Jeff Larson from Montgomery IL. finishes up the week last night by taking his first black bear.   Lots of smiles from all our hunters this week.  I really do not see any reason for this coming week to be any different, the weather looks stable after we get thru Saturday.  Pretty decent reports from fisherman in the area, although this time of year is usually tough on many area lakes the temps have stayed low and fish still are feeding.  We will have reports from area bush lakes in the next few days. 

Bear hunting this week has been excellent!!! 5 out of six guys shot bear this week so far and everyone has seen bear.  Joe Tidmore and Joe Sennott from the wilmington IL. area arrowed two great bears this week.  Well over 200lbs dressed, both were old bruins.  Jay Tonkin harvested another nice bear along with Tony Altiery from Braidwood IL.  All our baits have been active and guys are all seening multiple bears.  Walleye fishing is good in many area lakes.  Cabin 4 had two days this week of 70 plus walleyes, for the guys looking for a nice musky the time is still right.  I have been baiting, tracking, and skinning all week, preety hectic up here right now, got to go. Thanks for reading.

Bear hunters are in camp along with a couple groups of fisherman.  The bear baits are hitting the best I've seen.  From the start, up until now they have been active with multiple bears on many baits.  The full moon sometimes negatively effects the travel and feeding times of the bears, this can be a challenging week but I am hoping they remain active at the right time for our hunters.  Muskys are ON!! My wonderful wife, Barry, and myself had good action the other night.  We fished the last 1 1/2 hours of  light, I landed a 40" on the figure 8,(Giant Bucktail) and Betty had action on a top water bait.  Barry had trouble figuring out musky gear.  Walleyes are steady all over, many nice reports from our area lakes.  There has been some talk about muskys on this blog, I have to say I may be hooked!!!!!!!!

We have been talking about weather all year but WOW, we finally get some stable weather and fishing heats up.  Great catches of walleye from many area lakes.  Water temps are averaging 70 to 75 degrees.  Reports for SM bass also has been great.  Fish all tend to be in the weed beds with rock, and with a break or deep water close.  The number and size of fish is definately there.  A jig and minnow with a weed guard makes the weed bite much more enjoyable.  Muskys reports have been great as well. 

The bear baits are hitting perfect, lots of berrys right now have the bears in feeding mode.  Every bait is active with bears, I was able to see a monster a few days ago on a bait and Barry and I seen two nice bears on Saturday.  Moose and deer sign is prevelant on every bear bait.  It sure looks like the animals all wintered well last year, we are seeing many does with fawns and the moose sign is there but they are hanging close to their aquatic feeding grounds this time off year.  We are getting close to another change of season up here, it was 50 degrees at 6 am, hunting season is right around the corner. 

3-D shoot went well on Sunday in V-Bay, ask Barry who won. I'm ready.   

Larger water has finally heated up in more ways than one.  Temps in area lakes range from 69 to 75 degrees.  The fishing is pretty darn good.  Yesterday we were on the big water with Len and Alex Yablonski (Winnepeg) and had a really nice day of walleye fishing, many fish were over 20 inches and numbers were over 50 fish.  Rocks with weeds  were the ticket.  Our best spots had both rocks and weeds with deep water close.  We tried shallow humps but did better in the weeds.  Betty actually caught some great fish on the outside edge in 14 ft of water but the majority of fish came from 6 to 10 ft.

Musky's are HOT.  I have heard some great reports of active fish.  The water temps in the musky lakes are approaching the mid 70's, (finally)  We should have a few great weeks of fishing as our weather looks to be stable for a while.

 

Bear's are active also.  All of our baits are getting hit, its funny how much activity is out in the bush this year.  We are seeing deer, moose, and bear sign everywhere we go.  Baiting has been alot of fun so far.  Barry seen a monster whitetail two days ago, and yes it was right where I have a stand, getting excited for the fall already.  The blueberry's are out and the bears are definately in the patches.  The berry season in our area looks to be spread out for a while, many green berrys with a good number of ripe ones. 

Bear baiting is in full swing now.  The sign in the woods is very good.  Lots of bear activity all over.  The beerys seem to be rippening but does not seem to be a bumper crop at this time, we just have not had the sun an warm weather for the berrys so far.  This is a good thing for you guys that are coming north to bear hunt.   Walleye reports are mixed, we have been in tuned to bear baiting and scouting so I can't give too much info on fishing at this time.  EXCEPT----I snuck out last night with a friend Roger from MN. and we must have nailed down a musky window.  In the last three hours of the night, we raised 2 fish and boated a 41 and a 46, buck tails and a large bulldog were the ticket. Lots of fun when you catch that window when they are feeding, water temps were 72 which is the warmest I have seen or heard all year.  I'll try and give updates in the near future but I will be in the bush most of the time for a while. 

