I've been fishing quit a bit over the past few days and the basics of northwoods fishing are evident on every lake I have been on. Sometimes it's just not complicated, especially at this time of year. Here we go.

Basic #1 - Find GREEN weed beds, 7-10', next to deeper water. Fish right in those weed beds and their edges with the lightest jig possible to get thru and to the bottom. Use mainly minnows at this time but I have had some success with leeches too. And don't be afraid to buzz some plastics and cranks thru these areas. A lot of times they will out-catch live bait.

Basic #2 - Fish the wind blown shore lines. If the wind is not blowing into the area you are thinking about fishing, go somewhere else. Wind blows in the food chain. No food, no active fish.

Basic #3 - Keep moving. Run and gun different areas until you find the fish then slow down and hammer them.

Basic #4 - Look for LM and SM Bass in the shallows right now. They are cruising and protecting their beds and are actively hitting anything that gets near them. Find the beds and you'll find the fish in them or in deeper drop offs next to them.

Basic #5 - If you want fast action on walleyes, fish during low light periods. Yes they can be caught during the day but would you rather catch 6 walleye in 6 hours of daylight or 6 walleye in 30 minutes of low light. The exception here being the very dark-watered flowages that don't produce well during dark as their waters are already very dark.

That's enough for now. The fish are biting and the weather is GREAT. Get out there, have fun, and take a kid with you!

Hey, don't forget to take a kid fishing and HAVE FUN!

Click on photos for larger images


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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@deweycatchemandhow.com>
- Friday, May 28, 2010 at 09:04:33 (PDT)

I just couldn't take sitting around and working on web sites anymore so when Dennis called and said "let's go hit 'em with cranks for an hour or so", I responded "I'm IN!" Cold, windy and rain spitting on my glasses was only a deterrent until the first fish was caught, which wasn't long. Dennis has his firetiger stick bait on and I tied on a chartreuse glow jig and tipped it with a bright yellow gulp grub tail. I saw Dennis's face when I did this and I knew he thought I was nuts. Well, 13 Walleye (13-16"), 4 Rock Bass and one 30" Musky later and the fish catching score was even. All of this in an hour and it would have been more but the Musky took about 15 minutes off our fishing time getting it in the boat and then released from the light tackle. Lot's of fun. This is the short period of time during the year when you can get the 'eyes up shallow on this lake, in good numbers. Dennis claims he got 25 of them two nights before.

I'm sure we won't get out today as it is going to rain all day and not make it out of the 40's. But this weekend looks fantastic. I can't wait. I'll keep you informed as we plan to get a bunch of pics and videos put up on the site.

Hey, don't forget to take a kid fishing and HAVE FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 09:25:20 (PDT)

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one of my readers e-mailed me to let me know i forgot to mention them thar basses. they are in the green weeds chasing the rest of the fish in there. but one of my favorite presentations, for smallies or largies, is a crooked purple worm retrieved very slowly over the weeds and rocks. if you need depth, put a small sinker a foot or so in front of the worm. yes you can use spinner baits, twister tails and others, but i love the purple worm (chuck's). and dont for get to let them basses go!

take a kid and have some FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Friday, April 30, 2010 at 16:58:37 (PDT)

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The big day is almost here and the anticipation is higher than in years past. For the first time in a long time we are ahead of schedule as far as temps and conditions on the area links. And that’s a good thing.

The Walleye are down spawning and are in post spawn. That means they are starting to feed heavily after ‘fooling around’ with each other for the past few weeks. Look for rock shorelines going into sand or mud bottoms or for GREEN weed edges in and around 10 feet of water. As always, low light periods are the best.

Crappie are on the bite right now. With most lake temps in the upper 50’s right now, the crappie are close to hitting the beds which they normally do at around 62 degrees water temp. Look for them in 5-10 feet of water, in green weeds and the warmest water you can find. 1 degree can make a difference. Plastics are doing much better than minnows right now at 1-2 feet under the surface.

Perch are with the Walleye. Look for them in the weeds looking to feed on minnows or those little plastics in your box.

Northern Pike are in all the same places. You can fish for Crappie, Perch and Bluegill and I’ll guarantee you latch on to a few pike and Musky. If you want to target pike, nothing works better right now than a flashy spinner bait worked slow and fast over the top of those green weeds right now.

The weather for this weekend doesn’t look to good right now. The temps are ok as they should be in the 60’s but the winds are predicted to be 24-45mph. That will make it tough. Most boats will be looking for a place on the lake to get out of the wind but the boats that fish those wind-blown shorelines will be the ones bring home the catch. The wind not only blows the food around but also the warm water which is on the top also.

Hey, take a kid fishing with you and make sure you have FUN!
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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 12:30:15 (PDT)

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Finally... One of those days you fish for.

We hit another different lake yesterday, one of the reasons I love this area--3,000 lakes in two counties, and looked for north shorelines with the highest temp. We found one we normally don't fish but it had 58 degree water. So we loaded up the jigs with minnows and started throwing little jigs and plastics.

To make a long story short, we found one spot on the shoreline that was about a foot deeper than the surrounding areas and we hammered them. We put the minnows away and thru the plastics. Crappie after Crappie, cast after cast. Also 3 nice Northerns (released), a few bit offs, 1 40-some inch Musky that got to the boat after grabbing a Crappie coming in and a few perch. We caught 60 Crappie and cleaned 50 of them.

Dennis' son Shawn was with us again and after napping he helped Dad reel in a few fish. At one point he decided that he had reeled in enough and when Dad asked him to reel in another he said "you go ahead Dad, I'll let you have some fun now."

Moral of the story, keep moving till you find them and give them everything till you find out what they want. I always seems the warmest water in some kind of hole will hold the fish.

The best part is we are just getting started. They are still 8 feet from the beds! Man, I love this time of year. It's FUN!

Click on photos for larger images

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Jeff Bolander, also known as 'How' of Dewey, Catchem and How at www.deweycatchemandhow.com
Check out my Real Estate website at www.jeffbolander.com
and my Up North fishing and resort web sites at www.upnorth.info.
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 11:11:10 (PDT)

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just when you think you got it figured out... headed out last night to a lake we scouted and figured was ready to pop crappies, all we needed was some 'crappie chop'. we got the chop and 2 crappies in the first 5 minutes and the door shut. only a few bass came thru the door after that. oh well, that's fishing. you think we would have at least caught a few BLUEGILL!!!! but i'm not bitter :) don't forget to have fun!
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 10:06:40 (PDT)

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temperature wise it was hard to beat the last 5 days. 40s and even 50s yesterday and bight sunshine made for very warm days on the snow packed ice. it is one of the best reasons to live in the northwoods. but when that sun hit the horizon we found ourselves scrambling to put on the bibs and fire up the heater for the shelter.

we were looking ice some walleyes before the season closed on sunday night. we fished different lakes each day, in different spots using different techniques and baits. one night produced 8 walleyes, one produced a 6 and 8 pounder on consecutive flags, and so on. so action was prevalent at night and the panfish were also very active during the day. so using all this info gathered via cell phones over thursday thru saturday we pooled our resources and gathered together on sunday on the "hot spots".

sure enough, one small 13" walleye was all that was seen in 7 hours of fishing. i guess the fish thought the season closed on saturday!

hey, on to the panfish season, the best part of the ice fishing season for me, anyway. from now until ice-out, the fishing will get hotter as will the weather conditions. the only bad part i fear is because of the crappy ice formation this year the ice will leave us quickly so be careful. (time to get the boat ready)
jeff bolander <jeff@upnorth.info>
- Monday, March 08, 2010 at 09:51:55 (PST)

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