20 hours of fishing!

[WatterBoy]

I had a chance to take two days of vacation from work last week and headed up to our place on the lake to do some hard-core fishing. I made 2 outings each on Thursday and Friday and a final one on Saturday morning. I was on the water for a total of 20 hours and caught 36 fish -- 28 LM, 5 Northern Pike, 1 Silver Pike, 1 Walleye and 1 Smallie. Here are pics of some of the better ones (I finally took some time to learn how to use the timer on the camera!). All fish, including the walleye, were released unharmed. I can't wait to go back up there over Labor Day weekend!

2lb 6oz, 15.0" LM - caught using a 7" wacky-rigged Yamasenko (Watermelon with Black/Red flakes)


4lb 0oz, 19.0" LM (13.0" girth) - caught using a 7" wacky-rigged Yamasenko (Watermelon with Black/Red flakes)


2lb 8oz, 19.25" Walleye - caught trolling a night crawler in 15'-16'


3lb 5oz, 16.75" LM (13.0" girth) - caught using a DT16 crankbait (Olive Bleeding Shad)


2lb 13oz, 16.5" Smallie - caught using a 5" wacky-rigged Yamasenko (Purple with Emerald flakes) on a dropshot rig

[Jrob78]

Looks like you had a great few days on the water, nice fish!

[BassFishingInMi]

God, I wish my family could afford a boat! Looks like you had a blast where were you at?

[bamabassman]

that is jsut awesum watterboy. i had a day like that today myself. congrats man.

[bassinbob]

Nice fish. What's a silver pike?

[WatterBoy]

Originally Posted by BassFishingInMi

God, I wish my family could afford a boat! Looks like you had a blast where were you at?

We're in our second full season of owning a "summer place" on a lake in central/north central Minnesota. It's about a 4.5 hour drive up there from our full-time residence, but the plan is that it will be our retirement home sometime down the road (hopefully only about 10 years from now ). The lake we're on has a surface area of just under 1,200 acres, which is just the right size for my taste. See Lake Belle Taine info here.

[WatterBoy]

Originally Posted by bassinbob

Nice fish. What's a silver pike?

From the MN DNR website about the lake we're on -- "Silver pike, a color phase of northern pike, are present in Belle Taine and occasionally caught by anglers."

Here is a picture of one of the two I've caught this year. This is from mid-June.

[james86]

Great looking fish. Did a lot of wacky rigging I see. I've had no luck with it myself. Out of curiosity what kind of retrieve were you using?

[WatterBoy]

James,

I've had great luck on this lake fishing wacky-rigged Yamasenkos. I either fish them in submerged weedbeds or else right up on the edge of the reeds along shorelines or the edge of lily pads. I fish them two different ways -- just plain wacky-rigged or else wacky-rigged on a dropshot setup. For the plain wacky-rigged, I just cast them and let them fall on a semi-slack line. I'd say over 90% of my hits that way come on the original fall. If I reel up the slack and have nothing on the original fall, sometimes I'll lift it a bit and let it fall again and get a hit that way. If there's nothing at that point, I just "speed reel" it back in, so I'm not fishing a "retrieve" at all that way (most often I just "speed reel" it back in after the original fall). I've caught 76 of my 199 bass on this method this year, pretty much an even split between 7" Yamasenkos (38) and 5" Yamasenkos (36) -- the other 2 were with a stray pack of 6" Yamasenkos that I came up with somewhere.

I just learned how to dropshot about this time last year, and it's become a "go to" method for me. Once I caught my personal best (5lb 2oz) very late last fall using a wacky-rigged 5" Yamasenko on a dropshot setup, I started using that more often this year, and it has produced real well for me -- 80 of my 199 bass this year have come on this setup. For some reason, I tend to cast this more just into weedbeds or along the weedline area where it changes over to sand. Once I cast out using this method, I move the rod tip very slightly to give the senko a little action, then I just reel in very slowly, stopping every now and then, or raising the rod tip slightly and/or moving it slightly occasionally. I continue this retrieve most of the way to the boat/dock/shore depending on where I'm fishing from.

Both methods have landed good numbers and good-sized fish -- both Largemouth and Smallmouth -- for me. Three of the four Largemouth I have caught this year that were over 4 pounds were caught with a wacky-rigged Yamasenko of some sort!

Couple of other notes -- I've tried Yum Dingers because they are not as expensive as Yamasenkos, but I haven't had nearly as much luck with them, so I use Yamasenkos exclusively now. Since Yamasenkos don't tend to stand up to catching a fish real well, I've started repairing my own this year (with a soldering iron) and have gotten a second and third life out of them that way, drastically reducing the amount of money I spend on them at Cabela's. I have even been able to extend the life of my Yum Money Hounds with a soldering iron as well.

Hope some of that helps! (Sorry it got so long. )

Dean

[BassFeverJohn]

Nice bass bro!

That 4 pounder looks like a hawg. I am totally jealous of you guys that can get smallies. We don't have them down here. I think that is just greedy...

[james86]

Sounds like you got the technique down to an art. I'll have to get that a shot. I tried wacky rigging once on lake martin trying to catch stripes and I had 0 results. Pretty good idea repairing your worms. I feel your pain on tearing up your worms. The shakey head jigs I have are made by booyah and I usually destroy a worm for every fish. I guess its worth it but it's always nice to use a worm for more than 1 fish.

[BlueDaksi]

Fantastic! Nice fish there!

[woody]

Really nice looking fish!

So, from the appearance of those bass, it looks as if you had to remove their feedbags before taking their pictures. lol


-Mark

[Embrey]

those bass look a shade bigger than what you weighed them to be...usually the other way around