Morning Froggin'

Yesterday I got my replacement rod from St. Croix for the frog rod I broke in July (I didn't mail it until the end of last week). So this morning I wanted to go out and throw a few casts to break it in. I decided the reel I'm putting on this St. Croix Legend Tournament Bass Carolina Rig Rod is better suited to a weighted hook with a dipper rather than an unweighted Zoom Horny Toad, so that is what I rigged it up with. My older LTB Carolina Rig Rod was rigged with the Horny Toad.

A little after 7AM I headed out to Jenny's. Nothing doing on the Berkley Havoc Lane's Grass Pig and the Horny Toad. The lure of last resort was a Mad Maxx Frog which I can throw out quite a bit further than the 1st two lures I tried. Getting out farther was the trick and I had a blow up which I missed. I cast out to the same general area and something exploded on it again and this time I hooked up.


It was a chunky 15.5". I did manage to get a couple of other weak hits, but didn't hook up with them. I think I left around 9AM

BP On Successful Shore Fishing

I received a comment from blog reader Cory asking about bank/shore fishing that I would like to respond too. Here is what Cory wrote:
So I've noticed that often hit several spots when you head out to fish. Are you fishing all of these spots from the bank?

I don't own a boat, so all of my fishing is done from the bank. Any bass fishing tips you can offer to us bank fishers that might help with landing a few more?!?
Yes Cory, a lot of the time I am hitting spots on the bank, especially this year.

As far as tips go, I think I have to start with something basic and that is the L of the In-Fisherman F+L+P= Fishing Success formula. The L stands for Location. If you are going to have success fishing from shore, you need to do the leg work of finding productive spots, the more spots the better. This may or may not be easy to do. I am lucky in that I have access to some pretty good bass fishing spots from shore. Not all spots are created equal and some spots were much more productive the last few years than they have been this year, Eddy's Jetty for smallmouth specifically. While Eddy's Jetty hasn't been so good this year, I started fishing another spot, the Shakopee Bridge, which is on the way to the Eddy's Jetty that I just ignorned before and this new spot has paid off well.

Another thing I think that is important with shore fishing is timing. When I think of timing there are 3 different aspects of it: Seasonal Prime Timing, Daily Prime Timing and Fishing Pressure Timing.

Seasonal Prime Timing- Is all about being aware of at what point in the year your shore fishing spot will be at it's best and worst. A shore spot may only be productive for a limited period of time. Thus it is important that you find out when that prime time is and take advantage of it.

Daily Prime Timing- Is all about hitting your shore spots at a time of day that have the most chance of being productive. That may mean getting out early, fishing at dusk, or at night. If you are lucky, you might have access to spots that can be good at any time of day, but usually dawn and dusk will be best in the summer time.

Fishing Pressure Prime Timing- How much fishing pressure your spots will get is usually going to be beyond your control. Hit this one wrong and there may be nothing for you to catch, because someone beat you to it. Still, even though a spot is getting pressure it still might be worth a stop. This is another one where the early bird may get the worm or the person that plays the Daily Prime Timing right.

One last tip: If it's feaseable bring multiple rods or presentations to try. One thing may work and another not. Or maybe trying different things will catch additional fish. I will shore fish at times with 6-8 rods. If you've got em', use em'.

Mille Lacs Gets Tough and GOMH Show

On Saturday the wind blew out of the East all day. Normally that makes Eddy's hot. It didn't. I arrived at 8PM and set up on the North Jetty Harbor Mouth. Much to my astonishment nothing happened. Finally at 10PM I went to chuck raps off the North jetty corner and that didn't work. The wind was about 5 mph less than last night. I went to the lighted bobber and a leech and got bit around 11PM. I lost the fish more than half the way in. It may have been a keeper. About 35 minutes later the bobber was gone and this time I landed it. The fish went 19" and had to go back.

At 12:30AM I went to the truck to take a nap. I got up at 3AM and tried off the South jetty. The wind had picked up some. No luck. A little after 4AM I went back to the North jetty. I did get a bite but I waited to long and it spit the leech. Once the sun got up I tried the harbor mouth, nothing! I left at 6:30AM

I made a quick stop at the bridge North of Shakopee lake. Nothing, but I talked to a guy who said he gets walleye and northern there and bass occasionally.

