Change of Pace

Being a little tired of making the long drive in the early hours of the morning to walleye fish, I decided to stay close to home on the 4th of July. Besides, I really didn't want to deal with a bunch of traffic from people heading home after a long weekend.

Brian and I put the boat in on Halfmoon lake around 6pm. Normally, on a long weekend, I have to wait to launch the boat. No waiting today! Got to park right by the launch too. There was not much traffic so the long drive out to woodburn lake really didn't take much time. I did note that the water was down significantly. The channels leading from one lake to another were really shallow. I had to trim my motor up way higher than normal. Judging from the dredge marks on the bottom and dings in the many logs that line the channel, I would say that some weekend warriors either did not pay attention, don't know what they are doing, or really didn't care (probably a combination of all of the above).

We hit a lilly pad edge that we fish quite a bit. I was using my steelhead rod with a simple split shot about 8 inches above a number 4 gold Aberdeen hook and a minnow hooked through the snout. I had it set about 7 feet down over 12 to 16 feet of water. I was also casting my custom MHX 7 foot rod with a 1/16oz bright green sickle hook jig (made by me). It was tipped with a 2 in big bite shad. I love casting and slow retrieving jigs. Something about feeling the fish hit.

The first pass yielded three fish on the jig combo and one nice fish on the down rod. We continued to make pass after pass in the area picking about 2 or 3 fish per pass. As the evening progressed, the fish seemed to favor the minnow rig. I think I caught 10 or 12 before Brian caught his first fish. Sometimes you have the retrieve and the cadence just right and sometimes you don't.

We ended up keeping 19 fish. One fish was just at 13 and 4 others were a touch over 12 inches. We also released a few small ones to fight another day. Fun evening on the water.

Earlier in the day, I celebrated independence by frying about 60 perch! Although it was way more than we needed, I wanted to ensure I had leftovers for a few days! I'm still trying to perfect my "buffalo fish" (similar to wings) recipe. I might need about 15 or 20 more tries!!!!