Early fall

[Randy Peyer]

Water temps are finally starting to fall. After a very warm stretch two weeks ago that pushed the water back up to 78 cold nights and cooler days have gotit down to 58 as of Friday. Last week I fished the Pauls Pro Am musky tournament on the Eagle River Chain of lakes. I caught a 40 1/4 inch fish on Saturday but we were unable to add to it so we finished 11th. The musky I caught was in 6 feet of water and weeds as were most of the fish. Since then many of the musky have started to move out to the breaks. There are still some in the green weeds but I am doing much better fishing hard bottom breaklines 10-20 feet deep throwing plastics and crankbaits.
Walleyes have been harder to figure out but we are still doing quite well. When the water was warm it was hard to find fish even as big as 12 inches but this last week I have once again been catching typical chain walleyes in the 12-17 inch size. While minnows are taking some fish I am still catching more on crawlers. Experiment with both because some days are minnow days and some are nightcrawler days. Some spots have even had a preference to one or the other while other spots fish can be taken on both.
Crappies are staging in deeper water right now. They will spend the winter and most of the later fall in deep water holes. When the water drops about another 6-8 degrees many crappies will find their way to the main lakes basin right on or very near the bottom but for now they can be found still in the weeds or just off dropoffs in twenty feet of water. As always small crappie minnows will out perform most other baits.
I haven't done much bass fishing but my guests Lori and Bruce Bancroft from San Diego caught a couple of beauty smallmouth while casting small spinners and rapalas in shallow weeds for musky. Another guest at the resort was taking largemouths on spinnerbaits casting stumpfields and under docks.