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Got on WB about 9 AM today. Only one other boat on the water at the time. Weather was beautiful, no wind, no bugs, almost no fish...........[crazy]
Tried every tactic I know and every spot on the water that I've hooked up Wiper before, NO JOY today. Tossed the anchor out in Freeway Bay while I snacked on some donuts and coffee, got one skinny Cat. Bye-Bye skunk, for today anyway. Released him to hopefully put on some weight. Caught another up near the north marina mouth, but he wasn't even worth the effort to take a photo of. Guess it won't be too much longer I'll wrap up the Tin-Can for the winter.
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"OCD = Obsessive Catfish Disorder "
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[#0000FF]At least you got out. And no skunky smell.
I'm guessing that the big blow a couple of days ago put some mud in the water...and maybe dropped the water temp a degree or two. Did you take a reading?
I was thinking about looking for some of those silly fish up there maybe Monday. About time for the perch to start gathering in the area again. SkunkedAgain caught a nice one a couple of weeks ago over by the NE corner. And I usually start picking them up on minnows about now.
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Water was pretty dirty, temp at launch was 56, by 2:30 when I called it quits, temp up off the rock ledges just to the right out of the north marina in about 7 feet had finally struggled up to 61.2 surface temp. Some of the cloud cover didn't clear off the east till after 12 PM. Think there were maybe 8-10 other boats on the water when I left. Don't know what kind of luck they may have had.
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"OCD = Obsessive Catfish Disorder "
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Hey Forest are you using any minnows or cut bait? If not and you'd like to try I'll get ya a sample packet of each. I think it might help your kitty size. May hurt numbers, but bigger fish make a slow day seem like a good one. Let me know and I'll see if we can cross paths. Minnows worked for wiper and walleye too. Later J
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I launched out of the North marina about 9 A.M. Sat. morning only two other rigs in the parking lot. I ran the boat out several hundred yards and started trolling cranks with planer boards. We ran South toward the feed lots where there were three other boats fishing, made a circle in toward Freeway Bay and then back out to the main lake toward the West dike. We had a couple of light hits on the cranks but no hook ups. The water was extreamly dirty with the water temp ranging from 56 to 57 degrees. We pulled out around noon and noticed one more car in the parking lot. The trip was mainly to run some Sta-bil through both motors before calling it quits for the season.
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Thanks for the report Pete, with the water temp being so cold, below 60 and it being so muddy, it sounds like Willard is done for the year. At least for trolling cranks, did you try any worm harnesses & bottom bouncing? Last year when Willard shut down for the season we were still able to pick up some cats and sm bass along the North dike, slowly moving along with the elect trolling motor and a jig with crawler.
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Didn't use any crawlers, trip was mainly to run Sta-bil thru the motors. Probably won't be fishing again until we can walk on. [fishin]
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