Gull Lake Walleyes

Hey guys I wanted to drop a note to say I had a great fishing trip on Gull Lake today. The walleyes have been hungry and on the weed edges. Today we fished a jig tipped with a shiner. The walters have been on the move from day to day so with the silence of my Mercury Verado I have been just cruising on the weed edges anywhere from 10 to 13 feet and simply looking for fish on my graph. Once I mark them just stop, drop a jig, and it seems like they will bite.

After a great day on the water I dropped off my fishing partners and I was on the way to the access just cleaning some stuff up and marked a school of walleyes. I couldn't resist dropping a jig down and it was on like donkey kong! I caught 10 walleyes in a matter of 20 minutes and nice ones to boot! An end to a great day!

Enough babble get out and catch a fish!

PMTT Eagle River Preparation

Joe and I are getting prepare for our second PMTT Event in Eagle River, WI. We both have fished on these waters before so hopefully we can get a good program together and catch a fish or two.

Leech Lake Walleye Tournament

What a weekend! I fished the Leech Lake Walleye Tournament with my wife Kristine. This was the first tournament we have fished together so she was a little nervous.

We fished against over 150 teams for the first place prize of $12,500. There is a huge strategy when it comes to fishing this tournament. Leech Lake has a slot sizes that must be released of 18 to 26 inches. We were allowed to weigh two fish over the slot so the game is try and catch two big ones and three just under the 18 inch mark. Typically the larger fish are located in the deep, structure filled, part of the lake called Walker Bay and the smaller under fish are located in the main lake.

Prefishing we had found a spot in Walker Bay that was holding fish under the slot and found spots that were holding big fish. So our game plan was to get our five small fish and then go Hawg Hunting! So Day #1 we headed to our spot and by 8:15 we had our five weigh fish and we were ready to look for the monster. We fished several spots and found some active fish on a deep isolated hump. On this hump we caught several fish that were from 20 all the way up to 25 inches. Then around 1:00 Kristine said, "fish!" I looked up as I was snagged and she was doing battle. I grabbed the net and saw a monster emerge from the depths and netted a 29 incher. We were pumped! We still had lots of time to catch another big one. We continued to fish and not too long later another boat, friends of ours, pulled up and started fishing next to us. They also knew there was big ones in this area and not too long later they were hooked up with a monster. I was heartbroken as I saw them net a fish that measured 30.5 inches. That's tournament fishing! So we ended up with one over for the day and we were sitting in 27th place.

Day 2 began and we were on our way to catch our small fish I saw that nobody was on our deep hump. I told Kristine, "lets give it 20 minutes and see if we can boat a big one." So we stopped and it didn't take long for a few boats to pull up. One of the boats was our friends who had caught the monster next to us the day before. As we were fishing pretty close to each other having a conversation and I got bit. I set the hook and told Kristine, "big fish!" With one quick scoop of the net we had a 28 incher in the live-well! Man we were pumped! We had all day to put four more fish in the boat and try for a big one. We stayed on the spot and our friends who caught the monster the day before also boated a 28 incher. We said to each other we should just fish next to each other for the whole day! The fish moved off the hump so we decided to try and go fill out our limit. We went to our under spot and we started catching fish but all the wrong sizes. So it was around 11:00 and I told Kristine that we should probably run out to the main lake to try and fill our limit. So we did and here came the rain. It was a down pour but just before the rain Kristine put two nice keepers in the box. Stuck with only three fish we decided to run back to our under spot in Walker Bay. The rain had stopped and the fish were bitting. Again we caught several fish but all the wrong size except for one. So we had four fish in the boat. Do we stay and try to catch one more under or go for monsters? We decided to stay as I knew would would cash a check with one more fish. We just couldn't find that right size fish.

We ended up weighing in with four fish and received a "non releasable" fish penalty of 3 oz. Bummer as we took second place in the male female division losing by just 2 oz. We ended up taking 18th place out of 155 boats. With one more fish we would have been in the top ten. Should have, could have, would have!

I can't tell you how much fun I had fishing with my wife Kristine. She had caught most of the fish we weighed and we truly just had fun fishing. I think she was more competitive then me! We really had no issues besides one little one and my Crestliner Boat and Mercury Verado worked flawlessly as always.