After getting home and changing some things out I headed to the Grumpy Old Man Hole. There were several trucks parked, but nobody on the NE side so I was happy. My first lure was the Chuck Fall Pike Spinnerbait. I got a 14.5" jumpin bullhead on my first cast and 17.75" on my second. About 20 casts later I got a 16" jumper and that was it. I tried a bunch of lures but got nothing more.

I went to the SE side on the bank and made long casts with an orange swim jig I just won on Ebay with a Havoc Devil Spear Green Pumpkin dipped in Chart. JJ's Magic Dye. I got a 20" toothy bullhead and two 14.5" jumpin bullheads on it and missed a couple of hits. That Devil Spear is the bee's knee's for a swim jig trailer.

Gold Rush!!!

Lord Have Mercy!

That was my reaction when I saw the conditions off of Eddy's Jetty. 10-15mph E SE wind so I went to the corner of the North Jetty. I thought it was going to be a serious whack fest, turns out the fishing was just OK.

I started casting a couple of minutes past midnight throwing a purple perch Husky Jerk because I whacked them hard on that color in similar conditions in 2007 (and 2007 Part Deux). That didn't pan out so I switched to a gold husky jerk.

After about 10 minutes it was "fish on" and I landed it.

It went 23" and had to go back because it was in the protected 18-28slot.

About 10 minutes later it was fish on again.

This one went 19"

I went for about 15 minutes without a bite, so I switched to a glass perch color and I got two on that.


This one, both pictures, went 25" and was big fish of the night.

This one went 24.5

I then had a long lull and tried several baits before getting this 22" on a white Shallow Shad X-Rap.


I got this last fish around 2:15AM. Soon after that my upper back started to really bug me and by 3AM I had to give up the rap throwing.

I went and got my bobber rod and went up the center jetty and fished the North harbor mouth. There had been 3 guys fishing at the North harbor mouth from the North Jetty and they got a total of 4 Eye's. After about an hour I got a bite and missed it. I quickly put on another leech and cast back to the same spot. Sure enough it got picked up and I reeled the slack and set the hook. This one looked like an eater, but it got off. That was my last bite. I stayed till a little after 6:30am but the fish were just not going like I would think they should be.

I'll be back tonight.

A little "Big Sexy"

Today I got out for a little big of shore fishing on Platte Lake. I only had one hit and it was while casting off our neighbor Jim's dock. I did catch the bass and it was about 14". The camera was in the car but at the time I was in bare feet because Jim's dock is partly under water. I figured it was too much hassle to go and put my shoes on and run to the car for a picture. So far I am 3 for 4 on Mad Maxx strikes where the fish gets the lure in it's mouth.

If you didn't guess I got it on the Tru-Tungsten Mad Maxx in "Big Sexy" color.

I'll be a bit of a critic on Big Sexy. I don't know why they made the top of the bait light blue, which is harder to see than chartreuse or white which are the other colors of this frog.

Vikings Football Vikings Frog

Tonight is the 1st Vikes Pre-season game and I got out and did some fishing with the Snagproof "Viking Frog" when I went to check to see if there was water in the Trophy (boat).

Off the dock at the lake place I got about 15.5" largie. At Jenny's I started out missing 5 straight strikes, but I think I managed to catch those 2 fish plus one more. The first was a skinny 17+", the 2nd and 3rd were 14+".

Update: The Vikes ran over the Rams 28-7. Can't take too much from it as it was mostly 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stringers and it was the Rams.

Shore Nuff August 2, 2010

Tonight I went to the lake place to make sure the boat wasn't filled with water due to a couple of storms in the last few days and naturally I brought my frogging rod along to try and catch some fish. The frog tied on the end of the line was Snagproof Viking which is a purple frog with yellow in the legs. I didn't take the boat out. I only fished from shore and off the dock. On about my 3rd cast I got this 13"+ largie.


On a cast over by Sherman's dock I got a 12"+ and in front of Jim's dock I had something, probably a pike, swipe at the frog.

I also fished for a couple of minutes at Jenny's and caught a 13" largie.

