Big Country and I fished for 6-7 hours today, roughly half a day, finishing up at 3 p.m., and landed one 4-pounder. We saw many, and I mean many, active fish, some flying high and some that we saw come off the bottom and smoke their way up to our lures only to not strike. Some came out of 90+ FOW all the way up to look over the lure on the top downrigger 30 feet down.

We changed up lures often, varying trolling speeds with throttle and s-curves but could not get them to go. We saw no fish over the shallower structure in 45-60 FOW. All were located over 70-100 FOW. We scraped the bottom with downriggers as well as riding them high, also varying how much line we strung out behind the riggers.

Mostly, we just had fun. It was hard leaving the lake at 3 p.m. (prior work commitment on my part). Usually when fish are active all day but not quite pulling the trigger, the supper hour and evening can be really good.

It was a gorgeous day to be on the lake, with temps in the mid 70s, light winds, sunny skies and good company. It was dead calm the first couple hours. Surface temps were from 64-66 everywhere we fished.

Thanks, for the report Steve.

Still a great day to be out. I'll be up in August after the salmon thing on Michigan. get'er dialed in and If you got a saturday free in August I'll make sure it works out so we can fish other than standing on the water staring down a hole.

Sounds good, gutz.

I was out with Big Country again for three hours this afternoon and ran over tons and tons of high-flying fish over deeper water again. Got another 4-lber to go. Neither of them were fin clipped.

BC said the one he cleaned last night had a stomach bloated with bugs, mostly mayflies.

Another short, but fun day fishing beautiful Burntside. It never get's old doin' time on that body of water for me. Thank's again Steve for the camraderie. It sure was amazing to see that many fish charge the lure then not commit. Frustrating to say the least! We saw one laker blast from deep water to a spoon then dive down like a torpedo. I think the ball must have put a real scare in that one. So, the story of the day for the one fish goes like this. After trolling over some deep water humps that had piles of fish on it, we got a little too close to the bottom on one pass. The one rigger started bouncing so I quickly raised the ball (there were fish all around on the hump as I was doing this). Immediately after clearing the hump Steve yells that either the rod is stuck on the bottom or there is a fish on the line. Fish on dude . So, after the catch Steve and I begin to try and figure out what made the light turn green for the fish to bite. Steve comes up with what made perfect sense to me, at the time. He say's that when the ball was banging the rock hump it attracted attention. The laker charges in to investigate. When he finds the spoon on the end of the line he starts to follow. What happened next? Perfect timeing my friends. I was cranking like a mad man to get the rigger off of the rocks, hence the lure took a fast charge upward as if being chased. Makes perfect sense. We solved the puzzle. Problem is I don't care to chance getting hung up on the bottom in whitecaps. So we just stay close to the bottom for the rest of the short day. No more takers. When I get home and clean the fish, the mystery is really solved. Steve, that lake trout had a bone dry belly. No food in it at all. IT WAS JUST HUNGRY!!! I think I may go crazy some day figureing these things out. I guess thats why I keep going. BC

Oh yeah!