We targeted the smaller fish using a jig and minnow and the large fish using a Bigtooth Tackle Walleye Snell with a Red Tail Minnow or Leech.

Congrats to my good friends Toby and Dean Kavelevog who placed 3rd.

For complete results of the tournament go to Leech Lake Walleye Tournament Website

Pike went Crazy!

Man alive! It's been a busy first part of the season and yes the fish are bitting! Spent the day with the Kobs crew on the Whitefish Chain and what a blast. The walleye bite has been a little tough so the boys wanted some action and that's what we had. We targeted northern pike on a 8 to 10 foot weed flat. We fished with a jig and minnow. We ended up boating 64 pike in just 4 hours of fishing! Here are a few shots from the day!!!

Holy Mackerel back on Leech Lake

So yepper I headed back to Leech Lake with my good friends Dave, Wayne, Randy and Jared. I was pumped as I knew where the monster school of walleyes were. We didn't get out until later but I stopped on deeper location as I marked some fish there the day before. We trolled leadcore as these fish were spread out in a large area. Nothing! So to the honey hole we headed! It didn't take long and the boys were on em' We had just a tremendous night of fishing including a 28 and 29.5 inch walleyes. We took some photos and let them go!

We headed out the second day and fished close to home for just a couple of hours. We ended up taking a boat ride and stopping on a few spots in Walker Bay catching few walleyes but nothing special.

If you are headed to Leech Lake and are looking for one of the nicest places to stay check out Chase on the Lake They are located right one beautiful Walker Bay and close to downtown Walker, MN. They have everything you could imagine from great food to bowling to a day in the spa or even a ride on their new Lady Chase Bluewater Coastal Cruiser Charter Yacht

Leech Lake Photo Shoot

Back to Leech Lake to find a few fish for some photos. It was great pleasure to have Chuck Beasley and my little brother Joe in the boat. Our goal was to catch some quality fish, mainly walleyes, to take some photos. So we headed back to the same area right were we had caught them the day before. Nothing! We couldn't catch a fish or even mark that many. These fish are on the move! It was another flat calm sunny day making it even tougher. Through out the day we bounced around catching fish but we really had to work for them. We took a break from walleyes went up and caught a few crappies. Wouldn't you know it the wind picked up while we were fishing for the crappies so we decided to go back out to catch some walleyes. The wind died again! Flustered with the conditions and the moving fish I had to make a decision. We ended up going back out to the area we had found the fish, the day before, thinking they might have moved back and they didn't. So the hunt was on. I knew the fish were close or so I was hoping! My Mercury Verado got a workout bouncing around and all of a sudden I found em'. They were loaded and about 1/4 of a mile away from where they were the day before. The last three hours of the day was gang busters as we caught lots of fish and managed to take some really nice photos. As frustrated as we were we kept the mind frame, "the fish are bitting somewhere" and stayed positive. Sometimes that is a hard thing to do! Everything came together perfect. Our light was spot on and we had a beautiful sunset to utilize in some of the photos.

Here are just a couple of photos we were able to capture! (click on image for larger view)

Leech

I was up on Leech Lake again today and can you say HOT? There wasn't a wiff of wind and it was blazing hot. I was fishing with my new buds Dave and Richard. We started out fishing shallow weed flats as I thought we could still get some of these shallow fish to go in the morning. We caught a few but it wasn't hot and heavy and most of the fish were in the slot. I was kinda stumped as I had caught these shallow fish all year last year. So we had to adjust. We started to fish some deeper main lake locations and found some fish and started catching them. We were all alone for a little while then one boat, then two, then three and so on moved right in on us. We still continued to catch a few but the fish seemed to scatter with all the new boat traffic. We ended up bouncing around looking for deeper fish which seemed to be more active. Overall we had an O.K. trip considering we had no wind and the sun was bright as could be.

Thanks to Dave and Richard for a great day on the water!

Fishing Opener 2010

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Fishing opener 2010 has come and gone. What a weekend! Well at least the for the weather. I don't think the bite was as good as what everyone had expected because I think the fish were confused as many anglers. We ended up finding some bitting fish here is the scoop.

The WalleyeDan guide group, Tim, Toby, Bruce and I took out the Lost Lake Lodge fishing maniacs on opening day on Gull Lake. It was a struggle to get on a good pattern. We caught fish in 7 feet of water all the way to 26 feet of water. Some fish bit on a jig and minnow and some bite on a rig. So we had to work for em' but we all were able to boat some walleyes for the boys.

