Post by Eugene on Sept 1, 2011 9:08:56 GMT -5
Spent 13 - 20 August on Manitoulin Island, Ont., as has been my modus operandi for approx. the last 3.7 decades. At its best, fishing this round was only "not bad." Game on the lake where we stay, Kagawong, is perch, smallmouth, and pike. One goal of the trip is to restock the freezer with meat in the form of 10 – 13" yellow perch with occasional fish topping 14 or 15"), but we struggled to find perch in numbers and came home with fewer than usual and of smaller size, maybe 8 – 10.5".
However, big smallmouth were abundant and easy. None were huge, but almost none were small; nearly every bass clocked ca. 15 – 16.5". Smallmouth are everywhere on that lake, and we'll often see them randomly breaching on calm mornings, even over 30' or more of water! I really cleaned up with Venom Drop-Shot Minnows in their Ayju color. (In the past, I've also really liked their Erin's Magic color up there. However, Venom has recently changed their Drop-Shot Minnow construction, and the Erin's Magic I have have the new plastic sticker eyes with adhesive that won't attach them to the soft plastic resin. The sticker eyes simply fall off in the package, and Erin's Magic thus went completely unused this year.) I also like drop shotting Berkley Power Minnow Grubs in Bleeding Minnow for bass. Donna (aka Mrs. Eugene) does well drop shotting Berkley Sparkle Dropshot Power Bass Minnows (in spite of their unwieldy and stupid name). I had a lot of fun Texas rigging 4" Bass Magic Shakey Tail Worms; they're very minnow-like for plastic worms and hollow, so are practically neutrally buoyant on a worm hook without weight. I rigged them on lightly weighted sickle hooks; so rigged, they sink oh so slowly and maintain excellent swimming action. Shakey Tails performed great for smallmouth, but not as well as drop shotting. Unweighted, whacky rigged Yum Dingers (an affordably priced knock off of Yamamoto Senko) are fun too.
On overcast days with a stiff south or west breeze, northern pike also came easy trolling. None of the pike landed were really big, but all we took were of decently moderate size: 25.5 – 30.75" (Donna landed the biggest at 30.75" this year). Donna brought one big pike to the surface, ca. 36"+, but it was barely hooked and evidently casually rose to the surface only to frustrate Donna in demonstrating how easily and willfully it could expel her lure before sinking again into the murk. Deep-diving Livetarget crankbaits in perch color were big performers in trolling for pike this year. I also have an unnatural fondness for trolling the classic Rebel Craw (and they pick up some nice bass as well as more pike than you'd expect). Unfortunately, a ca. 30"-er literally shattered the tail treble in my favorite Rebel Craw and bent and embedded the front hook so deeply in our rubber-dipped landing net that I had to cut off a tine to extract it. I had no replacement trebles of appropriate size with me, so shifted to Livetarget after that. Also, Down Deep Husky Jerks are historic favorites for pike up there, but they picked up no fish at all for us (including while those other baits were fishing well).
We chartered a boat onto Huron for salmonids, but it was a super-slow day, sunny and dead calm. We only took one decent rainbow (a bit over 2'), one tiny chinook, and one tiny lake trout. The laker came on a downrigger running only 45' of cable over 180' of water! ...in the sun! ...and calm! He was weird amongst lake trout. I have also discovered that reeling in a rainbow trout at the end of a hundred yards of lead-core line is fun for approx. 10 – 30 yards...and then no fun at all. The captain said the fish he's taken this year have seemed healthy. All three fish we took appeared to have really good condition, which is better than can be said for the last several years of non-lake trout salmonids in Huron. The tiny chinook had three large smelt in his belly when he took the spoon.
However, big smallmouth were abundant and easy. None were huge, but almost none were small; nearly every bass clocked ca. 15 – 16.5". Smallmouth are everywhere on that lake, and we'll often see them randomly breaching on calm mornings, even over 30' or more of water! I really cleaned up with Venom Drop-Shot Minnows in their Ayju color. (In the past, I've also really liked their Erin's Magic color up there. However, Venom has recently changed their Drop-Shot Minnow construction, and the Erin's Magic I have have the new plastic sticker eyes with adhesive that won't attach them to the soft plastic resin. The sticker eyes simply fall off in the package, and Erin's Magic thus went completely unused this year.) I also like drop shotting Berkley Power Minnow Grubs in Bleeding Minnow for bass. Donna (aka Mrs. Eugene) does well drop shotting Berkley Sparkle Dropshot Power Bass Minnows (in spite of their unwieldy and stupid name). I had a lot of fun Texas rigging 4" Bass Magic Shakey Tail Worms; they're very minnow-like for plastic worms and hollow, so are practically neutrally buoyant on a worm hook without weight. I rigged them on lightly weighted sickle hooks; so rigged, they sink oh so slowly and maintain excellent swimming action. Shakey Tails performed great for smallmouth, but not as well as drop shotting. Unweighted, whacky rigged Yum Dingers (an affordably priced knock off of Yamamoto Senko) are fun too.
On overcast days with a stiff south or west breeze, northern pike also came easy trolling. None of the pike landed were really big, but all we took were of decently moderate size: 25.5 – 30.75" (Donna landed the biggest at 30.75" this year). Donna brought one big pike to the surface, ca. 36"+, but it was barely hooked and evidently casually rose to the surface only to frustrate Donna in demonstrating how easily and willfully it could expel her lure before sinking again into the murk. Deep-diving Livetarget crankbaits in perch color were big performers in trolling for pike this year. I also have an unnatural fondness for trolling the classic Rebel Craw (and they pick up some nice bass as well as more pike than you'd expect). Unfortunately, a ca. 30"-er literally shattered the tail treble in my favorite Rebel Craw and bent and embedded the front hook so deeply in our rubber-dipped landing net that I had to cut off a tine to extract it. I had no replacement trebles of appropriate size with me, so shifted to Livetarget after that. Also, Down Deep Husky Jerks are historic favorites for pike up there, but they picked up no fish at all for us (including while those other baits were fishing well).
We chartered a boat onto Huron for salmonids, but it was a super-slow day, sunny and dead calm. We only took one decent rainbow (a bit over 2'), one tiny chinook, and one tiny lake trout. The laker came on a downrigger running only 45' of cable over 180' of water! ...in the sun! ...and calm! He was weird amongst lake trout. I have also discovered that reeling in a rainbow trout at the end of a hundred yards of lead-core line is fun for approx. 10 – 30 yards...and then no fun at all. The captain said the fish he's taken this year have seemed healthy. All three fish we took appeared to have really good condition, which is better than can be said for the last several years of non-lake trout salmonids in Huron. The tiny chinook had three large smelt in his belly when he took the spoon.