June fishing in Sunset Country

It's been a while since my last report - I've been busy!  I have had several guide trips and they've been going pretty good - catching walleyes and smallmouths mostly.  Weather has been pretty good so that's really helped the fishing out quite a bit.  We're have LOT'S OF FUN!!!

This past weekend Troy Norman and I teamed up for the Shaw Dryden Walleye Masters on Wabigoon Lake.  It was our first time fishing the tournament and we walked away with a 20th place finish in the 113 boat field.  The event was very well run, we had a great time and will definately be back next year!  For a look at the tournament website and to find the final results check out www.drydenwalleyemasters.ca

Troy holds one of our better walleyes from the weekend - a healthy 22 incher he caught on a Rapala X-Rap Shap crankbait.  We caught the rest of our fish trolling Northland Crawler Harness Spinners tipped with a crawler.  We caught a BUNCH of fish during our two practice days and both days of the tournament.   I was pulling my spinners on a 7'6" medium action Shimano Crucial spinning rod, Stradic CI4 reel and 15 pound Power Pro line.  We were catching our fish in really shallow water and were not putting any weight in front of the spinner at all. 

Mick Stenson and Chuck Carlson from Minnesota with a big walleye Chuck caught on Lake of the Woods last week.  Caught on a Northland Fire-Ball Jig tipped with a leech 

Mick Stenson with a beauty smallmouth - Lake of the Woods

Diana and Ron Bonofiglio with one of several "doubles" of big smallmouths on Shoal Lake

Rodrigo Espitia from Columbia with a nice walleye he caught on a recent trip 

All of the fish above were released

Guiding going good!!!

I have been guiding just about every day for the past couple weeks.  Fishing has been pretty good, we just need the summer weather to show up!  It's been slowly getting better every day for the most part with regards to temperatures.  Fishing has been good for bass and walleyes...we're also catching a few lake trout, crappies and pike. 

Shawn Churchill and his son Eric with a big Lake of the Woods northern pike caught yesterday. 

A nice walleye.  We had a great day of fishing - caught a BUNCH of walleyes on Northland Fire-Ball Jigs tipped with minnows.  When we ran out of minnows (6 dozen), we caught'em even better on plastic!!! 

A big Shoal Lake smallmouth caught last week.

Glen and Cathy Cross with a Lake of the Woods lake trout. 

A weekend of bassin'

This past week I had a couple friends (Dave and Shannon) up visiting me from Southern Ontario.  We spent the weekend on Lake of the Woods and had some pretty good luck bass fishing despite the tough weather.  We've been getting quite a bit of wind, some rain and cool temperatures over the past week.  The upside is that things are looking better for next week! 

A nice smallie on one of the hottest baits of the weekend, a Rapala Clackin' Minnow

Shannon with a smallmouth caught on a Northland Mimic Minnow Jig tipped with a grub

We even managed to crankbait up a few nice largemouths - Rapala DT3 Flat

A nice pike

One night we stopped to catch a few walleyes on our way in so we could cook a few up for dinner.  We caught'em pitching some 1/8 oz. Northland Mimic Minnow Jigs tipped with some 3" Trigger-X Minnows.    

Sunset Country Fishing...

After a couple of weeks on the road it was nice to get back to fishing some familiar waters over the past week.  Walleye season opened on Saturday and I got out with my girlfriend August, her younger brother and nephew.  Though the fishing wasn't fast and furious, we did manage to catch enough for a good fish fry on Saturday evening, despite steady rain throughout the day.  Walleye fishing improved on Sunday with some more stable weather and I anticipate the bite will get really good in the coming days with some more heat and sun.  The best walleye bait during the tough coldfront bite on the weekend was an 1/8 ounce Northland Stand-Up Fire-Ball Jig tipped with a minnow - this is probably my favourite jig when walleyes are shallow.  Best colour was PARROT. 

Bass fishing has been excellent as fish begin to pile into the shallows.  I actually saw a couple of beds being made late this afternoon in some shallow back bays so they are starting to get things going.  The highlight so far was a 5 pound plus largemouth that fell for a baby #8 X-Rap.  We also caught some other nice largemouths on some Northland Slurpie Dip-Sticks.  Smallmouths have been all over any kind of suspending jerkbait you want to throw...we've mainly been using X-Raps and Clackin' Minnows.   

 

Walleye photo:  Dennis Favreau holds a nice Lake of the Woods walleye while Chris Toon fights another in the background.

Pike Photo:  A large pike ate my Fire-Ball Jig and minnow combo on the weekend. 

Crappies started to flock the shallows over the past couple days - they were still skittish though and required some finesse to trick into biting.  Caught them on Northland Bug-A-Boo Jigs fished below a slip bobber. 

Fishing should continue to get really hot for bass, walleyes and crappies in the coming days as the water warms up.  If you have interest in booking a guide trip, please contact me through the form on this website.  Tight lines!  -Gussy

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin - A week on Lake Michigan

Dave Bennett and I traveled down to Lake Michigan last week for the annual Sturgeon Bay Open Bass Tournament. (www.sbobt.org)  This has become an annual event for us and we always have a blast.  For the second time in the past three years, the event was a one-day shoot-out because of high winds forcing the cancellation of day two.  We had a tough day one on Saturday and reeled in 20.98 pounds for a 48th place finish.  We stuck with a plan we had confidence in and things just didn't pan out all that great for us.  Congratulations that all the teams that did well and finished in the prizes!  Here are some photos from our week on Lake Michigan.

A couple of big fish from our first day of practice.  We found'em pretty good that first day and things starting changing up on us throughout the week. 

A large walleye we caught while searching for bass...we had pretty good luck with the multi-species this year.  Walleye, whitefish, brown trout, carp, bullheads and pike, of course.  Also saw some giant musky swimming around looking to spawn in some of the shallow back bays.

We managed to catch a couple of beautiful brown trout, which we had never caught before, so that was pretty cool. 

Dave and a big brownie...

Had to get a picture with my first carp!  It was a big fish - tough fighter! 

We had a great time and will definately be going back again next year.  My new boat - a Lund 2010 Predator performed awesome in the big waters of Lake Michigan and allowed us to run to where we wanted to fish.  This may be the BEST boat on the market for Great Lakes bass anglers.  It handles the big water great and is a pleasure to fish out of!  Also, my Optima Batteries kept us powered all day.  We had plenty of trolling motor juice left, even after working it hard all day.  -Gussy