My P/S Juice in 2025

 2025 was a bounce back after tougher fishing in 2024. Platte Lake is on the road to recovery after the winterkill in 2023. Here is where I caught my fish in 2025. Primarily bass and pike. The number in the circle is the number of fish caught there.

First up is for the trips I fished in both lakes during the trip.

My Platte map shows I caught a bunch of fish off the dock, which is on the East side of the lake. That the fishing on F Flat has gone to crap, and that Big West Bay was more than just a flash in the pan. Big West was alive with life. And that I caught a fair number of fish on docks, which hardly happened in 20204.

And lastly, there is Sullivan, which doesn't get many trips all by itself: 

Fish Swami Stuff

 I am not sure if this is a new feature or if I just noticed it, but when I go into my fishing log entries there is a side menu that sorts by date, day of the year, number of fish caught, and moon phase. I can't make heads or tails of the moon phase. Having an easy to track down listing of every time I have fished on X date is something that very cool to have that I will look at frequently.  Seeing the number of fish caught per trip will make for an interesting blog post or two from the fish catching stats I can glean from it.  

 

Cool Beans, Location Reports Now Available at Fish Swami

 A new feature has been added at Fish Swami. Now everyone of my "Waters," ie places I fish has been given individual reports that go two levels deep. The first Level is year and number of fish caught there. 

So for the Grumpy Old Man Hole I get this:

From they I can click on the individual Year, which brings me to an Analytics page for that location for that year modeled after the tried and true Fish Swami Annual Fishing Log Report.

Here is 2021, my least successful year at the :

It is so cool to be able to see how the fishing changed from year to year in a quick and easy way to reference. 

Fish Swami Tidbit

 So yesterday, I learned that all of my individual "patterns"/fishing lures on Fish Swami are linked to every fishing trip I caught a fish on the lure. I have used Fish Swami since 2011. 

Because of that, I learned that 2015 was the first year I used an H2O Ultimate Jerk Shad. So this will be my 11th year using that fish catcher. I also noticed a significant drop in the number of trips when I got at least one fish on the lure since 2021, with 2024 being the least productive. I blame the 22/23 Winter Kill.

My Juice In 2024

 I do not in any way attribute the disappointing fishing I experienced this year to me sharing my "Juice" last year. This year was just off. The Jumpin Bullhead bite was off at the Grumpy Old Man Hole. The frog and topwater bite were a struggle. 2024 was just off. 

Here is my Juice for 2024

2024 Platte/Sullivan Trips Fish Caught

Sullivan Only Trips

Platte Only Trips

Platte Lake was just brutal for me this year.

Here is the Juice for me in 2024. Where I did my ice fishing:

Sure the panfish and pike are small for the most part, but I got a lot of action.

Platte/Sullivan Juice, Part 2

 As promised here are my fishing heat maps for Sullivan Lake, Platte Lake, and Platte/Sullivan telling the general area where I caught all my fish in 2023 and 2022. Platte froze out in 2023, so I fished there a lot less frequently this year. 

2023

Many more trips were taken to only Sullivan in 2023 and I expanded the areas fished.

2022

The two farthest West dots on this map are shore spots.

Platte 2023

Platte Only Trips 2022
A Good Year for F Flat

Bonus 2021 Map
(I put the Fish Swami App on my phone in July of 2021)

Trips In Which I fished both Lakes in 2023

Both Lakes 2022

Both Lakes 2021

Giving Up My Platte/Sullivan Juice For 2023

I just discovered that the Fish Swami App offers me yearly, monthly, and hourly maps of the general location of the fish I caught in the time frame of my choosing. There is no breakdown for fish species, but this year I was pretty much a 50/50 split between pike and bass this year. So here is where I caught them in 2023. 

This map was my Platte/Sullivan trips in which I fished both lakes.

Just my Platte Lake trip fish numbers

My Only Sullivan Lake trip fish numbers

In the coming days, I will do a post contrasting where I caught fish in 2023 vs. 2022, when I mainly was still fishing in Platte Lake.

Platte/Sullivan Trips: 922 fish caught

Platte Lake Trips: 345 fish caught (Probably 80/20 split pike to bass)

Sullivan Lake Trips: 404 fish caught.

 

2021 Year In Review (By The Numbers) And Report Card

 

In 2021, I set records for the number of fish caught in a year (3938), the number of days fished (242), the number of trips taken (330), and fish caught per hour (4.96). However, my bass numbers were down 113 fish from 2020. I had a record number of trips I rated as Great (74) and Good (190), and I only had (16) Trips rated as Poor, down from (33) poor trips last year. Not a lot of skunks were had this year (17). 

