The Bait Shop Guy
10-22-2012, 10:13 PM
Finally had some nice weather this past weekend, and my dad and I were able to go do a little Lindy rigging chubs for smallmouth. A couple of our favorite spots along the breaklines south of Gladstone were holding good numbers of fish, but they weren't very active. My dad popped a nice 28 inch walleye at the first spot, but no smallmouth. We landed three fat smallies around 16 inches at the second spot. I lost a large fish there as well. It may have been another big walleye, (didn't rocket towards the surface like the smallies typically do.)
I had a little free time this evening, so I headed down to the Escanaba harbor to try for some perch. Last time I was there, when the wind died, the perch stopped biting, but I could see there were a lot of bluegills around the docks. It was calm tonight, so I brought some tungsten ice jigs and some leaf worms for gills, in case the perch didn't want to play. Good thing I did. Only caught 2 perch tonight, but got 28 sunfish. They were mostly small, but still fun to catch on light gear. Good easy "catching," if you want to put a kid on some fish.
Heard several good perch reports from over the weekend. Mostly from the channel between the Kipling launch and Butler's Island.
The couple walleye reports we heard over the weekend were pretty slow. One group commented it was hard trolling in the upper bay because all the floating weeds were constantly fowling the baits and boards.
One of the locals was able to launch a 20 foot Ranger out of Kipling, but he said if it drops anymore, he won't be able to.
Water temp in the bay is right around 50 degrees.
I had a little free time this evening, so I headed down to the Escanaba harbor to try for some perch. Last time I was there, when the wind died, the perch stopped biting, but I could see there were a lot of bluegills around the docks. It was calm tonight, so I brought some tungsten ice jigs and some leaf worms for gills, in case the perch didn't want to play. Good thing I did. Only caught 2 perch tonight, but got 28 sunfish. They were mostly small, but still fun to catch on light gear. Good easy "catching," if you want to put a kid on some fish.
Heard several good perch reports from over the weekend. Mostly from the channel between the Kipling launch and Butler's Island.
The couple walleye reports we heard over the weekend were pretty slow. One group commented it was hard trolling in the upper bay because all the floating weeds were constantly fowling the baits and boards.
One of the locals was able to launch a 20 foot Ranger out of Kipling, but he said if it drops anymore, he won't be able to.
Water temp in the bay is right around 50 degrees.