Fishing Report

[Tony Scime]

Went fishing yesterday, Thursday morning. Seemed like a promising day. Sunny with a few high clouds. A southwesterly breeze sandwiched between a couple of cold fronts. Hopefully something is biting.

A few observations while fishing:

The water had a nice stain. Considering that there's been no big blow recently, that's impressive. Means the stain is fertility and not just particles kicked up from wave action. Perhaps plankton and phytoplankton. The more plankton and phytoplankton the more the bait fish will flourish. 

And the bait fish is flourishing. The east side of the river was loaded. Thick and plentiful bait fish. More than I've seen in many years. Actually, decades. Really impressive. And the more plentiful the bait the better chances that juvenile muskies will also flourish. 

And in and around the bait fish I caught a couple of muskies. An upper 20 and a low 30 incher. Juveniles finding easy pickings around the many bait fish. They're the smallest muskies I've caught in years, and the first I've caught in those locations in several years. And they were in deep water. The first in about 20 feet and the second in about 24. Probably figured out that it's easier feeding there than searching through the shallow weeds. And there's more to distract and satisfy their likely predators. 

I'm really excited about the number of juveniles being caught this year. They're more important to the fishery than big fish. And of course, they are from where big fish come. And we've desperately needed more juveniles.

Of course, it won't be another 10 to 12 years before these juveniles will reach impressive size. I'll try not to age out before then.

But all in all, it was a good day for musky fishing. 

[Stephen Glassic]

Tony, How was it in regard to floating weeds? What is the water temp?

Lastly, Is it free now to launch at Sheridan?

[Tony Scime]

Floating weeds weren't bad. Still a bit of a nuisance. Water temp was 68 surface. I get a season's pass, so I don't know about the launch fees. 

[John Jarosz]

Tony...I'm seeing lots of clouds of baitfish all over out in the open lake, especially on the reefs. They're all good signs