MN Opening Week Report

[WatterBoy]

We arrived home last night after an 8-day stay at the lake, so I thought I'd share an update on how things went. Opening weekend was pretty good for numbers of bass caught, but nothing real big. Then some rainy, stormy, windy weather rolled in for the next 2-3 days and made the fishing tough. A small tornado hit town on the night of Memorial Day. It's about 7 miles from our place at the lake, and we were very fortunate to have nothing but rain and no trees or branches down or other property damage. By the end of the week the fishing was pretty good again. I managed to catch 60 Largemouth, 1 Smallmouth, 14 Rock Bass and 2 pike for the week. There was really no crankbait bite to speak of, at least not that my fishing buddy and I could find anyway. He is a gung-ho cranker (I'm a senko/dropshot guy) and normally does that 90% of the time, but even he was using pretty much all senkos and dropshot after the first couple of days. Water temps were 58-59 when we arrived and 63-65 by the time we left.

Breakdown of the lures used to catch the 61 LM+SM:

                5" Yamasenko wacky-rigged: 29
                                   Zoomie: 14
  5" Yamasenko wacky-rigged on a dropshot: 12
                              Rebel Pop-R:  3
           Havoc Craw Fatty on a dropshot:  1
                7" Yamasenko wacky-rigged:  1
                    Strike King Crankbait:  1

Here are the picture highlights for the week.

This was LM #9 of 10 I caught on opening morning (5/28) and was the only one over 2 pounds. It weighed in at 2lb 13oz and was 16.5".


These were #7 and #10 of 10 more that found their way into the boat on Sunday morning, 05/29. LM = 2lb 12oz, 16.25" & SM = 2lb 2oz, 15.0"


I now own my first baitcaster and tried to practice with it a fair amount from the dock. I even caught my first ever bass on it on Wednesday afternoon, 06/01. It was just a little guy at 1lb 10oz, 13", but it was fun to get my first bass on a baitcaster!


The Rock Bass were loving the 5" wacky senko on a dropshot. There were several nice chunky ones caught. These two checked in at 1lb 10oz and 1lb 12oz respectively (state record here is 2.0).



The biggest bass of the week came on Friday morning, 6/3, and was caught on a 5" wacky-rigged senko. It tipped the scales at 3lb 2oz and measured 17.25".


This one isn't of a fish, but I thought I would show you how wild and unruly our dog, Lucky, is in the boat.