Saturday : Arrive in Baudette unpacked and put the boats in the water around 5pm. Fished the lake and caught a few short fish but nothing worth cleaning or keeping.
Sunday: Made it out to th
e main lake and anchored up in about 24ft of water. Using jigs and frozen shiners we pulled limits of eyes and saugers. Biggest eye right at 20.5 inches. 12in perch caught. We had to go in since we were limited out. After cleaning fish and eating late lunch we fished the river in about 16ft with some success.
Monday: Tried to fish the lake, but turned around when we noticed the seas. The white caps were huge. “Are those all charter boats?”, asked one fishing buddy Justin Heick. When the waves are as big as charter boats, not a good sign! We fished near the resorts at the “sock” and caught a few fish. Then we also explored the river a little more.
Tuesday: Made it out to the main lake and got onto a good bite. The wind picked up and things started to get nasty. Our
boat pulled anchor and started the trek back to safety. Team Tim in the Lund was in close pursuit. Unfortunately, next time I looked back they were nowhere to be seen? This made for a less than dry tow back to the river for both parties. We weren’t making any water speed records. I am very thankful that we didn’t go for a longer run out into the main lake. Needless to say we fished the river that night and Drew pulled a nice 23.5 incher.
Wednesday: The wind calmed down a little but the main lake was said to look like chocolate milk. We decided to head up river in search of some cleaner water and better fishing. We found better fish 26.75in, and a couple of 22 inchers close to the Canada side. But weren’t able to find the numbers that we were looking for. We fished until dusk with a really hot bite of little fish. Tim also managed to snag about a 4ft sturgeon. It was pretty cool to watch him pull the boat around for a while. Then the fish made a run towards the boat, broke the surface entirely, and broke Tim’s line in the process. We could tell the weather is starting to change, wind picking up, and temperatures dropping.
Thursday: Woke up to rain and high winds at about 4am. We knew the lake would be impossible so we fished the river. With the forecast calling for 5-15 inches of snow and N NW winds at 35mph we had a limited window. We caught a few short fish and a couple to take home but no monsters. The river was rising at an alarming rate. It was getting clearer by the minute that our trip was coming to a close. We Put the Spectrum on the trailer in a hail storm around noon.
Friday: Woke up to a couple inches of snow on the boat covers and howling winds. I was bummed that we missed out on the last day of fishing. But think we made the right call to pull the boats when we did. We made it back to Iowa Friday night.
The accommodations were amazing. The food was great. And
it was fun playing cards and catching some fish as well. And with this group of guys there was plenty of cheap entertainment. Overall the trip wasn’t what we were all expecting in regards to fish catching. Our main technique was jig and a shiner. We did try pulling cranks and slow death set ups as well, with zero results. We realized real quick what an advantage it is to fish from a charter boat as we did last fall. The main lake was just too dangerous almost the entire week. We also realized that we didn’t hit the shiner migration into the river. With surface temps of 56-57 the water still needs to cool down some for the big runs to start. I think if we did this trip again this time of year we would leave the boats at home and do a charter trip. But hey we had a lot of fun and caught some nice fish. It’s called “fishing” and not “catching” for a reason!
