Where did August go? Seems like the 4th of July was just a few weeks ago, and yet we’ll flip the calendar to September tomorrow. And the walleye bite has picked up just in time. We had a Lake Vermilion water temp of 63 degrees on the shaded side of Big Bay shoreline yesterday morning. A check of the ten day forecast shows every day’s high under 70 degrees. If that isn’t enough to convince you fall has arrived, the walleye bite seems to be yet another sign that things are cooling down and the bite is heating up.
There were not a lot of big walleyes caught, but plenty of eaters made their way to the skillet for some of our guests. The bait of choice still seemed to be 1/2 a crawler. Depths between 15 & 25 feet produced best. Larger minnows were a close second definitely outperforming smaller chubs. We had guests do well both trolling crankbaits and lindy rigging.
Early in the week the Student Angler Tournament Trail Tournament of Champions was held out of Fortune Bay. We had a couple teams with us, Wendt/Semler of Pequot Lakes H.S. and Waller/Johnson of St. Michael-Albertville H.S. The Pequot Lakes guys finished 12th out of 70 teams, and the STMA team finished 27th. The winning team from Grand Rapids H.S. (Koenig/Keronen) weighed 7 bass each day for a 2 day total of 54 lbs. 3 ounces.
Anyone out there who is missing the times they used to be out in the boat with their kids, follow this link to learn how you can get involved with this growing offering for Minnesota high school students.
“VOLUNTEER CAPTAINS WITH BOATS NEEDED”
But there’s a limiting factor that will likely restrain high school fishing. Every team of two anglers must not only have their own boat for each event, but must also have an adult team captain to accompany them on the water. That’s usually a parent, but it can be anyone age 18 or over. …..
Read more here: http://www.northlandoutdoors.com/2019/06/23/minnesota-high-school-bass-clubs-tournaments-growing-fast/
Some of the fish we heard about include a 19″ smallmouth bass for Sawyer Brenengen, 19″ smallie for Kevin Wendt, 18.5″ smallie for Hunter Wendt, and several more 18″ smallies by Alec Waller, Hunter Wendt, Dylan Semler and JP Johnson.
The upcoming September days should offer up some really good days of walleye fishing. We had a cancellation in the big house for the week of Sept 7 and have a variety of smaller options throughout the rest of the month. There is one full week spot the week of Sept. 7th along with a partial then too. There is only one partial week left the week of Sept. 14th but we have one weekend spot each weekend of September. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!
Stop wishing…come fishing.