Rockman's Report

[rockman]

We are at the half way mark in the season, and the bite has been very on and off this year. There are so many different types of forage out there; it is like a buffet for the fish. I had a friend of mine send me a clip of some of the minnows and tullebee schools that are down there right now. There is a lot of it. The small 5 inch perch are all over the place, which is why the bite is so slow.

If we can get most of these young 5 inch perch to survive the next 2 years, it is going to be a great perch bite in 2010. There are some really nice 10 to 12 inch perch showing up in the bug beds off of the second reef. Jordan was able to scrape out 14 nice 10 to 12 inch perch on Saturday. Sunday was a different story, but it was very encouraging to see him catch the ones on Saturday. I will have all of the houses out to the Second Reef this week. I am going to set up in the bug beds right away, and we will just wait them out.

The perch that Jordan caught, were full of the May Fly Larva. I may just plow off a large area on the bug beds, just to get some light on them, that will help to get the bugs moving. I will see what happens this week with the weather. We need to get some consistency with the weather on the weekends. It has been every weekend this season that we get some kind of pressure change, they all seem to be Arctic Highs that move in on the weekends or low pressure systems with a lot of snow and wind.

There is nothing worse on the bite, then to have an Artic High move in. I do have a couple of fish stories for you from this weekend. First, was able to get out on Friday for the evening bite out on the number one hump. I had the rattle wheel go off, which by the way has not been the way to go this season to catch fish, jigging a Swedish pimple has been the best, anyway I set the hook and the mono line starts to sing like it does when you stretch it on something big.

I start to very carefully, reel it in and then, nothing. So I set the minnow right back down, hoping to get another shot at her and wait. To make this long story short, I reeled up the line and there is a 3 inch walleye on it and he had the hook all the way down his throat and two rake marks down his back. What must have happened is; the little walleye took the small crappie minnow and was not big enough to set off the rattle wheel and was now the bait.

I have not set into a fish this big for a long time; you can tell when they are really big. The darn little walleye was eaten by a much larger walleye, but there was no hook to hook it with, the darn little walleye already had it. I hate when that happens. The second story has a much better outcome. On Friday, which was my buddy Darlene birthday, she wanted to do some fishing so I said, just go out to the red house on the hump and fish out of there.

I can not believe it when, 45 minutes later she calls me on my cell phone and says, I just caught a huge Northern. She brings it in and we weighed and measured it. It was 40 inches long and weighed just over 17 lbs. She was using a Swedish pimple with a minnow head on 6lb test when she saw something up off the bottom about 5 or 6 ft. So she reeled up to it and the Northern hit it. She was also very lucky to have caught him in the jaw, so the fight was on.

She said it took over 5 minutes to bring it in, and lucky for her once again, that Johnny has a big gaff hook in the fish house. Marie grabbed the gaff and between the two of them, they were able to land the huge beast through the 8 inch hole. Great job ladies, we know you are the Northern Queens, especially when you catch another one that is 32 inches in your shallow water haunt on Saturday night.

That is amazing, especially when you are not even fishing for them. Once again, Dar Dar, Happy Birthday, and what a great thing to happen on your Birthday. There is a picture of Dars fish on my web site under the photo tab, check it out it is a very nice fish. www.rockyreef.com �Other than Jordan and Darlene and a couple of other luck fisherman, there were not a lot of fish caught this weekend. Like I said before, I will be moving everything out into the bug beds this week, and I have some house available for this weekend. Give me a call @ 320 532 3431 if you would like to catch some nice perch this weekend.

I would like to also give a shout out too, my very dear friends, also known as Johnnys Angels, and there better halves Brian, Lee and Randy. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for coming up to visit and of course as always, contribute to the Bar and Grill fund, and you know how much I love gifts. Thank you so much it was great to see you all.

Have a great week everyone.

We will see ya

When we see ya

The Rockman

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