We had pretty early spring and I think some of the fish spawn really early and some late which means some of the fish were already starting their early summer transition. What does that mean? Be versatile and look for the active school and be prepared to fish both deep and shallow until these fish decide what they want to do.

On Sunday we headed to Leech. Again another beautiful day on the water. I had my Dad and brother Jason in my boat, Tim Hanske had his Dad in Tim's boat, Joe, my little brother, Aaron, and Joe Skerik in Aaron's boat and Toby, Mike and Drew in Toby's boat. What a goon crew and there was no doubt we were going to find em.

I started fishing in the traditional spring locations. Shallow flats close to spawning grounds and we found some fish. Most of the fish were caught using a KenKatch Hair jig. It wasn't gang busters by no means. I couldn't believe the amount of boats and what a great site to see for the fishing community. It was flat calm and sunny but it seemed like when the wind picked up just a little and the clouds rolled in the fish decided to bite. We bounced from spot to spot catching fish on almost every single location. We caught our limit of keeper walleyes and some hawg bellies to boot.

So the phone rang and it was the hooligans, Joe, Aaron and Joe. "Come over Joe has a musky on!" Aaron said. We picked up and I took some shots of the boys in action. I also took a couple of other shots. Click on the photos for a larger view.

Don't forget to check out WalleyeDan Guide Group I'm so pumped to be apart of fishing with these great group of guides. We are booking up fast so make sure to give us a call and request me!

Cappies!

Had the chance to get out and fish for crappies with my good friend Pablo. We fished a local lake in the Brainerd Lakes area and had a great trip. It was super windy out but I still managed to get a little bit of sun burn and catch some crappies and some super nice sunnies. The majority of the fish we caught were still on the edge in 7 to 8 feet. Most of the fish were caught on small jigs and flies tipped with a crappie minnow. The fish were holding pretty tight to the cabbage weeds.

Walleye opener is just around the corner! Can't wait to get set the hook on some white tips!

First Professional Musky Tournament of the year Cave Run Lake

Joe, my brother, and just returned home from our first Professional Musky Tournament Trail Tournament of the year. We fished Cave Run Lake near Morehead, Kentucky.

We left on Tuesday afternoon of last week and let me tell you that is a long drive. We drove through the night and made it to the lake. After a few u-turns we got our Kentucky fishing license and we were off to the boat ramp. Going into this tournament I knew two areas that were going to produce fish and I also knew that most of the anglers fishing would also know about these two areas. Joe and I talked and said we were going to focus our pre fishing on off beat locations. The water temps were anywhere from 60 to 70 degrees with the average being around 64. Most anglers thought that the musky were done spawning and some said that the spawn has yet to happen.

On Cave Run there are several bites to key in on. One is to focus on deep “hollows”. There are several ways to fish these deep hollows. We found lots of really small muskies towards the shallow water in the back of the hollows and along the edges as you enter the hollows. We started to see fish immediately but they were small and not the fish we were looking for besides the occasional 32 to 36 incher.

The second bite on Cave is the weed bite. Now the largest weed flat known as Zilpo flats is one of the community holes I knew fish would be caught. There a very few other weeds, mostly milfoil, in the lake but we found some. There were fish on a few and the right size fish. Usually this weed bite really kicks in when the water temps hit the consistent 70 degree mark.

The other main bite on the lake trolling over deep water and bait fish. Which Joe and I did for awhile during prefishing which proved to work as we lost one nice fish. Joe and I focused our efforts away from those three bites and found fish on the deep water main lake. Needless to say we found the hawg bellies. During prefishing we saw a ton of really nice fish and on the spot we saw several, Joe had one bite 20 feet from the boat. Joe didn’t set the hook and we just watched her shack her head trying to kill the minnow she thought she just eat. Finally she let the bait go and went back to the depths. We were pretty dialed in and thought we could catch a couple of these nice fish in the tournement.

The night before the tournament we made a decision to fish these off beat spots and go for the win. We couldn’t wait for tournament take off.