Off the Dock

Tonight I went over to our place on Platte Lake to get some tackle for Saturday's Cass Lake Tournament and naturally I did a little fishing. I fished from about 8:35 to 9PM. I only threw a white Spro Bronzeye Frog. I started out casting along our dock and didn't get anything, so I went out on the dock and on a cast out front of Sherman's Dock (East) I had something nip at the frog in open water right before the rice. I cast back and got another boil, this time in the rice and I thought it might be a bigger fish from the disturbance it created. Actually I thought it might be a dogfish. I cast back a couple more times without results so I started fan casting.

I got the first fish which was about 14.5" casting almost straight out in the rice next to the boat path which is weed free. I worked my way fan casting all the way west, and then I cast back at Sherman's slowly walking the frog. Sure enough the 17.75" blasted it this time and so I got a picture.

As I was about done, I was slowly walking the frog back in the boat path and I caught a little hammer handle.

Note: I fished off the dock a few night's ago and didn't record the trip cause I didn't bring a camera. That night I got a 13+ inch bass and 26" pike out of the slop, both on the white Spro.

Smallmouth Bass Mille Lac-TION

It was around 7PM when I headed out the door to go to Mille Lacs to try for some smallies. I stopped at Subway and ate, then it was off to Eddy's Jetty. When I arrived their were 2 guys fishing on the South Jetty, which is where I got most of my smallies last year. The center Jetty was also taken so I headed to the corner of the North Jetty.

BAM!!! It didn't take long. First cast with a wht/chart with wht&chart willow leaf blade spinnerbait and I connected with this 17.5" beauty


A couple casts later, BAM 19.25"!!!


Action stopped on the spinnerbait, so I picked up a blue/pink Monsoor Swim Jig with pink 5" Action Plastics Mag Grub and BAM, 18"!!!




I went back to the spinnerbait and had a hit but after a couple of seconds the fish was gone and so was my spinnerbait. I'm not sure if it was a Norman Speed Clip malfunction (Note to self, don't use Speed Clips with spinnerbaits) or if the spinnerbait broke.

Tried using the blue/pink Monsoor Jig some more without luck, so I switched up to a wht/chart Monsoor Swim Jig with pearl 5" Action Plastics Mag Grub. I quickly caught these two swimmers on that.

The 1st one is 12 and the 2nd one is 13"

Next came a long lull where I tried a Subwalk, SK Sexy Swimmer, Storm Kicken Stick, and a old school Frenzy jerkbait (had a hit on the Frenzy that didn't hook up). Nature was calling so I went to the porta john and then I headed to the South Jetty but didn't get a sniff there. I decided to go back to the North Jetty and try Berkley Frenzy Poppers, but it was a bit windy and the fish didn't want topwater. I then tried the Frenzy Jerkbait Again, a couple of X-Rap Shallow Shad, and a couple X-Rap jerkbaits. No luck so I went back to the swim jigs and on the wht/chart I connected with this 18.25"

The bugs were starting to get bad, so I left at about 9:30PM.

Not bad for some shore fishin'!!!

Don's Dockage

(Don W. catches a sunfish)

Tonight Pete was over for the evening and we decided to go fishing at about 7PM. Originally I was going to take us to the Rock Dock and GOMH, but Pete suggested we check in with Don W. and see if we could fish off his dock.

Don was home and was generous enough to allow us to fish his dock. He has been catching lots of sunfish, perch, bass, and pike along with a few crappie so far this Spring. We got down to the dock and on my very first cast I had something hit my Panfish Chatterbait but it didn't hook up. On my first cast to the other side of the dock I also got a hit, but this one didn't hook up either. Pete missed a fish that he thought was a pike. Eventually I switched to a glow Cubby under a bobber. Around 8:15PM Don came out and joined us. He said the bite really doesn't rev up until right before dark and he was right.

I started getting a few hits but couldn't hook anything. Eventually I tipped the Cubby with a dead minnow, all my minnows were dead, and had a fish pull the bobber under. I set the hook and immediately the fish came up and jumped; I thought for sure I had a small bass, but lo and behold it was this nice crappie.
That was the last bite of the night for me. Don had a bass jump him off and caught a few small sunfish and 4 keeper sunfish and a couple of small perch. Meanwhile all Pete caught was a single tiny perch. Pete did miss quite a few bites. Don offered to let us keep to fish, but we let him have them.

All in all it was a nice calm night, but a bit cool for Pete who was lightly dressed.

