MTL 6.25-6.26 weekend report

[rlsiv]

Saturday at lunchtime we shipped the kids off to Mexico for the week with G-ma and G-pa, so Christine and I headed to MTL Sat afternoon for a relaxing weekend of fishing. Put in around 6:45pm or so Saturday at Behrens, fished the rocky points S of Blackjack and the bridge. Very pleasant and calm evening on the water. Took a dozen or so nice fish in about 90 minutes before calling it a day. Caught a bunch of little ones, but kept those in the 10"-11" range, above that the biggest was just under 14" and probably 3/4lb. Got a decent pic of it (and the lab pup watching it closely) and will try to post later. Also took a decent channel cat off a jug with a goldfish on it. Turtles ate the bait off the other jugs... we'd just watch the jugs ski around the cove for awhile, never bobbing, and when they stopped we knew we'd find a bare hook.

Fished Sunday and ended up with two limits of eaters, but nothing big, and had to toss back a 9" short for every keeper. Lots of little ones (and saw a ton of no-joes being cut up at the cleaning station). Rising winds and the tube/ski crowd chased us off the lake before lunchtime, but we went out again just before dark to finish up the limits.

Most fish caught on minnows, a couple on black/chart slabbuster jig.

Two items of note:
(1) If you're buying minnows at MTL, stop at the Junction (154/19 in Perry) and get them. They're much better than the tiny little things at the MTL marina(s).
(2) If you're camping and have a locking cooler.... LOCK it. Oh -and raccoons prefer catfish meat to crappie by a large margin.

[beagle man]

outstanding report on the coons, sounds like a heck of a weekend to me, glad y'all had a great time.

[DEADEYE]

Ralph,I know years ago all the marinas and resorts use to get there minners from NEMO bait which is the Junction bait shop.
Its all in how each vender keeps there minners.

[Mark Twains Crappie Dan]

Those coon's like "Hot Head Cheese" too. And Minner's in the bucket. If it's not under lock and key, it's there's. LMAO

[rlsiv]

Ralph,I know years ago all the marinas and resorts use to get there minners from NEMO bait which is the Junction bait shop.
Its all in how each vender keeps there minners.

I'm not sure if thats the case, but I'll ask next time I'm up there. If they ARE getting their minnows from NEMO, then NEMO must be keeping the good ones for the Junction bait shop and selling the dwarves to the marinas!! I'm not kidding when I say there were a bunch that were shorter than a #2 aberdeen hook. Doh