Posted by MNAngler On August - 3 - 2010

Date: 7/31/2010
Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm
Body of water: Tiger Cat Flowage
Location: Hayward, MN
Weather Conditions: partly cloudy

In my last post, you read that we had quit our morning fishing to have lunch and to get our bass boat in the water. The closest boat launch is really close to the cabin, but it puts into another lake in our chain of lakes, so we have to drive the boat through the channel to get back to our dock. I’m usually the one to drive the boat, but since my brother doesn’t get to do it much, I let him pilot the boat back. My dad and California cousin rode with him.

When they arrived at the dock, we got all our gear together and motored about halfway down our side of the shore headed East. I was casting a white pearl super fluke, my dad was using a white spinnerbait, my cousin had a chartreuse spinnerbait, and my brother threw his plastic craw. My dad was the first to get a strike. It turned out to be a small Northern. About 10-15 minutes later, my cousin pulled one in. It was also a small Northern. This was his first time fishing in about 20 years, so I was glad to see him finally get a fish. We tossed them both back because dad said the minimum length for Northern in our lake was 24″. We were still stumped as to where the Northern came from. Never had we seen them before in our lake.

I was next to score. I landed a 13″ bucketmouth. My brother kept getting hits, but couldn’t pull them in. I think he was getting frustrated that he had yet to catch a fish and I had landed 6 already since the weekend started.

Species: Largemouth Bass
Size: 13″
Lure used: white pearl super fluke

The frustration was short lived, though, because he would land the next two. The first was a 12″ largemouth, but the second was over 14″. A keeper and the biggest yet of the weekend.

At this point, there was a pontoon approaching us from the West and a guy in a paddle boat approaching us from the East. We decided to head across the lake to a small bay where I knew there was a downed branch. It had been a few years, so I wasn’t sure if it was still there.

The first thing I noticed is that there was a new dock on the point. And lots of lily pads. We were about 30 ft from shore and we had lily pads on both sides of us. But none of us were catching anything.

My brother then asked my dad and cousin if they wanted to switch things up. He gave my cousin a swim bait and gave my dad a texas rigged black worm with swim tail and red bullet weight. I put on my scum frog. Shortly thereafter, my dad pulled in a 15″ largemouth. That turned out to be the last fish of the outing, but not the last of the day.