October 4th
No doubt, fall is now in the air. As cold north winds howl, it wouldn’t be hard to turn over a new leaf! Peak colors this week are fast falling to the ground!
As many found out this past week, full moon night trolling on the big lake is getting even more popular. Rafts of green and red lights covered many of the shoreline stretches in our area over this past weekend. Generally, fishing reports were pretty good. Numbers were as good as expected with more smaller fish showing up and less bigger fish showing up than expected. Our cleaning house, for the first time in months, got quite a workout. So some fish fries were and are in order this week. Reports have covered all of the spectrum on how deep and with what bait.But no doubt, the shallower one was, seemed to be better than the deeper one was fishing. Weeds still played into where one put the lures so staying inside the weedlines was common for many–less than 6 ft. Colder water coming out of the next few day of late fall type weather should help lay down the weeds. Some daytime anglers did okay with some fair reports coming from the edges of mudflats using minnows on Lindy rigs.Also, good daytime reports came from those that ventured over to Farm Island Lake, just a few miles northwest of us. Good numbers of walleyes on big ( 5″-6″) red-tail minnows on Lindy rigs fished in 13ft. to 16 ft. kept the rods bending over there. Those fish will move deeper as the water cools down the next few days. So, the night shift on the big lake and the day shift on Farm Island?
Grouse and bow deer hunters are reporting fair success also. Good numbers of deer are being seen on the state land around the area. Local ducks have kept the swimming, retrieving dogs happy lately too. Most of the duck action is related to lakes and puddles that connected into the Ripple River watershed within a few miles north of us.
Now’s the time to get those fish houses ready! Don’t wait until the temps get too cold.
Long range weather forecasts are predicting nice fall fishing temps the next 2 weeks or even longer. So make plans to get in on the hot shallow nightime trolling!
THANK YOU to everyone for a great week at The Red Door. It’s not over yet as we still have at least 2-3 weeks of good open water fishing left. We look foward to seeing many of you soon. Thanks…