Winnie Madness Fishing Is Done With The Memory Of A Lifetime
I finished my Winnie week! There are many memorable moments but the few I will share have RAIN associated with them. I still have a pair of boots that will take another week to dry.
Monday , Tuesday, and Wednesday Zach was the guide and we tried a lot of jigging and some crank baiting and caught great numbers of fish each day. We stayed on the south shore along the high banks area and had to release many fish in the 18-22” size range. Zach left to bid on a garage that needs to be built and I finally got to take my boat out to see if the problems of an annoying alarm were fixed.
Wednesday evening I took my first real soaking, I got out about 5 and the weather looked marginal. I fished an hour and caught 4 keepers and released 2 over the slot. The storm came on fast and I was about 2 miles from the landing. When I got to the landing the waves were in the 2’ range and 2 other boats had to land before me. Needless to say I sat in a downpour longer than I wanted.
Thursday was the day I went out exploring and I found the motherload on Mallard Point. With a light wind coming into the point I kept away from the boats( 15+) and stayed low on the point and found a school of large eyes. I caught 15 of the nicest fish I had seen on Winnie, all the fish were 15” and up and I kept all 15 and 16” fish. And released many in the 19-22” range.
Friday was a 2 outing day I fished Bill Hulkonen in the morning and we fished Farley Creek with many fish caught and we released 4 fish over the slot with 3 over 22”. Bill was a hard case when it came to the jigging routine, he was convinced that he could just drag his bait and catch fish. Convinced that aggressive jigging worked he started to catch the fish he had been missing all day. The last hour he made up for his misses….WTG Bill.
Friday evening was the first time that I was able to wader fish the River below the Dam. Jeff V showed up and we spent 3 hours catching mostly pike and perch. I did catch 3 keeper eyes and a 24” scarred fish that I caught and released twice.
Saturday Mickey showed up and with the weather looking like rain we were prepared to get wet so off fishing we went. We had caught many fish with most small when the rain began and it was steady for the next 3 hours that we fished. In all we caught over 35 fish and had one limit of fish 14-16”. Mickey caught and released a 22” and 23” eye so he was a happy camper even though the picture I took of him holding a nice fish doesn’t show it. I think I have yet to take a picture of him smiling. I guess he thinks his scowl of his is sexy. HEHE!!
Bill came back on Sunday afternoon and we fished Farley Creek and caught our limits of small fish and cooked them up for a big fish bake that evening. On Monday morning before we left Bill and I had time for one more wader fishing expedition below the Winnie Dam. I will say again I had packed everything but the rod I was using. The fishing started out slow with pike and perch making the usual pests of themselves. We did start catching some walleyes. Bill caught the same 24” scarred fish that I caught with Jeff on Friday. Then I hooked onto a very big fish. It didn’t make any big runs but would not move much as I put pressure on him. After about 5 minutes he came close enough and I got a glimpse of a large brown fish and said to Bill I may have a huge dog fish because we have caught some big dogs in Little Winnie over the years. A few minutes later I got the fish close enough to see the head and saw that it was a walleye. To get to the point the fish was the eye of a life time. It was a dull brown in color and an old spawned out female that was 32 ½ inches long. The tail was so beat up it was frayed with no white markings on the bottom. With a large eye mounted and a rather ugly looking super large fish in hand….. I let it go to fight another day. Now that makes for a great trip the biggest fish ever in the last hour.
NO PICTURES but a great witness in BILL,
Steelheader
Monday , Tuesday, and Wednesday Zach was the guide and we tried a lot of jigging and some crank baiting and caught great numbers of fish each day. We stayed on the south shore along the high banks area and had to release many fish in the 18-22” size range. Zach left to bid on a garage that needs to be built and I finally got to take my boat out to see if the problems of an annoying alarm were fixed.
Wednesday evening I took my first real soaking, I got out about 5 and the weather looked marginal. I fished an hour and caught 4 keepers and released 2 over the slot. The storm came on fast and I was about 2 miles from the landing. When I got to the landing the waves were in the 2’ range and 2 other boats had to land before me. Needless to say I sat in a downpour longer than I wanted.
Thursday was the day I went out exploring and I found the motherload on Mallard Point. With a light wind coming into the point I kept away from the boats( 15+) and stayed low on the point and found a school of large eyes. I caught 15 of the nicest fish I had seen on Winnie, all the fish were 15” and up and I kept all 15 and 16” fish. And released many in the 19-22” range.
Friday was a 2 outing day I fished Bill Hulkonen in the morning and we fished Farley Creek with many fish caught and we released 4 fish over the slot with 3 over 22”. Bill was a hard case when it came to the jigging routine, he was convinced that he could just drag his bait and catch fish. Convinced that aggressive jigging worked he started to catch the fish he had been missing all day. The last hour he made up for his misses….WTG Bill.
Friday evening was the first time that I was able to wader fish the River below the Dam. Jeff V showed up and we spent 3 hours catching mostly pike and perch. I did catch 3 keeper eyes and a 24” scarred fish that I caught and released twice.
Saturday Mickey showed up and with the weather looking like rain we were prepared to get wet so off fishing we went. We had caught many fish with most small when the rain began and it was steady for the next 3 hours that we fished. In all we caught over 35 fish and had one limit of fish 14-16”. Mickey caught and released a 22” and 23” eye so he was a happy camper even though the picture I took of him holding a nice fish doesn’t show it. I think I have yet to take a picture of him smiling. I guess he thinks his scowl of his is sexy. HEHE!!
Bill came back on Sunday afternoon and we fished Farley Creek and caught our limits of small fish and cooked them up for a big fish bake that evening. On Monday morning before we left Bill and I had time for one more wader fishing expedition below the Winnie Dam. I will say again I had packed everything but the rod I was using. The fishing started out slow with pike and perch making the usual pests of themselves. We did start catching some walleyes. Bill caught the same 24” scarred fish that I caught with Jeff on Friday. Then I hooked onto a very big fish. It didn’t make any big runs but would not move much as I put pressure on him. After about 5 minutes he came close enough and I got a glimpse of a large brown fish and said to Bill I may have a huge dog fish because we have caught some big dogs in Little Winnie over the years. A few minutes later I got the fish close enough to see the head and saw that it was a walleye. To get to the point the fish was the eye of a life time. It was a dull brown in color and an old spawned out female that was 32 ½ inches long. The tail was so beat up it was frayed with no white markings on the bottom. With a large eye mounted and a rather ugly looking super large fish in hand….. I let it go to fight another day. Now that makes for a great trip the biggest fish ever in the last hour.
NO PICTURES but a great witness in BILL,
Steelheader
posted by steelheader at 8:37 AM
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