What Are Readers Say!

Note:

This is from Rachel Salter, a friend of mine at the General Dynamics facility in Hastings, England:

Greetings Juris and Friends,

I may not be a fishing person but I must say I find these chronicles fascinating! Have decided that Jerry probably needs a rest from the cooking, having seen those hotdogs, and reckon you should hire me as your chef! A good dollop of fine English cuisine (and believe me "dollop" is the most apt word) would sort you out a treat after a hard day on the lake! Imagine coming back to the cabin to the rich smells of Shepherd's Pie, Beef in Ale with Dumplings, Toad-in-the-Hole with Onion Gravy and followed by Spotted Dick or Jam Roly-Poly and Custard. Now I'm sure Jerry is still a fine cook but come on, the poor guy's been cooking for you for years now. Fly me out and I'll give him a rest. I won't get in the way and I'm very cheap to keep :0)

On a serious note though, a question from a complete layman (or layperson)...

If you fail to catch a decent number of Walleye this year will you continue to fish the Lake, will you try somewhere else, or will you set your sights on a different challenge, i.e., trying to catch the biggest Northern?

Glad you are all having fun and the weather is good. As per usual it is damp, gray and miserable over here which makes for damp, gray and miserable people!!!

Good luck with the fishing and loon watching,

Rachel

Note:

This is from Mark Sewald, a fellow member of Muskies Inc., and perhaps one of the finest fishermen, Muskies or otherwise, that I know. Mark is responding to my comment on the Sunday report about Woman Lake being full of crayfish for the Walleyes to eat.

Juris,

Based on humble data/observation gathering of the last 25 years, forage density has everything to do with how easy fishing is. In lean years, tossing a lure into a group of 2 or 3 Largemouth Bass will result in a strike due to competition for limited forage. One of the fish will grab a soft plastic lure and run with it to keep away from his pals. You can generally catch his hungry buddies on the next casts. In fat years, the same fish will ignore the same lure, or only hit at optimal feeding windows. Generally you will have to work larger schools of fish in hopes of getting one or two to bite. The marginal areas holding only a fish or two will not produce regularly. Also, since muskies are so high in the food chain, they usually are enjoying a relatively fat year!

I have limited data but a do think about it a lot!

Mark

Note:

This is from Don Krieger, a fellow I've never met but have exchanged emails with. Don sends us a "Mini Woman Lake Report" of his own. Don was on Woman Lake last weekend, same time as we were, but did a lot better.

Juris:

Hello up at Woman Lake. My name is Don Krieger and I wrote to you last April with some questions about the lake and your recommended fishing hotspots. I am writing to you with some information from my fishing trip to Woman Lake this past weekend. In fact I probably fished by you guys and did not even know it. Since you were so kind to answer my questions, I hope this info. helps you guys net some 'eyes!

My brother and I fished on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning. We caught two walleyes Friday (one in morning and one in evening) , three Saturday evening (8–9:30), and three Sunday morning (8:00–10:00). The smallest was 11.5–inches and the largest was 23–inches. The six in between were all nice at 18–20 inches.

All of our walleyes, with the exception of the small one, were caught at Government point. They all were caught between 8 to 12–feet with both leeches and shiner minnows. We used snagless sinkers, long snells (6 to 10–feet), and no. 6 or 8 size hooks. We tried colored hooks, but only caught them on plain hooks. We trolled or drifted as slow as possible primarily working in the aforementioned depths around the warning buoy.

Between the other 10+ guys in our fishing party, only 5 walleyes were caught. I must note we fished 10–hours a day and most of them fished 5 or less with a lot of drinking in between. One guy was fishing with his ice fishing pole (the same guy who fell out of his boat taking a leak two years ago) and some boats only went out in the middle of the day. Not too serious of fishermen.

SECRET bonus tip: Sunday morning I saw a boat at Government Point catch five walleyes in an hour using nightcrawlers. They were fishing a little bit deeper than us but it just go to show you that the fish are usually biting somewhere and on something that you would not think to use. We actually had bought nightcrawlers and tried them once for 10 minutes, but that morning we left them at the cabin. This could be your secret. Let me know if you try it.

Again, I hope this information helps and I hope to see some walleyes show up on your Statistics page by the end of the week. I wish I had entire week to fish....

One last SECRET bonus tip: Leave all of your ice fishing gear on shore and do not fall out of the boat without your life preserver on.

Good luck!

Don Krieger Shoreview, MN