Yesterday's Shore Fishing Report

Click here to get it at the Bass Pundit Fishing Log Blog

Productive Day from Shore

We had a pretty good rain storm this afternoon and I headed out fishing when it was over around 5:30PM and conditions were still overcast. I decided to make the GOMH my 1st stop and it was probably a good thing I did. John W. was there with his 2 girls and they were on the SW side, so I took the SE side. In short order I landed a 22", 19", 12" and 19" toothy bullheads on the black bladed black/chart DM Custom Baits Piranha. After a lull in the action I decided to move on.

Nothing at Bulldog.

At the Rock Dock I didn't have any success right away. When I arrived it was calm and the sun had come out, but that didn't last long. It clouded up and a West wind started up, still I didn't have any luck until I started twitching the orange/chart X-Rap. The first bite was this 25 inch pike.
This pike fought like a 30+ inch fish going on several hard runs. About 5 minutes later I nailed a 19" pike on the same X-Rap.

I cycled through a few more lures and got my first bass on the Dead Stick Rogue that I bought on Ebay this Winter.
I tried for about 15 more minutes and then headed to Jenny's.

I didn't get a thing at Jenny's, so I headed to the GOMH. When I arrived at the GOMH there were no shore fisherman, but a boat was sitting close in on the SE side so I started on the SW side. While the boat was still there I got a jumpin bullhead on the black/chart DM Piranha. After the boat left I got one last toothy bullhead for the day and several more jumpin bullheads. The wind really started to blow and it was 50 degrees so I gave up a little earlier than usual.

Mille Lac of Action Report

I decided to try and beat the night ban to the punch and headed to Mille Lacs at 1AM. I thought the nearly full moon and clear sky's might have the eyes on the feed. When I arrived at Eddy's it was pretty much dead calm. No wind, no good! I worked the whole Jetti without any hits. I called it quits a little after 3AM.

I did not see lights for even a single boat on the lake which I think is kind of strange being that it is the last night of night fishing and conditions while cool were quite pleasant.

Golden Bullhead

A little after 4pm I headed out to fish. The weather today was cloudy and in the mid 50's and I made the mistake of not bringing my Fisher of Men Club jacket. I made a quick stop at Bulldog and was unsurprised that I caught nothing.

Next I headed to the Rock public access where I was fortunately protected from the NE wind. The ice on Rock just went out last night or this morning and so it wasn't much of a surprise that the dock wasn't out yet. I fished for a couple of hours but Rock was dead, not a single sunny. A little after 6pm I headed over to Jenny's (Platte) but the wind was blowing in there so I headed for the GOMH.

Nobody was at the GOMH so I headed down to the SW side. There was more current than I have seen this Spring. I tried a Cubby Mini-mite with a minnow below a bobber for quite awhile without so much as a sniff. Eventually I decided to try an 1/8oz Storm WildEye Swim Shad in baby bass. I have been using a white one that kind of swims on it's side without any success. After quite a few casts I felt a thump and a battle was on. I saw a tail first and thought it was probably a toothy bullhead, but then I saw the tail again and it had some white so I knew I had me a golden bullhead. Here is the fish:

It was 24 or 25 inches long and 4 or 5 lbs. Before I caught the fish I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to skunk today, so this was a pleasant surprise. I tried the Wildeye for a little while longer, then I switched back to the Cubby and Minnow. I started getting quite cold. At about 8pm I had a couple of nibbles but the bobber didn't go fully under. I decided I couldn't take the cold anymore and headed out early.

Road Trip to Knife and Rush Lake

Today at about 2:30PM I headed out on a road trip. First stop was Reeds Sporting Goods to pick up a CRCX610MH, which is a Shimano Crucial 6'10" Medium Heavy X fast casting rod. I got one last year and liked it so much I decided to get one this year too. The rod is versatile and can fish jignpig, swim jigs, chatterjigs, Texas rigs, Super Flukes, Senko's, spinnerbaits, and buzzbaits.

From Reeds I headed off to the South end of Knife Lake to see what was up there. There were quite a few people fishing on the pier, a few on shore, and a few boats. I saw quite a few crappies being caught buy most of them appeared to be on the small side and were getting tossed back. I fished for a little bit, but with the wind in my face couldn't get my bobber out to where the fish were which was out towards the end of the pier. Around 3:30pm I hit the road for Rush.

