it has scattered the fish from up on top of structures and in weeds to off breaks suspended,deeper off breaks,and in between. much like behavior during turnover time.makes you fish it all. got to fish classic summer time stuff because there are fish there but you also got to fish the deeper breaks with baits that will get there.most fish coming off shallower structure if not caught drop below the boat and keep going,very few are you able to go back on and work,at least right away,eventually they may come back up or be replaced by other fish cause it's a good stop sign type of spot.fish 5-6 good spots see nothing and the next one has got 3-5 on it,one day or for a few days one section of the lake is hot,the next not and it's another section,one day or 2 it's all rocks,one day off shallow the next all coming up off the deep breaks straight up, then it's mostly weeds so you got to keep searching and mixing it up,etc,etc. for the most part last couple weeks most of the bigger fish have been coming to net north of the match line.mid to end of last week and already starting this week seeing things start to change. more hits out and seriously and more fish coming off were they should be so i feel we in an upswing up and coming into sept/oct. i predict an awesome fall catch up binge.
still got a few slots open in sept and first week of oct for some great fall fishing coming up.
i'll keep in better touch here on thru just been swamped with a full camp of good people ,went through being sick,and it was just tough keeping up with everything.feel'n better and ready to rock!!!
good luck to all!!
herbie and the staff at AML