Whats up gents?
Spent all last week in Winchester (North/South Turtle Lake) targeting smallmouth with my Dad and brother. Lows in the 20's Sun/Mon made the fish lazy but we managed to get on about half a dozen 4 to 5 pound smallies and also managed to (unintentionally) find 3 muskie with the biggest being a 36". A cold front came through Wednesday, if I recall correctly, and all but shut down everything the rest of the week. No bites Wednesday, 2 walleye Thursday and 2 sub 3# smallmouth Friday. Been going up there since I was a little one, 27th year, and it was by far the hardest week of fishing I've ever recalled. A local guide also told us that it was the slowest spring week he has had in 30 years but take that for what it's worth.
Spent a lot more time than usual on the side scan and sonar chasing bait fish to find the smallies. Bait fish seemed to be suspended in 12-14' of water, with no real pattern, when we could find them. Most of the big smallies were caught on drop-offs of rocky points that merged with sandy bottom in about 7-10' of water. I can only assume things are popping off this week and next with the dramatic increase in temps, so it looks like we were a week early. Will be heading back up at the end of next month for another week to see what we can do.
Anyone else up north have any luck last week?