A Step Back In Time: Fishing with Bamboo By Larry Myhre
Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal.
A few weeks ago, on South Dakota’s Enemy Swim Lake, I stepped back in time nearly 70 years.
I laid down my fine graphite casting rods and, instead, picked up a five-and-one-half-foot handmade split bamboo casting rod.
My nod to the past stopped with the rod. I was using a modern free-spool casting reel spooled with 10-pound-test mono.
I tied on a two-and-a-half inch Big O in Smokey Joe color, my favorite bass crankbait, and fired out a cast.
The lure literally flew over the boulder-studded flat and I thumbed the reel a bit to avoid overcasting the target.
The rod performed just as it had when lawn casting. Bamboo, I found, loads quickly and literally throws the lure for you, something a graphite rod does not do.
I made three cranks of the rod handle when the lure just stopped.
The smallmouth did what they usually do when caught in shallow water. It came up, one, two, three times in quick succession, and then avowed to slug it out.
Smallmouth never come to hand easily, and this one was no exception.
I finally was able to slip my thumb into his mouth and lift him from the water. He was nearly four pounds and was to be the largest of over a dozen smallies I caught on the bamboo rod that day.
I also landed a few largemouth, some of them over three pounds.
Glacial Lakes’ mixed bag By Larry Myhre
Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal
WEBSTER, S.D. — Our plan was to hit two lakes a day and take full advantage of the variety of fishing to be found in the Glacial Lakes area of northeastern South Dakota.
Mother Nature threw us a curve, however, and rather than fight 25 to 30 mile-an-hour winds, we fished mornings and motored off the water pounding against a spray of white caps each afternoon.
The first morning was the worst.
A south wind was blasting at 20 miles an hour by 10 a.m. We parked at the boat ramp on Reetz Lake, just south of Webster.
“We won’t last long, out there,” I said to Fran. “We might be able to get out of the wind along that west shoreline.”
I had not planned to fish Reetz. Less than a month earlier I had fished it and caught several walleyes over 20 inches there. But, with the wind I thought our chances were better here on a lake where all walleyes under 28-inches have to be released.
We lasted about an hour and a half and boated two nice walleyes on bottom bouncers and spinners fished in 12 to 14 feet of water.
The rest of the afternoon we spend prospecting other lakes and checking out boat ramps for the next day.
With the wind forecast to blow again, we launched the next morning on Enemy Swim Lake, long one of the northeast’s glacial gems.
It’s a beautiful lake. Clear water, wooded shorelines and a couple of islands. It’s 2,150 acres with a maximum depth of 24 feet. All bass between 14 and 18 inches must be released with only one over 18 allowed in the daily bag. That just about guarantees good bass fishing and that is just what we found.
We started on one of the main lake points casting crankbaits and spinnerbaits in water nine feet and less, but never brought up a bass. We moved deeper on the same point and switched to bottom bouncers and spinners with crawlers.
Again, nothing. Only perch.
We left that spot and headed for a small rocky island nearby and that’s where we found the bass.
Smallies were laying in the shallow, boulder-studded water and were more than willing to take our Big O crankbaits.… Continue reading
Helping you hunt and fish By Larry Myhre
Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal
It was a quiet, late November afternoon when Ron Peterson, publisher of the Journal walked into my office in the newsroom.
He sat in the chair across from my desk where, as editor of the newspaper, I was scanning our news budget before heading up the meeting with the floor editors to decide what the next day’s paper would look like.
“What would you think of producing an outdoor tabloid which we distribute free throughout our area?” he asked.
As the paper’s outdoor writer since 1973, it didn’t take long for me to answer.
“I think it would be a great idea,” I said.
And so it started, a free tabloid devoted to teaching Siouxlanders more about hunting and fishing in our area and throughout the upper Midwest.
The first issue, one of six to be published each year, hit the streets in late January of 2004.
The cover photo was of Dave Genz, known as the father of modern day ice fishing. He was on the ice holding a walleye. I had taken that photo a year earlier on Devil’s Lake in North Dakota.
The whole issue was devoted to ice fishing .… Continue reading
Wonderful walleyes of Waubay By Larry Myhre
Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal
WEBSTER, S.D. — A heavy overcast threatened rain and an occasional sprinkle emphasized that fact.
But when Tim Chandler, Watertown, S.D., guided his boat around the north side of Duck Island the graph lit up with arches signalling lots of fish below, thoughts of rain were forgotten. We attached number five Salmo Hornets to our trolling rods and began the search for walleyes.
We were on sprawling Waubay Lake, a walleye factory for the past several years.
It was once a duck slough but an infusion of water throughout northeast South Dakota in the early 90s turned it into a 16,000-acre fishing paradise
The lake more than quadrupled its size in the past decade and swallowed up many smaller lakes to create a massive fishery nine miles long and five miles wide.
It has receded somewhat from its high levels set in July of 1999. It has a maximum depth of 35 feet.… Continue reading
Bounce your way to walleye success This sinker on a wire arm is, hands down, our best walleye rig By Larry Myhre
Here’s the best walleye fishing tip you will get all week.
Grab a handful of 2-ounce bottom bouncers and some spinners, a couple dozen crawlers and head for Lake Francis Case.
Troll the mud flats at 1 1/2 to 2 miles an hour and you will catch more walleyes than you ever thought possible.
The mud flats won’t be hard to find. Just look for the concentration of boats.
Memorial Day weekend signals the beginning of some fantastic walleye fishing on this big reservoir. But, it could be Big Spirit Lake, East Okoboji Lake, Storm Lake or any number of other walleye waters within driving range.
The bottom bouncer and live bait rig will be the way to go all summer long.
When word of this unique fishing sinker first came out in the late 1970s, a lot of old walleye hands sneered at this awkward- looking wire with a big hunk of lead on it.
The Lindy Rig was king at the time. That meant a small, maybe 3/8-ounce, sinker which slid along the line so you could feed line to wary walleyes. Fish something like this on those windswept Minnesota walleye lakes? No way.… Continue reading
Snap Weights will help you find Walleyes in Deep Water By Larry Myhre
Summertime walleye fishing throughout the area is really pretty simple.
Just fish them in shallow water. Or fish them in deep water.
Well, that’s not really the case but I did want to get your attention.
In lakes such as Spirit Lake in northwest Iowa, you’ll find a lot of walleyes in the weedbeds this time of year. Look for cabbage beds or mats of coontail on the flats and you can rest assured that walleyes will be taking advantage of this shade and cover and can be caught.
On the other hand, rest assured there will be plenty of walleyes cruising the main lake basin which in this lake bottoms out at about 22 feet or so. There will be no structure, just a flat, dishpan shaped muddy bottom for the most part.
In reservoirs such as Lake Francis Case, Lake Sharpe or Lewis and Clark Lake on the Missouri River system, walleyes will be scattered throughout flooded trees in the deeper Francis Case or cruising the old river channel in the shallower Sharpe and Lewis and Clark lakes. In these lakes you will need to get down to 30 feet or so to reach the fish.
There’s a method of fishing deep walleyes which has been growing in popularity the past few years. There are few walleye crankbaits that will dive to these depths, most bottom out at somewhere from 12 to 18 feet. There is, however, an easy method to take these crankbaits to the deeper walleyes where walleyes are cruising in July and August.
It’s called snap weight fishing. It involves attaching a heavy sinker in front of your crankbait by means of a line release similar to those used in deep water salmon fishing.
In a nutshell, here’s how it works.… Continue reading