Fishing report for the week of July 1, 2012.: , ,
Fishing Report Posted: July 01, 2012

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Posted by Capt. Walt Ermansons on July 01, 2012 at 19:22:22:

A GREAT WEEK ! It was quite the week for us aboard ‘The Trophy” ! Although the week started out on the bumpy side on the big pond, I had the right crew for the lousy conditions that we were dealt. With my favorite tough as bull snot crew from Iowa in town again this year for their annual 3 day outing, we headed out the first day on Monday in 3-5 footers albeit very sunny brilliant conditions. With a strong northerly fetch on the wind and waves, we cranked it out almost to the Canadian line for a long one way troll south. Although not super fast and furious, we landed what we needed and came in with a nice limit of Walleyes and one nice Trout. We had many other fish on but you could only do so much in the surging ripping waves as the boat was being hurtled south with the wind and waves. Tuesday it was like Déjà vu with yet again strong northerly winds. And just like the movie “Ground Hog Day”, we cranked it out once again and once again we captured our limit in one long slide south. Wednesday was just plain “choppy” but a walk in the park compared to Monday & Tuesday. We easily limited out again under what we thought was “gravy” conditions while listening on the radio to the other boats on the radio that finally came out talking about how rough it still was and how tough the fishing was under “those conditions” I guess they would not have not been too terribly impressed with the previous two days conditions if they did not like Wednesday! lol ! All in all it was still a great start to a great week with an incredible amount of beautiful Walleyes caught in less than ideal conditions !

Thursday was the gem of the week with picture perfect conditions. Just a slight chop. Not too hot, not too cold. No bugs. PERFECT ! And we went on to capture 30 Walleyes easily by 10:00am. Although I happened to have 6 people that day, they were more then elated and elected to quit before it got too hot out and the bite dropped off. And who was I to argue ! lol ! Just a super great day with a super nice group that was not overly greedy and was very happy with the incredible catch that we managed to muster in just a few short hours. It doesn’t get any better then that. The fact that I had a good target in mind from the previous three days paid HUGE dividends when it came to selecting a chunk of water to work under the now pleasant conditions. I targeted my best spot and they were there. That’s why I hate being off the lake even for one day this time of year. It just creates so much doubt in your mind. Have they moved ? Has anything changed ? But when you are out everyday, you know where you did the very best the day before and when you use that as a target, more times then not it pays off. And that’s what we did Thursday and it was AWESOME ! We even caught a rare Brown Trout Thursday along with our big Walleye catch ! The Brownie hit a #2 Dipsy Diver about 120 back with a Contender Spoon. Just an incredibly good looking fish. What a day !

And our exotic catches this past week did not end there. On Friday besides limiting out my 4 guests onboard that day, we also captured a very rare Chinook Salmon ! In 26 years of chartering and literally thousands of trips that I’ve run, that’s probably only the 10th or so King that we’ve actually landed. Just crazy exciting. This particular fish hit a Storm Jr. Thunder Stick fished with wire line off the planer boards. It instantly peeled off about a hundred feet of line off the reel as the drag screamed ! Then after it’s initial wild run, the fish quickly tired and it was just shear weight that the lucky angler on the stick had to muscle in. I never had a clue it was a Salmon till it was in the net and I got a closer look at it. Again, what a fish. I thought all along that it was just a big Steelhead. But there is a world of difference between the two. The most obvious is the black mouth, tongue and gums where a Steelheads entire mouth is snowy white. And speaking of Steelhead, we are still doing our one to two a day on most days out there now. A far cry from the one week that we had a few weeks ago where we were catching numerous ones repeatedly. But it’s just right now as far as I am concerned for adding a little bit of excitement to an already exciting day each day. Just enough to mix it up without creating too much havoc with all the gear and equipment that we have out there !

So Saturday rolls around and the National Weather Service predicts 1 to 2 foot waves for everyone with diminishing waves. Yeah, right. Saturday morning in reality turned out quite ugly with wave heights running at the very least 3 to 5 foot with some breakers a whole lot bigger. Not that big a deal for us because we had already cranked it out to the west and we just rode it out. But it was scary to see the many tiny boats struggling to get back in when the lake blew up so bad. And I know in my heart that they would have not even been out there had they not predicted such an extremely nice lake. I’m telling you they are going to cost someone their life with the forecasts that they are putting out and I think that they should be held accountable. You either come up with a better product then you are putting out there when it comes to your daily guesses, I mean forecasts or just come clean and say “we don’t have a clue what it’s really going to do today” and proceed to tell everyone to use EXTREME caution when venturing out. What a joke. I can’t believe that we pay these clowns with our hard earned tax dollars for the forecasts that they provide us with. OK, that’s my rant for this week. We’ll see what adventures might await us now in this upcoming first full week of July. Perhaps we’ll continue to catch a few more “exotic” species aboard “The Trophy” ! I mean, I know there’s still a Coho Salmon or a rare Lake Trout just waiting to join the elite list of species that we have handled here as of lately. But just be careful if they tell you it’s going to be a nice lake and that it’s only going to be two foot or less...

Capt. Walt
*I am reminding all of my upcoming trips that we REALLY need to get off of the dock by 5:00am. These central basin big Walleyes in this real clear water are really squirrely and 90% of the time they feed like crazy right at dawn and then it drops off dramatically with each passing hour. WE DO NOT WANT TO MISS OUT ON THIS OPPORTUNITY if you want to catch a nice load ! It’s really just that simple. Also please MAKE SURE that you have your fishing license ahead of time before arriving in the morning. There are no provisions for licenses at the marina. Any questions, call my mobile # 216-387-2656





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