My 2017 fishing is pretty much over and it’s time to do a little hunting and body repairs. Guiding on Delavan and Geneva was good as usual, averaging 36 bass a trip on Delavan and 48 on Geneva. Best days were 60 on Delavan with Reid Urban and 80 on Geneva with the Shackleton brothers. Our Musky school on Lake of the Woods in mid-July through Musky Hunter magazine produced 132 muskies up to 53-inches. I didn’t have a very good week with my biggest fish only 43-inches. I wasn’t feeling good and went home before the school ended. For info on next year’s July school call 1-715-477-2178 or visit the web-site www.muskyhunter.com.
My August trip to Andy Myers Lodge went ok. We had 11 muskies in the boat for the week, but a couple were in the high 40’s. I was doing an article for an up-coming issue of Musky Hunter magazine and needed some weed-related photos for the article…mission accomplished. Unfortunately, one guest we had in the boat had a monster at least 52-inches charging his bucktail and he got excited and tried to figured 8 his bucktail about 10-feet from the boat and ripped out of the water. That fish was cranked up and I bet it would have blasted that lure on the first turn. I will be going up there again next year the first full week in August. My favorite lake for BIG muskies! Andy Myers Lodge, 888-727-5865 or 807-220-6330 or info@andymyerslodge.com.
My mid-September trip to Lake Minacki with Winkelman didn’t go as well as we hoped. A bad weather condition had really slowed things down. We lost quite a bit of fishing time due to wet weather. It would have been great weather for fishing, but not for filming. We got three between 41 to 45-inches, but the 45-incher hit on about my 6 or 8th turn on a figure 8. It was a good lesson on how to trigger a strike on a following fish. Watch the show early next year to see who caught the other two muskies. We stayed at Birch Island Lodge which is a great place with outstanding food. I was impressed with the structure on these connected lakes. Thick, hard-fighting fish and all the right stuff for producing some giants.
My late September trip to Louisiana did not turn out as well as I expected. We were to go out on a boat for three days, and fish day and night and sleep and eat on the boat. The boat was way too slow and it took us way too much time to get where we wanted to go. On our first day out we left the dock a little after 7am and after we stopped a few times to catch bait, we arrived at the off-shore drilling platform we wanted to fish it was 12:30 pm. A guide our captain knew raised up 10 fingers when we asked him how many tuna he had caught. Of course, the bite was over by the time we got there. We caught a couple smaller tuna then headed to another rig. To make a long story short, we plodded our way back the end of the second day with 3 tuna up to about 60-pounds. We did have a giant fish hooked from 3am to 6am in the morning that ultimately went under the boat and cut us off. At first we thought it was a giant tuna, but after examining the facts we figured it was a big blue marlin. On our third day which was very rough, we took our regular captain’s boat out near the mouth of the Mississippi and caught a fair amount of fish on only three spots we were able to fish. We got a limit of big redfish, a bunch of nice red snapper, plus a bunch of odds and ends which included sharks, sting ray and a few big fish Brian Neble fought like a champ for a long time that finally cut the line on a pipe.
Day number 4 we went in shore fishing with flats boats in shallow water. We used popping corks and live shrimp about two feet behind the cork. You pop the corks to imitate a surface-feeding fish in about 2 to 5-feet of water. We had two boats and caught at least 50 redfish in each boat, plus about 12 trout, and some good-eating drum and sheephead.
Next year I will probably be going down again in late April/early May. If we can get 7 or 8 people in a group, the plan is to have 5 or 6 to go out in the big boat and fish the rigs, and 2 or 3 go out in a flats boat and do the popping cork thing. The next day some different people will get to go on the flats boat. We are starting to put names together NOW. The trips already have 4-5 people ready to go. We usually car pool there but you can fly and rent a car at the airport to make the drive to the house. Captain Bernie has got a real nice house that will sleep 10 with air, cable, etc. If you have any interest in joining our group or need more info call me at 815-455-7770. If you want to just go down on your own and fish a day or a week call Bernie 1-763-218-5044, www.captbfrueh.com
My last trip was to Lake of the Woods Oct. 14-20 with Tim Puccinelli. We did pretty good catching 13 muskies and 15 pike from about 8 to 18 pounds in 6 full days of fishing. Out of the 29 strikes we got trolling we missed one fish all week. Naturally it had to be the big one. Tim had it on a while and it stayed deep and wouldn’t come up, then the lure popped loose. Shit happens! We also caught a lot of walleyes at night sitting on a bucket on Bill Sandys dock and just fishing straight down with a jig and minnow. It’s easy fishing and some of you should join us next October. I’ll be glad to mark up some trolling runs for you.
The sport show that use to be in Rosemont is over. Now more long walks and $15 dollar parking! The new show will be at Arlington Park race track March 22-25. Free Parking and a whole new look. I will be talking Saturday and Sunday several times.Their link can be found on my web-site www.spencepetros.com.
Jim Grandt will be unveiling his new rod line at the show called the GXPKV series. It’s similar to the popular Payara and Cuda series but the new rods are even lighter and stronger. Make sure you take a look at the new Cuda Light. It’s about as good of a drop-shot rod as you will ever see. See you at the Arlington Show!
Spence