MTL - Turn & Burn

[Route U]

Put in a full day of work up here in Wisconsin and then took the "midnight train" to Mark Twain Lake (i.e. drove through the night)...... Little brother is in town from Montana and he/pops were headed to the cabin for the weekend to try to locate the elusive MTL slab. I rolled in at 4:30 A.M. Saturday morning, coffee was on and the boys were already moving and fired up. We hit the water around 7:00 A.M. and made a day of it, pulling out around 5:30 I think. Picked a few fish up, kinda spotty until we stumbled into a pattern. We were dipping trees on a flat and had a dead pole pick up a few as we drifted around. After the second fish on the dead pole, we looked at each other and made the decision without saying a word.

Note: Dad and I looked right at our spider rigging gear before we left the cabin and talked about bringing it or not....... we did NOT!

Executive decision was made and we cobbled together a rigging setup (wasn't the prettiest) in a few minutes. Pushed single jigs up on the flats and man did it produce! Gotta love when a completely jumbled, lack of, "plan" comes together.

After we played that game, on a whim we decided to pull some cranks to show little brother how we do it during the summer months. Picked up a striper and then a delectable MTL "Snapper"!



Yes, I remembered to take a picture of Mr. Drum but not of the crappie..... my bad!

Back to the cabin, clean fish, mushroom walk, chicken on the grill w/ sauteed mushrooms. Finally hit the sack at 10:00 P.M. so that would make it 40 hours with no sleep.... not bad but certainly not my record!

U

[love2fish]

Quite a day! Thanks for report.

[south point]

great report, Robbie! great to talk to you and your family, too bad we didn't have time to chat over a coldie later on. bet you were whipped after all that!

[Speck]

Sounds like a great day!!! I'll hand it to you Robbie, you're not afraid to drive all night and fish all day. Great job. Say Hi to Jeff for me.

[IL_Hunter]

Good report!

I scratched out a limit on Saturday in Indian Creek. They were anywhere from up on the bank to 15' off the bank.

[Stoney79]

Saturday was hit and miss for us. Seemed as if you had to wait on the fish to come in to the shallows if you wanted to pick em off the bank as we did. Caught 25+ and kept 14. 2 other friends and family boats managed about the same 15/16 keepers for 2/3 people per boat. South Point I saw you along the bluffs fishing with your family, thought about stopping to say hi but you looked busy. Today I managed a limit of big slabs with most of them 11"-12" and up to 14 1/2" seems like the crappie are running a lot bigger this year. Seemed like the later the day got the shallower they got. Pulled some from the very back of the coves after 3pm.

Greg did you end up getting any of those shad on the banks for your cattin trips on mighty MO?

[ripnlips]

Good report Robbie glad to hear from you. How about the toothy critters in Wi.

[south point]

Hey Jason, you should have pulled up and said hi! I was watching for you but wasn't sure what to watch for. and no, I decided I wouldn't have time to catfish and I left my net at the house... those shad were really teasing me though! sure wish they were like that out on the river.

[Route U]

Good report Robbie glad to hear from you. How about the toothy critters in Wi.

Give me about another 2 weeks and I should have a report on the 'eyes. Dad is pulling the rig up here and we're going to spend some time chasing them..... now, if I could only convince him to sell me the boat outright so I can keep it up here.

Also have some time set aside to chase the coho on Lake Michigan, that'll be new for me. Fresh cedar plank salmon on the grill doesn't sound too bad!

U