2007 Fishing Reports

Lake Minocqua 9/9/07
Tony Piantek and myself pre-fishing for the WMT seem to find fish every place we went, but the pattern was the same, the deep weed edges. We pulled the baits away from 6 fish that day and the last one was not so lucky and recieve a trip to our boat for a picture. This 37" fish also came on a deep weed edge on Tony's first cast looking at a new area, it would be our last cast here until tournament time and since it was right across from our ease out we decided this is were we would start. We spent alot of time just motoring around looking for the same kind of stucture that our follows came from and we would mark these on our maps and GPS no sense of burning more fish.

Well tournament day came and the weather change too bright skies and no wind, only two fish would be caught in the first 9 hours of the tournament and then a front started to move in the last hour and 6 more fish were caught. For us it was a sad day we only had two follows and seen one other one surface. Talking to other anglers at the Saturday night meeting half the group didn't even see a fish so that made us feel alittle better. The pattern for most of the angles who caught fish was working deep edges or bait fish out in the deep water and throwing Bull Dawgs.

Sunday the weather switch again and a mild cold front came through and skies were cloudy, we thought this would help, but were wrong. All we would see was a small follow ??? and caught one 26" Northern. Five fish would be register this day. The winners of the tournament did manage to get a double and both were nice fish 47.5" and 41.5" fishing the deep bait fish pattern with Bull Dawgs. For us including pre-fishing we raise 3 fish and caught the one on LifeLike Lures by Dunwright Tackle which is one of Tony's sponsors and these baits look great in the water and the fish seem to like them also. Tony also won the Okauchee WMT with these baits with a nice 49.5" fish, so take a look at them and what is nice about them is you can rip them just like a Bull Dawg. We also raise 2 fish on Jerry Girl's black with ogange blades, 3 fish came ripping Bull Dawgs, one on a new Dunwright Tackel surface bait and one one a Manta. Like I said before all came from deep weed edges except the one that followed the surface bait, it came from the shallows. I need to get back here and night fish this lake the weeds and other stucture is just unreal and with it being so clear night time will be the way to go.

Waubesa 9/5/07
It was nice to be fishing with two very good musky fishermen today Tom Rozek (4th in points on the PMTT) and Mike Wienke a local musky hunter in Madison area. The morning started off slow with no follows on the weed edges we kept the boat in 13'-15' of water and casted in towards the weeds.

And since there was no wake on all the Madison lakes every time we would move to another spot we would just troll over there. It was nice having no boaters zipping by you, and we seen maybe five other boats on the water.

About 9:30am seeing no fish on the deeper edges we move in and right away the bad things started to happen. The first one happen to Mike, Tom was telling one of his stories about Cass Lake when a fish hit Mike's bait and oops Mike was so into the story he forgot to set the hook. Tom and myself got a good laugh out of this, but Mike was a little upset with himself. We moved down the shore about another 50 yards and I had a nice one hit my jerk bait, I was playing the fish and when the fish ran at the boat I moved up to the front of the boat were Tom tried to get out of my way, well this time Mike would get to laugh at us because when Tom was moving he lifted up his rod and his line then wrap around my line and rod and I couldn't reel in anymore line and the fish got off. WOW that was a first. Well we move down the shore about anther 20 yards when Mike said look at this one and he had a nice upper 40" fish following right behind his spinner, the fish turn a couple of times with his figure eight but then just disappeared back into the weeds. About the same time Tom nailed a nice Northern over 30". We went back after Mike's fish but she wouldn't show herself again so we continue down the shore about 75 yards and Tom had a nice lower 40" musky coming hot on his spinner, and on his second turn on his figure 8 the fish hit, he set the hook but no hook up. Now it was our turn to laugh at Tom again. We decided to head over to the Green Lantern for lunch and since it was no wake we decided to just troll that way along the weed edges, well it didn't take long and the rod was screaming, Mike grad a rod and Tom and myself said no the other rod and Tom grab it, well what happen was the fish hit one rod and ran right in to the other line and Mike couldn't reel in anymore and fish went down into the weeds and got off. Wow another lost fish, you would of thought that the three stoogies were in the boat today with all the things we did wrong, I guess you just have days like this and it made for some good laughs.

