Eagle River, WI

Mike here....Back from a great 4 day trip. Lots of walleyes and we kept just enough small males (limit is 15", 2 per person) for a fish fry the final night.. mmmm-good. Decided to try for smallies on day 2. Good decision...











Of the bass caught that trip, 3 of the smallies were over 19" the largest being a monster 20" 6.5 lb beast. Saw 3 muskies but none while actually muskie fishing. 40% of the other boaters we saw were walleye fishing and 60% were muskie fishing so that kind of puts me off on the muskie.

Watermelon Senkos were the lure of choice. The smallies were on sandy flats adjacent to rocks and deep water. If you saw a log, there was a bass by it. They spooked easily though so you had to make long casts. Many times a fleeing bass would spook other bass and they'd all take off. If we'd had leeches I still could have picked some of them off. Too late in the year for that though. We did find some at one bait shop and actually bought all of them. They were tiny to say the least. Doubled up on a jig they still got us some bonus fish.

Pat Lester is quite an accomplished fisherman and we both share a smallmouth bass addiction....That 19.5" smallmouth Lester caught was his personal best. Quite a fight on 4# test. I'm pretty proud of that fish since he was originally not in my boat, but wanted to catch a big smallie. He was shaking when we got her in the net. I was too as I almost botched the landing. DOH!

Pat thought about keeping the bass and have it mounted but after seeing me release three 19+ fish he put his back too. I thanked and congratulated him. (A 3D mount might be coming his way.) Pat showed me a new technique... trailing a leech on a slip bobber about 100ft back of the boat. As we moved along the shoreline, the spooked bass would circle around and move back in as we passed. There was a nice snack waiting for them when they did. This trick worked wonders as Lester proceeded to kick my but 3 to 1. Pat is no longer allowed in my boat.... HA!

My Lund "The Local Moron" performed well though the motor did start to foul a little after 3 hours of trolling speeds in search of walleyes. I need to thin the gas a little. Sure is great to finally be in a nice boat... thank you Steve J!

Many thanks to Ron Arder for being a gracious host (again), life-long friend & fishng buddy. A special thanks goes out to Robert Tovar for only slugging me once after putting up with my crap for 4 days, taking hours upon hours of verbal abuse (joking of course), and being a human anchor winch. BERT anchor up. BERT anchor down. BERT hand me a minnow. BERT that's too small...DAMMIT BERT!!!!!!!!!!!!

9/26

Had a GREAT night last night. Ken Schmacher and I hit waters known for big numbers of BIG fish. We had about an hour to fish as darkness fell...and it was the perfect hour to be there. The bass were hitting a gold & black Chug Bug like it was going out of style! I got 7 that i landed plus 3 more that got off.....one of which was probably a big pike that ripped out 10lb PowerPro line off an an extra stiff HM 54 rod like nobody's business before cutting thru the line like butter. I had no chance against that fish.
This one was the largest bass of the evening. About 20". Ken did great on the flyrod as well with some really nice bluegills and a 18" bass on a topwater fly.
The picture below is off of a new Sony 500 camera phone. Not too shabby. No match for the Canon cameras that Mike and I usually use...but a pretty good back-up to have in the pocket.
Mike is back from Eagle River, WI and will have a full report soon.

9/20 & 9/21

Sometimes you get lucky. This shot was taken at our favorite smallmouth bass fishing lake during sundown of 9/20. Didn't catch a thing in a short 15 minute excursion. But I got a pretty good photo.

On 9/21 I went back to the same place and had 15 minutes in which to fish before total darkness. The smallies were in a total rage and going after topwater lures like crazy. I caught 4 from 12- 16". Missed about 3 or 4 more. White buzzbait was the trick.

9/17 & 9/18

Last night Mike and I hit one of our favorite lakes. It's not a numbers lake but it's a BIG FISH lake with a chance at a true trophy every time out.
Conditions were just about perfect at sundown with a full moon rising. Baitfish were being slammed on the surface of the water lake-wide. I picked off this 22" largemouth just after we saw her nail a smaller fish right next to shore.

She hit a black & gold Chug Bug after taking a swipe at Mike's white buzzbait.

We missed a couple that we couldn't even turn. Might have been big walleyes or channel cats. We're not sure. The smallmouth bass were hitting very well also. Mike got 8 plus a largemouth as well. Here he is with one of the typical smallies in this lake.

And yes kids, I did catch him a little off guard with the camera flash. ( heh heh...that was payback for the kick in the pants I got from him when I nailed that 22"er right in front of him. )

So the point of all this.....when you see THIS in the sky at night, grab your gear and get out there. The biggest fish get super active during the full moon.


Today I was able to sneak out for an hour and wade the river. I caught 10 smallmouth bass. Most of them hit either a Storm mini Thunderstick ( walleye pattern) or a 1/8 oz Slider Head jig with an Exude Hellgie ( watermellon/ red flake). Nothing really huge as far as size but a pretty good hour anyway.
Oh...and check out the new LUCKY hat ! Mike and I got one each from our friend Captain Jade Miller who is in Iraq holding the peace and fishing in Sadam's private lakes.

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9/3 - 9/10 Pipestone Lodge, Ontario, Canada

Jamie here.
www.pipestonelodge.com
Now, normally I wouldn't be giving out a website like that for just anyone. But this place does it right!
Buzz and I spent a week there from 9/3 - 9/10 and had the best fishing trip yet! And you guys know that we've been on more than our share of trips in the past few years! The fishing was spectacular especially if you target smallmouth bass, which we did. I don't have a solid number for the week but it's in the hundreds. Pike and a couple small muskies were a bonus while we caught smallies. We even got a few bonus walleyes ( of which a 20"er is consedered smallish on Pipestone).
The accomidations are top notch! The food is to die for! ( Thanks Jenny!!!) The boats are clean, fast and ultra comfortable.....it's everything you could wish for in a trip.
There's a million good spots. Just about every lure in the box worked. You can fish 3 or 4 lakes in a day. You can even go on several portages. One of the portages we went on was to a small lake that is absolutely LOADED with smallmouth bass and pike that act as if they've never seen a lure hit water. In a ONE MINUTE PERIOD Buzz and I tied into THREE smallies over 20"!!!
We have over 200 pictures which I'll be putting up in coming days. But for now I'll toss a few on the table for ya.