Reports from  larger lakes on Hwy 105 have been good and improving everyday, our small lakes in the area are still producing. That local favorite in Ear Falls continues to produce great walleyes.  Betty and I actually tried to get a big musky this week along with a trophy walleye yesterday but it didn't happen.  We pretty much got skunked two times out, but we really were only looking for two specific fish. (40 plus musky and 30 plus walleye)  You'll get skunked more times than not when you look for those creatures only.  The anticipation with every cast is awesome when you are out for one bite.  Lots of good reports on walleyes for this time of year, mostly simple summer time spots, fishing breaks and humps, no real secret there.  The late evening bite has been the best, (the best Jerry the best) but with a nice chop during the day.  Guys are doing just fine.  The musky reports from others have actually been good.  One person yesterday caught 3 over 40 and a 30 inch walleye as a bonus.  A local outfitter said his lake is in the low 70's now and many more fish are being raised with quite a few in the upper 40's being landed.  Small Mouth Bass are still hitting everywhere, you can really have some fun on top water right now.  The "Kevin Van Damm" of Rochester, MN Jim Kostroski aka JIMMER turned me onto the swimn' jig a couple of years ago.  Definately a fun bait to fish for small mouth but what Mr. Kostroski didn't tell me was that the swimn' jig was also a great bait for 20 inch northerns, maybe he is the Spence Petros of Rochester.

Last week reports on all our small bush lakes were great.  Usually this time of year the small lakes get a little tougher to fish because of the heat and high water temps, but this year is very different as you already know if you been reading this blog.  The Small Mouth Bass fishing is so good right now Betty and I are actually going ourselves today, which I know is a shocker for many of you to hear.  Walleye fishing was good last week as well.  Good numbers and size were caught last week.  The bigger water in the area still remains spotty for walleyes, improving a touch, but spotty.  We will be fishing a few times this week, I'll be bear baiting for the next month, So we're going to get a little fun in over the next few days.   Musky fishing for me, has been slow, no follows in two evenings out, but tonight may be different, I'll let you know.   I did hear that guys were doing pretty good over the last two weeks but not great is the report I got.  One tip for muskys is always check and sharpen your hooks.  I was blazin' big buck tails thru weeds with rocks around and I couldn't believe how dull some hooks got, so fast.  The hooks were lazer sharp before I left, and I happen to check them out today and couldn't believe how beat up they were.  You are out there for hours casting with no luck and finnally you get some action, I sure would want a sharp hook.  Pretty simple thing remember but do we always do it?  Weather is still cool but nice, we're lookiing forward to a few days out fishing this week.  Take care and thanks for ready.

Please do me a favor and keep a friend of mine (Bob Corcoran) in your thoughts, as he is going through his second neck/back surgery, thank you. 

Mixed reports seem to be the norm.  Fishing has been steady but not always great.  It seem to be the story of the year.  Getting on stacks of nice walleyes has been a challenge for most, guys are catch 5 here and 10 there, then moving around and repeating.  You can get on lots of small fish with a few big ones in the weed beds now but the average big fish seem to be spread out and deeper.  In stead of running all over the place I would try and catch your active shallow fish, exhaust the area, and then move out into deeper water near that area find a break and fish that area.  The fish are there but are moving in and out at different times.  We have had three days now of stable weather with sunshine believe it or not.  Lots of high water levels and still relatively cool water temps for this time of year.

Mayflies are hatching in pretty good numbers around our area.  Water temps still haven't settled in on 70 degrees yet but our weeds are finally up and maybe we can put a summer patterns together.  Weather is still wet and cool for this time of year, but nicer weather is coming ,I think.  The water levels are way UP, I'm not sure I have seen water levels this time of year so high, in fact, any time of year. Great cathes of big smallmouth were reported by Cory McNeals group this past week, along with good numbers of walleyes and northerns.  I was on the big lake yesterday and did just fair, (30 walleyes) sometimes i think we're spoiled.  But really, I'm not spoiled, I could not find a good concentration of fish yesterday.  Our deep water fish moved, they were not there, and there were not good numbers of fish in our favorite weed beds.   Today we will try some main lake humps, that can be a fun way to fish if you can get on em'.  It sounds like we should be fishing our smaller bush lakes maybe next week.  Muskys should be going soon, the weeds seemed to mature in just a few days, and if you looked hard enough you could probally find 70 degree water.  Guys from last year did very well musky fishing when the water was 78/79 degrees, we have a long way to go to reach that.  Well, the grass is still too wet to cut, I'll let you know how it went today, fishing that is.