Since the wind at Knife seemed to be out of the SE I decided to hit the Eastern shore of Fransen Park on the North End of West Rush Lake. I was pleased to be able to get a parking spot in the small parking lot and off I went. My first spot was not ideal with a tree branch hindering my back cast and a line of catails between me and the water. I managed to get a couple of 6 inch sunfish on a glow Cubby Mini-Mite. After about 1/2 an hour the guys just to the South of me started packing up. I had watched them bring in a couple of crappies. Naturally I moved into their spot which had a free backcast and no cattails. They said the crappies were biting as far out as they could cast. Even though I had an 8 foot rod, the Wing It Bobber is not a distance caster especially because the wind was inexplicably coming out of the South Southwest. One of the guys offered to sell me a Rocket Bobber for $3. He bought the bobber for $3 off a guy who was fishing there wacking the crappies while he was getting nothing. I didn't have any money so I declined the deal. It turns out I had that exact same bobber with me, though I didn't know it at the time.

I think I may have picked up a sunfish and missed a few bites but it was pretty slow for quite a while. The people to the South of me were casting out quite a bit farther than me and were getting an occasional fish. An old couple from Lakeville moved in just North of me. I was shocked they would come that far to fish, but it turns out they had been at the Hinckley Casino and had decided to try a little fishing on their way back. Around the time they came I reached in my bag to look at my bobbers and I saw the Rocket Bobber so I put it on.

Unfortunately I didn't know what I was doing with the bobber at first. The bobber lays flat on the water and when a fish takes it the bobber stands up. I watched the bobber stand up quite a few times expecting a fish to take the bobber down but that wasn't happening. Eventually I figured out that if you set the hook when the bobber stands up you might actually catch a fish. I missed a good crappie and then the old lady caught a nice crappie and the old guy caught a sunfish; That was all they caught. I had been tipping the glow Cubby with a minnow but that wasn't working so great so I just went to the plain Cubby and started getting bit. I caught a nice 8.5" Sunny then a 10" Crappie (picture at top of post) and I began to think that I might start to hammer them. The bite seemed to go in spurts and all I could catch were mostly Ok sized sunfish. I probably caught a dozen keeper sized sunnies, but I don't like to clean sunfish and so I threw them all back. As it got toward dusk the wind quit and so did the bite. When I left I went over to the West shore and talked to a couple of guys that had been fishing in the cut with the pier at it's mouth. They caught lots of sunnies and no crappies. They said pretty much nobody was fishing the cut that comes in from the NW bay.

GOMH Fishing Report, More "Bacon"

Fishing Report 4/25/07: I made an early trip to the GOMH from 3:30 to 5:30. GOM Lee Ander was there with two other guys. 1 of those guys was fishing the SE side in a boat, and he caught several bullheads on a large twister tail. The guy to the west of me tangled with a couple of bullheads. I tangled with a couple of bullheads, catching a small one. Lee Ander caught a 4lb plus bullhead on a waxie and jig. He also missed an orange bully. At about 4:45, Willard arrived and started talking more about "bacon." At 5:30, I went over to get Jenny for the fish fry.

After the fish fry, dad and I hit the GOMH, arriving around 7:15. It was 60 degrees and dead calm. The silver bullheads were just starting to hit. It was our good fortune that Willard had started fishing, thus effectively saving the SW side for us to fish. The silver bullheads were hitting good tonight, nice and steady; I helped five different people fill out limits, including GOM Lee Ander and Willard. I also threw several (4-5) silvers back. Dad's bobber was barely visible on the surface or was just beneath the surface. Dad missed several fish. Fish were hitting on waxies for Lee Ander and minnows for everyone else. I used both maggies and minnows; some of the minnows were dead ones. The later it got, the more the fish seemed to prefer minnows. We quit fishing when everyone had their limit; it was dark, but I could still see my bobber. All in all, it was a lot of fun at the GOMH tonight.

Lee Ander told me that the channel by the golf course on Mille Lacs was giving up big crappies from 5-7pm. The main body of ML is still a sheet of ice.

Fantasy Bass Fishing Notes: I finished my lineup for Norman and Guntersville, did YOU?