I just want to thank Mike and Tom again for the laughs and it sure was fun fishing wth you both and look forward to doing it again in the future. I also want to wish Tom good luck in the PMTT .

North Twin Labor Day Weekend
Well it was time to get some work done at the cabin and to just rest and relax alittle bit. I took my father up with me who is 79 years old and has been going up to twin since he was 28 years old, it was nice for him to get back to the lake were he really started to musky fish. Now my dad doesn't cast like he use to but he still enjoys going in the boat and watching the wildlife and remembering all his old musky tales from times long ago. We started out fishing on the North Shore in about 7' of water and it didn't take long before we seen our first fish not a huge one but in the mid 30" range on a Jerry's Girl all brass in color. Minutes later we raise another one on a walleye color Bull Dawg. We seen about 3 other fish here but nothing ate our baits. We went over to reeds and I put on a top water bait and the timje was 7:30 pm and just getting dark when our first fish missed the bait. About 5 cast later we hook into a nice fish that hit my bait boatside and swallowed it. No more topwater bait was showing just leader and fish thrashing boat side took no runs but was going wild at boat side. I had this fish on for about 15 seconds and then nothing, I look and bait and fish was gone and my 80lbs leader was cut about 3" up. Bummer, well I put on same bait but in different color and about 6 cast later I had one hit right next to the reeds. This fish turn out to be 40.25 and would be the last fish we seen that night and we fished till around 9pm. The feeding window that night seem to turn on for just 15 minutes but what a fun fifteen minutes.

The next morning we didn't get out of bed in time to hit the early bite (was nice to stay in bed pass 5am) but we did manage to get the evening bite in. We started out on the North Shore at 6:30pm and it didn't take long and we had our first fish in the boat 38" that came on a Walleye color Bull Dawg in 9' of water. We seen about 8 other fish which I mark on my GPS and the biggest one was about mid 40's. When it was getting dark we went back after that mid forty fish. I put on the top water bait from the night before and went to that mark, I was amazed right when we hit the mark the fish hit the bait. Well this battle didn't last long and the fish won, she came out of the water 3 times and on the third time she came out she gave me back my bait. Well we fish this shore until about 8:30 and my dad had enough so we pulled the boat out. Not a bad night one in the boat, one lost and seen about 8-10 others.

Well on Sunday morning we did make it up in time to fish the morning bite. We started out on the North Shore since the wind was still blowing in here, we only seen one fish, we moved over to long point and had another one in the high 30's miss our bait. We then move over to the drop off between the reeds and rocky ( the hump) and I had a mid 30" fish coming hot on my Jerry Girl about the fourth turn on my figure eight she hit the back hooks and I blew the hook set, she came out of the water and it was done, she won. We kept heading down to the point of the reeds and seen one other fish, we were about to call it a morning when I had another one hit my Jerry Girl, and this time I won and put a healthy upper 30" fish in the boat. Well we thought we would end the day there on a good note and get some breakfast.

Well this was the last time we made it out this weekend and it was very enjoyable to be fishing with my father again and hearing all the old stories. I look forward to doing it again in the near future and hopefully he will be able to hook up with one

Eagle River & Three Lakes Chain
Last couple of weeks we been fishing Eagle River and the Three Lakes chains and the fishing been real good. Most of the fish we have seen and caught came in water six feet and less. But we did manage to score on a 35" fish in the WMT Three Lakes in deeper water. Most of the tournament anglers were fishing same shallow pattern as ours so we move to the deeper edges and score on one fish and seen a bunch more with Bull Dawgs and small crank baits.

The presure on these fish will decrease in coming weeks with the three major tournaments being done and vacationers about done for the season. These fish will go back to there normal spots and start putting on the feed bag.

We started out with top water baits (prop baits seem to work the best) until the Sun became to high then we would switch over to bucktails and reefhawgs. It was about 50/50 on which one the fish would eat. I would start on the shallow weeds and then move deeper.

