Whitefish Chain - Aug 18-25

[Dan Wood]

We had our family vacation on Whitefish again this year and although this isn't really a fishing trip we get the kids out fishing quite a bit..

The walleyes were actually biting well for a change which is not usual for this time of year for us out there. We have been going there for 8? years around this time of year and have spent some time fishing for walleye with not much to show for it.. This time I had 13 in my boat over the week, and all boats caught at least some. Our biggest was 4.75 lbs. We fished walleye rigs early and late into the evening some with no action. All of the walleyes in our boat ended up coming fishing drop shots and case paddle tail worms. The bigger smallmouth also came on these. The bigger pike and largemouth in our boat came on football head jigs.

Jace, one of my 6 yolds caught a smallie that was about all he could handle.. it jumped close to 3' out of the water.. about as high as I'd ever seen, he was cranking on it pretty good at the time so that helped I'm sure.. we should of measured but I did get a photo.. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't of quite gone 18", but close. Definitely over 17". I had one 18" and one just a little over 19". All 3 of these were on the drop shot. My nephew Justin had a nice 17.5" that he caught on a bobber and minnow. They were all super fat footballs and nice fish.. All of the good smallies and walleye came off of the reefs and most off of rock piles and pts off of the reefs. I ran out of the case worms so I'll need to put another order in to Case plastics.. dark brown and black were by far the best although I used all that I had.. Also ended up using most of my tungsten drop shot weights this trip - tons of little pike in that lake and with most of the kids in my boat using drop shot rigs I was re-tying constantly.. not the easiest rig to tie either since I put a swivel up the line when fishing deep with those otherwise the line twists up too much.

Lots and lots of rockbass, some crappie, one bullhead, largemouth, pike, bluegills, perch, smallies, and walleye.. The action was pretty constant on a lot of the rock piles. The couple times we were out and it was calm weren't as good, even once real early in the morning. Wind seemed to help out in those areas. We did best in 14 - 24 fow. Most of the activity is outside of the weed edges in 14-15 fow. The number of small pike in that lake is crazy.. tons in the 14-20" range with the occasional fish going over 20". We did end up with a few decent ones over the week though. My brother in-law caught a good one during our little tournament that was 4.7 lbs I believe.. they had their 9 pike for 3 people in the 2 hrs we had to fish.. with at least one other that was nice. 25 lbs for 2 hours was a nice bag.. Other than that for nice pike, the only real nice one I saw in our boat was on a jig earlier in the week that was in the 30" range. the big ones that my brother in-law caught were deeper.. he was sitting on the edge at around 15' and casting deep off the edge into 40-50 fow.. They were on or near bottom. I haven't transferred any pics yet but will add them to this post when I get them on my computer.. it was fun for the kids with tons of action.. my Dad got into some crappies a couple nights with the kids and they got some nice ones.. I think he said the biggest they measured was 11.5".

[perry piehl]

That is one interesting report, Dan! My wife and I spent a weekend at a cabin on Kimball lake, just south of Whitefish last year. I deliver to the grocery store in Pine River once-in-awhile.

[Hoyt4]

Thanks for the report Dan. Sure wish I was getting into those smallies.