Saturday came and we were ready to rock em’. I was little concerned as the temp dropped from around 75 degrees to a blistering 30 degrees in the morning. We went to our first spot and didn’t move a fish. I was thinking what in the world? These fish were just here I know there here. I told Joe lets hit it from a different angle and after that they started coming out of the wood work. We saw several nice fish but couldn’t get them to eat. We continued to fish out big fish spots and mixed in a few hollows and moved fish but had not bitters. So day one was over and we were fishless.

Day 2 and Joe and I decided to stick to our plan to try and catch a big one as we knew if we could get one of these fish to bite we would be in the top 10 and if we could get two we would win this bad boy. It was again another cold morning and we took off to our number one spot. Nothing again! We found on day 1 once that sun warmed the water up they fish would start to move and that is exactly what happened on day 2. We went back to our number 1 spot and I heard Joe set the hook, “got er”, yes fish on and as soon as I looked up to go for the net fish off. This was in the exact area we were seeing a really nice fish. Crap! That’s fishing and we continued to fish. We had several more fish follow through out the day and even had a fish with 10 minutes to go nipping the back of Joe’s bait but just wouldn’t seal the deal. So no fish but were happy with the decision we made to go for the win.

One of our main lake spots did produce the biggest fish of the tournament. Caught by locals Anthony Smith, my buddy that lives down there, and his partner. Congrats to him. Another one of my friends, Josh Brovosky and Troy Zuelzke, took third with two fish. Almost all of the guys who placed fished on the two community spots that I mentioned earlier. I knew there would be fish caught on those spots but I didn’t think that many.

Thanks to our many sponsors for helping us fish these tournaments. My Mercury Verado ran perfect! Also thanks to my good Southern Buddy Larry Besant who let us crash at his place. Larry get your butt up North and we will catch another 50 incher. Our next tournament is in the end of June on the Eagle River Chain in Wisconsin.

Here is a list of the fish caught in the tournament. (from www.promusky.com)

Southern Shootout! Day 1 Day 2 Total
Team Cave Run Lake, KY Size of Size of # of
# Place Team Name Fish Caught Fish Caught Fish
30 1 Schneider, Russell & Wells, James 37 & 38 32 3
48 2 Lijewski, Mark & Schroeder, Clay 37.5 & 36 31.25 3
34 3 Zuelzke, Troy & Borovsky, Josh 37 & 37 0 2
78 4 Burns, Billy & Tate, David 36.25 36.25 2
73 5 Reed, Joey & Smith, Anthony 0 48 1
8 6 Clepper, Brian & Smida, Charles 46 0 1
53 7 Everhart, Dave & Gardiner, Nate 45.75 0 1
14 8 Olsen, Ben & Hamm, Andy 0 37.5 & 32 2
43 9 Johnson, David & Walls, Jason 35.5 & 31.25 0 2
13 10 Rusteberg, Steven & Bowman, Ron 37.75 & 31.25 0 2
77 11 Searsor, Darrell & Seasor, Lance 0 38.5 1
57 12 Guenther, David & Lewis, John 36.25 0 1
19 13 Mullins, Crash & Mullins, Justin 36 0 1
26 14 Rozek, Tom & Dresow, Mark 36 0 1
50 15 Kircher, David & Kircher, Matt 35.25 0 1
55 16 Campbell, Tad & Kinney, Justin 0 35.25 1
5 17 Keyes, Michael & Genson, Steve 0 35 1
2 18 Summers, Jason & Bilbrey, Troy 34.5 0 1
49 19 Burton, Richard & Rue, Mark 34.5 0 1
69 20 Morris, Jerome & Burquest, Eric 34 0 1
6 21 Korpela, Ross & Adkins, John 0 34 1
25 22 Landmeier, Duane & Ryan, John 33.75 0 1
31 23 Risius, Jr, John & Lulay, John 33.5 0 1
36 24 Stewart Jonathan & Ferjutz, Jeff 0 32.5 1
24 25 Reiter, James & Saucedo, Cesar 32 0 1
80 26 Lewis Paul & Lewis, Willie 31.75 0 1
29 27 Forman, Marty & Tiegs, Donnie 31.5 0 1

PMTT Team number #37

I'm pumped to say that Joe, little bro, and I will be fishing the entire Professional Musky Tournament Trail this year. Thanks to Jeff Thoele for sponsoring our team and to the rest of our sponsors for making this happen. We leave in a couple of weeks for our first even on Cave Run Lake in Kentucky. Going South!

You can read more about the PMTT here PMTT Website