2021 was the Year of Ice Fishing Where Crappie Catches Were King
2021 started with me on the same old suck truck for ice fishing success. But then I got my new Fish Trap, Smitty Sled, and broke through on a school of fish on Rock Lake in January, and my fishing numbers were on fire for about a month. I ended the year on two fifty-fish nights on Bulldog. If not for the snow and my getting sick, I probably would have reached the milestones of 5 Fish Per Hour and 4,000 Fish in a year. I caught a record number of crappies in 2021 (834).
Ice Fishing Grade: B+

Crappie Fishing Grade: A

2021 Bass Fishing:

I would describe bass fishing in 2021 as solid but challenging. No matter how tough the fishing was, I always seemed to boat one or two, but man, did we have to work for bites. I fear that the bass population in Platte/Sullivan is decreasing. I never really whacked them once non-stop in 2021. If there are schools out there, they were not shallow in 2021. Hopefully, it is just a shallow water and baitfish issue that will work out if water levels and temps are more normal in 2022. We got a good number of 4's and 5's this year between the brothers and me.

Bass Fishing Grade: B-

Bass Size Grade: B+

Tournament Fishing in 2021:

Overall it was a tough tournament season for me, but I got lucky with Platte/Sullivan for the blind draw, doubly fortunate to get Darien Kiefer as a boater, and the rest is history.

Whitefish Lake: 13th Place (Saved by a rally in the final hour and a half)

North Long: 20th Place (Didn't fish well at all)

FishTrap Lake: 8th Place (Rallied in the final hour and a half)

Edward Lake: 15th Place (I sucked, Beau caught 'em fine)

Leech Lake: Skunked

Blind at Platte/Sullivan: 1st Place, Lunker, and Top Co-Angler

Serpent Lake Challenge Cup: (Snatchers came in last, my head wasn't in it)

Tournament Season Grade: A-

Tournament Performance Grade: C

Sure I sucked for the most part, but I got a W, so it's all good. 

2021 Walleye Fishing:

Ouch, this wasn't expected. Walleye fishing crashed back to historical norms after the last few boom years. Low water on Mille Lacs this Fall is the primary driver of the decline.
Walleye Fishing Grade: C

2021 Grumpy Old Man Hole (GOMH) Fishing:

Low water and lack of baitfish made fishing the GOMH the toughest in memory. Thank God for the Trophy.

GOMH Grade: C-

2021 Pike Fishing:

The great thing about the drought and early high water temps was that it threw the pike in Platte Lake for a loop. I only lost about 10 frogs this year. Last year, I lost at least two dozen. I also caught some tanks.
Pike Grade: A

2021 Bowfin Fishing:

I landed a 3 this year, including one tank on August 8th while fishing with Steve.
Bowfin Grade: B+

2021 Smallmouth & Tulibee Fishing:

Didn't catch either one in 2021. Straight up F's Homey!
Smallmouth Grade: F

Tullibee Grade: F

2021 Fishing Grade: B

Pike and Walleye Best Lures for 2021

Caught 966 Pike this year

My double-digit pike lures for 2021

28 Walleyes Landed in 2021

Walleye numbers were way down this year compared to the last three due to low water levels and the difficult Fall bite.

Buckets Finally Surpass Crips

Well, it took forever to get here and some help from family and friends, but finally, on August 11th, largemouth bass has taken the lead from crappie on my Fish Swami count. At the rate I've been catching them over the past month I'll be lucky if I get to 1000 for the yea. It's been tough on Platte/Sullivan this year. I am blaming the weed spraying and carpet weed.

 

My Fish Swami Fish Per Hour Stats By Month

 Fish Swami recently added the Fish Caught Per Hour Stat to their yearly Fishing Log Summary Report so now I have an easily accessible per month breakdown of how well I catch fish in a given month.

This is from 2011 to the Present

  

2011

2012

Back issues combined with an extra-long winter contributed to a long string of zero's.  

2013

Platte/Sullivan and the GOMH were en fuego in early 2013.

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

If my bass fishing game comes together the way my ice fishing game did this winter then I am in for a phenomenal year.

I Have Now Fished More Days In 2020 Than In 2019

 

The catching has been more challenging this year. It feels like I have put more time in, but the number of hours proves that isn't true. which kind of makes sense. The difference between 4.4 fish per hour and 4.16 might not seem like a lot, but over 600 hours is. Better fishing makes the time pass quicker and provides motivation for me to stay out a little longer. When the fishing is tough I am more apt to call it a day earlier like we did yesterday on Gull.