WMT on Boom & Moen
Well me and my partner Rick Hess didn't score any fish in these two tournaments, both days only 6 fish caught in each tournament out of 75 teams. Saturday we were on Boom and the weather once again didn't make this the best for Muskie fishing, sunny, hot, and no wind. We started out fishing were we had fish going earlier in the week fishing a stump feild that was from 9'-13' of water and inside of the stumps there was some nice weed beds. We went from the weeds to the stumps for the first 2 hours of the tounament and we raise only one small fish so we decided to go to another area were we had fish earlier in the week. When we got there one of my good freinds was fishing the area and he said that they had fish going on Bobbie baits and small Bull Dawgs, they lost one fish on the Bull Dawg (white/black). Well we went farther back in the bay were we had a nice fish (maybe 50") earilier in the week and started to punch a bunch of holes in the water with our baits, no fish but we did see some surfacing around us and my buddy had 3 more follows and another lost fish. Well we stayed in this area until 12pm and then went back to the stump field. We seen 3 fish here one hot on a Live Action bait (black/orange) but the only thing we hook up with were logs. By 3:45 my partner had enough and said if we left now he buy the drinks and icecream so we left Boom with 15 minutes left, we had enough and the Muskies Won. Talk to alot of people at the launch and alot of the anglers didn't see a fish.

Moen Lake Sunday, take off was on Lake 3 and we were team 28 and the first 26 teams headed right for lakes 4&5 so we decided to start were we caught a 35" earlier in the week right on lake 3. On Rick's 4th cast he had a nice muskie follow his bucktail and took a turn on his figure eight but didn't take the bait, about 5 minutes later I had a nice one charging my topwater bait but turn away once it seen the boat. In the first 2 hours we had fish going and one that rolled over Rick's Craine bait (when will our luck change). The weather was great for fishing and can't understand why only 6 fish we caught, we could of used a little more wind, but the cloud cover was great and even had a little rain. We seen around 14 fish and top water was what we had most of the follows on but we both wash alot of baits. My good freinds Bill O & Mike E was fishing the same area and they also had fish going. At 11:00 am we went by the judge and he told us only two fish were register so we decide since we were seeing fish here and they being somewhat aggresive we would stay here and wait for them to bite, no sense of leaving fish to find other fish. Well we did see fish on almost ever past but no takers, we even fish the drop offs away from the weeds with Live Actions and Dawgs to see if there was any active fish out in the deeper water, didn't see a fish here so we went back to the weeds. Again we had some follows so we decided to give the fish a different look so we went into the weeds and casted out to see if a different angle on the baits would make them hit, nothing. We even tried running the baits right on the edge of the weeds with me casting the front of the boat and Rick following up with jerk baits on the back side. We just didn't find the winning ticket to make them hit. What was nice about this area was only 6 other boats came though here, and they gave it one past and left, so we thought we had a good chance if one of the fish decided to hit it would be one of our baits. Well they must of decided to hit at 4:01pm because they didn't from 6am - 4pm.

Hopefully we will have better luck on the Eagle River Chain next weekend.

Tiger on Twin
Well in 35 years of fishing North Twin I never caught a tiger on here until last Friday night. My customer caught a nice 42" tiger. We were fishing steep drops and were at 28', letting the baits sink to the bottom, on his first rip this fish decided to hit. We were marking a desent amount of fish here and had some surfacing around us but this was the only one here we hook up with. We move to another spot and right when it was getting dark Tom lost another one that hit on a figure 8. With this fish we were at 8' in weeds throwing out to deep water.

Back to the tiger, I email this picture to one of my buddies because he caught a 41.5" tiger musky in the same spot last September and this fish had same markings. Just to show you catch&release does work and the fish will go back to same area even after he been caught. I will post both pitures and you decide.

Boom 7/28/07
After catching that tiger last night on Twin we decided to go down to Boom and see if we could get something going on top water. We had 3 follows, 1 bait taken away from the musky at boat side when she wanted to eat it, and one lost fish that thought it would come 3' out of the water and throw the bait back at us. Again this Saturday was not the best conditions for fishing with blue skys and no wind, but in five hours of fishing we manage to have some action.

