WOW... What a opener it was...

[ScottPugh]

With my wife and I having a <2 week old baby I couldn't get up to Grand Rapids like I wanted to with Hogeye's.  At first I was pissed because not only had I heard great things about where Hogeye's was fishing, but also I wanted to get started on the food plots for deer hunting.  Well Thursday night I start making some calls and see who's going to get out locally and see if I could jump in their boat and wet a line with them.  My cousin and his buddy were opening up in Wright county early Saturday AM and then maybe heading up to Mille Lacs for the afternoon / night bite.  Little did I know that this plan was going to work out in our favor...

We spent about 5 hours in Wright County catching a few slimers, some small panfish and one walleye.  We kept the walleye and one of the pike as the lake we were fishing is overrun with smaller ones.  A quick stop off at my cousins for lunch and his buddy had to watch the boys for a few hours and then we were off to Mille Lacs.  Pike and Walleye both came on jigging small ice fishing jigs and a crappie minnow.   ???

Talked with one of the guys at Trophy's and it sounded like shallow was key Saturday AM, but with the high sky's and the nice (too nice) of weather I though maybe a little deeper rock piles were going to be good for a few hours before dark.  We out of Cove Bay (18' Alaskan Crestliner with a 50hp) launch was OK (busy) prop washout was already getting bad with people gunning their 19' boats and 175hp on the trailers.  ::)

First two hours we saw a few boats catching fish but we couldn't buy a bite.  I retied ~ 12 times the first two hours and we tried, leeches, crawlers, and minnows (fathead, crappie, and rainbows).  Taking a look at the Lowrance H2O we talked about running to Andersons Reef and trying shallower rock, but we stuck on our spot and made little moves.  We saw two boats catching fish around us, one boat(100 feet) was catching keeper like crazy (with the occasional over) and another boat (100 feet) catching some bigger fish so we knew they were there.  We caught one for the box on a bobber and couldn't buy another bite.  We were going to move in shallow for the sundown shallow rock bite but we made one last move to see what we could find.  What we found was a ledge that dropped straight down 1.5', the fish must have been holding right there dispite not marking any.  We tossed out a quick bobber and before we knew it was on.  I played net boy for a good 45 minutes as I tried to tie on a new color.  We bobbered fished for 3 hours, caught 30+ fish, had our limit and tossed back many smaller fish plus some over fish also.  You had to have green in your jig color and a all green was the best...

I can't wait to get back!!!







One Walleye + the pike were from Wright County

[A-Rod]

Scott.  Congrats on the opener success.  Its cool to keep patient and actually have it pay off by hitting "the spot" and slaying that many fish one after another. ::cheers::

[Rywheat]

Great post love to see them with pics I need to remember the camera more when we go out Fishing was great on the north end sand for us as well

[Hog EyEs]

Scott,

Glad it all worked out! You would still be kicking yourself if you hadn't gotten on those fish. 

Good job!

[ScottPugh]

Scott,

Glad it all worked out! You would still be kicking yourself if you hadn't gotten on those fish. 

Good job!

I was  :: :: for the two hours before we caught a fish but was  ::cheers:: ::cheers:: when we started catching them.  Hope your dad enjoys the spot if he get's up there.

[Mayfly]

When ya headed back up Scott?

Nice pics, looks like a great opener!!!

 ::

[ScottPugh]

When ya headed back up Scott?

Don't know...  Sister decided that a wedding (by judge) is going to be this Saturday and the party is going to be next weekend so I have no clue.  I might try to sneak up on Sunday for the day bite. 

If you get up there and have a strong (15mph similar to Saturday afternoon) give me a call.  I have somewhere for you to try.  ::)

[Realtree]

Sounds like a fun trip Scott.

Thanks for sharing and for the nice pics.

Great looking collection there !!!  ::