Will be fishing the Boom tournament this coming weekend stop over and say HI and will let you know how we are doing

Pewaukee Lake 7-23-07
The bite on Pewaukee has been real good for the trollers. Trolling small baits like DB3's 75'-100' back in 16'-18' feet of water been producing alot of smaller fish in the 30"-38" range. Ticking the bottom with your baits really seem to turn them on. We were trolling from 3.4 - 4.1 mph. I have some buddies that been trolling in the deeper waters 42'+ and they been catching some nicer fish 40"- 45" range during the day. Bright color baits seem to work best on the South Shore.

Moen's Chain 7/21/07
Fish Saturday from 7am-1pm in not the best musky conditions, blue bird day with no wind. We manage to still put one fish 34" in the boat. Fish were still moving on top water and small jerk baits along the weed edges. Water temp was 74 degrees. Have a tournament coming up so we fish some different areas then the week before but the pattern was the same.

Boom Lake 7/11/07
Well the cold front didn't hurt us to bad today, Tom lost a nice fish on his 2nd cast of the day. We ended the day with three Muskies lost, seen two others (one pig 50+) caught two northerns and one nice bass. Jerk baits and top water were producing the fish. All on the weed edges, we seen no fish on the cribs, but did see a boat catching some nice crappies off them. Since this was the first time we been on this water this year we did more searching then fishing. The weeds were looking great and I can't wait for the WMT first weekend in August.

Moen's Chain 7/10/07
Fished Moen's Chain 7/10 form 6am till 2pm and we put one fish in the boat a nice fat 38" and we lost two more by 12:30. We seen 3 other fish. The fish were all on wind side of the weeds relating to the points, jerk baits work the best but we did bring two up on the slop master. Seen only one other boat fishing the chain for muskies, this chain reminds me so much of Canada that is why I enjoy it so much. Just work your Top water baits slow over the weeds till around 8am then switch over to jerk baits or spinners and work the weed edges.

North Twin 7/8/07 & 7/14/07
Fished twin last couple of nights and it been real slow. Only caught one small one, and seen a couple more. Fished from 7pm till 10:30 both nights. We had nothing at night, last year the night bite turn on at the end of July so hopefully it will be the same this year. The fish was caught on a Bull Dawg off of rocky bar NE side, 18" of water. Water temp was 76 degrees on 7/8 put drop to 69 degrees by 7/14. Will be back on Twin 7/20/07 hopefully fishing will pick up.

Pewaukee Lake 7-4-07
Well my good freind Scott G wanted me to go out with him and try our luck on Pewaukee. Scott told me he been having pretty good luck the past week (two over 40") doing the trolling thing. I met Scott at 5am and we fished to 9:30am we only had one rip on a Swim'n Joe. We trolled first two passes at 18'-20' of water then went out to the 30' range. We talk to 5 others out there and no one we talk to had any action today. It should of been better with the West winds and overcast skys. Well that is fishing. You might even see a picture of me sitting in his Tuffy, first time I been in one and I hate to say this but I was impress. I guess I will have to stop giving him so much S--T about it. Only negative thing I seen with it was it had the same amout of fish to hit the net as the Ranger ZERO.

Thanks again Scott for the outting and showing me all your secret baits, hope next time you bring the real ones.

Okauchee Lake week of 6-30-07
Went out for two nights and one morning this past week. No fish in boat but we seen fish everytime. We been working the deep drops 30' and suspended bait fish. Live Action in white and the black/orange had most of the follows. We just couldn't get them to commit, we tried speed and really pumping the rods and they would still follow lazy. Best spots were the old road bed between the islands with the farthest point to the west being real productive. The other spot that been consistent is west end of Breezy Point and the three underwater point to the north of here.

Well hope you have better luck then I in making them hit.

North Twin 6/22/07
Fish this Friday night on North Twin from 3pm - 9:30pm Started out deep 25' fishing to the breaks and had no raises. Went in to 15" and the same, nothing. Found weeds 7' - 11' and found the fish from 7pm-9pm raised 6 different fish with one nice one upper 40"s that came up 3 times on two different baits. The medium Bull Dawgs and Gerry Girl's were the baits that moved the fish. Tried top water for the last half hour nothing, also the Live Action let me down also. Well we didn't boat anything but we seen some nice fish and they were happy.

Next two weeks will be down in South Eastern WI

Remember half the battle is keeping that POSITIVE MUSKY ATTITUDE.

Okauchee Lake 6/20/07
Was out on Okauchee last night and we fished from 3:30 to 9:00. Surface Temp. was 78 degrees and being a very sunny day we started out fishing deep structure and bait fish with no success. At around 8:00pm some cloud cover move in and we went to the deep weed edges. We ended up raising two fish, one off South Point on a Bull Dawg medium yellow with red tail and the other came off Crazy Man's Island on a Gerry's Girl yellow/silver blades. Both of the fish were hot on the baits and went into the figure 8's but no takers. Hopefully we will get some weather in here tomorrow to improve the fishing. Fishing Okauchee on blue bird days can make for a long day, on days like this it is best to fish the deep bait fish and deep structure 20 feet plus during the mid-day and morning and evenings move to the deep weeds 13'-18' this time of year.

Lac Vieux Desert week of 6/16/07
Well the fishing on LVD just started to pick up and the surface water has warm up to 76 degrees. We move some big fish on top water baits first thing in the morning fishing the weed edges off points and later in the day the fish were moving on the large Gerry's Girls right over the weeds. We manage to put one 39.5" and a 34" in the boat.

North Twin week of 6/2/07
Here is my report for last weekend, only was able to get out for a couple of hours but the fish were still hanging out in the shallows. Started off with little spinners and small jerk baits they seem to work the best. Best water was 7" and casting towards shore. Next weekend I will be on Twin Friday morning and Saturday & Sunday will be on Lac Vieux Desert if you see me in my green 619 Ranger come over and say hi and I will let you know how we are doing.

North Twin Lake week of 5/26/07
Fished North Twin this past weekend and the fishing was great. We went out on the Sunday after the northern Musky opener and we found the fish willing to eat. It seemed like the fish were pretty much every place we look from 1 foot of water to 20 feet of water casting into structure. The fish in less then 5' just seem to follow with Gerry's Mini Girl's getting most of the looks. We caught two using Bull Dawgs in the 7'-10' of water, a nice fat 41.5" and a 35" we also raise some real PIGS, since we were pre fishing for the WMT we didn't spend any time trying to make these bite, just mark them on the GPS and hope to connect with one of them on Monday during the WMT. Monday came and we were all pump up and ready to go get one of those pigs but we had a fog delay for over 1.5 hours, I drank enough coffee to last me the rest of the year. Well Tom finally gave us the OK to go and the first spot we started at we raised a nice 42" that was hot and turn 3 times on my figure 8 and it missed the bait twice, what a way to start, no fish, and by doing my figure 8 this showed 3 other boats that we had a fish going and they moved right in. This spot not being to big we decided to move to another area and when we pulled up we seen one of my good freinds Bill Ollman catch a nice 39" fish so we knew the fish were still here from yesterday and were still biting. This spot was a weed edge and we position the boat in 15' of water and cast towards the weeds with Bull Dawgs and within halfhour we had our first fish 38.5" we register this fish and went back to the same structure. As we came up to one of our GPS marks Rick Hess raise a real nice fish that he just couldn't make eat his dawg, when we came to the mark we had our first fish I hit our 2nd one and boated a nice 36 incher. Now since we were the first team to double we kept this fish and had the long 5 hour wait to see how we would end up. Well with the weather conditions getting better to fish and the good sticks out on the lake looking for them 28 fish were caught and 5 teams double and of course we took 5th. Not a bad weekend, but not a great weekend. The water temps were 54-58 degrees and most of the fish were caught under 10' of water, if these temps hold these fish will be there for a while. Will be back up there this weekend and will report if the same patterns hold

North Twin week of 6/2/07
Here is my report for last weekend, only was able to get out for a couple of hours but the fish were still hanging out in the shallows. Started off with little spinners and small jerk baits they seem to work the best. Best water was 7" and casting towards shore. Next weekend I will be on Twin Friday morning and Saturday & Sunday will be on Lac Vieux Desert if you see me in my green 619 Ranger come over and say hi and I will let you know how we are doing.