Fishers of Men Spring Outing

The Fishers of Men Spring outing was held at Broadwater Lodge on Woman Lake May 6-8.

The weather was nice and the accomodations were excellent for the 2006 Fishers of Men Fishing Club Twin Cities Spring Outing. We had 19 guys and 3 GEM kids. I arrived around 6pm on Friday and headed out to Otter bay to find the guys who had arrived already. I recognized Merv Heitschmidt, Gary Ellis, and Mike Cummins. I kind of avoided them and looked for shallow fish. Otter bay looks like it would be a shallow backwater but it is actually a fairly deep dropping bay. I saw a few bass and lots of baitfish shallow but no crappies or sunnies. Around 7:30 the other boats headed in. Shortly after they left I headed in too.

The guys had been putting a hurt on the Crappies in 10 to 22ft of water and were in the cleaning shack. Frank Evans, formerly of Atikwa Lake Lodge, had caught a 14.5, 1lb11oz Crappie. They pretty much had limited out for 6 guys.

Jeff Compton and family wanted to head out and so I guided them out to the spot those guys had been fishing. I caught nothing but they got 3 and 1 slimer. After 1/2 an hour I headed in to get dinner at Patricks in Longville. Even though the other guys were a 1/2hour in front of me they still had not gotten there fish dinners yet. I had chopped steak and some of the guys fish along with a hearty salad bar. We then headed to One Stop where I bought a highly defective Wing-It Bobber.

Back at the Lodge Mike Price and Armondo had arrived and Dave Lindmark showed up late with Corey and a friend. I hung out with Lowell and Gary Ellis. Gary was nice enough to put 4lb line on one of my reels.

Saturday: After a good pancake breakfast I headed out with Gary and Lowell in search of some slabs. Right away we were smacking fish. Gary got 2, Lowell got 2 and I got one and missed one. That bite died and we moved. I got a bass in the next spot. After a dry spell we moved again. Gary caught a couple more, Lowell got one and I missed another couple of fish before it was time to go in for lunch.

Lunch was taco salad and sandwiches, yum.

I then putzed around for a while, I headed in to Longville to get an ice cream cone and replace that Wing-It Bobber. After getting back I embarked with Jay to go slab hunting.

Fishing was slow, Jay got a slimer and I got 1 keeper crappie and one little one. Jay needed to go in and so I took him in. I then headed out for about 45minutes before dinner getting a decent fish drifting. That was it for me and the elusive Crappie.

We had an excellent fish fry for dinner then hung out into the evening. Mike and the Braham crew took off. Armondo and Mike had a reletively tough day out on backwater lakes. Fishing on Woman was slow but consistant for most with a few limits caught.

Sunday: People were up early for a breakfast of leftovers. I ate and went back to sleep. When I woke up Villa, Thompson, and Jay were about to leave. Lindmark left shortly after them. I headed to fish as that Robert and Tony and the Compton clan were out fishing. I met Robert at the Otter/Broadwater narrow and they told me nothing was going on so I headed in to pack up and leave.

I headed over to Boy Lake to hunt dog fish. The wind had started kicking up out of the south pretty good. I caught two bass including a chunky 19.5 out of the Maiden Cain. I then headed to the Creek that connects Boy and Swift lake. The creek got shallow and I was seeing rocks, so I abandoned that quest and fished the creek which had current moving swiftly. I got a couple of small hammer handles on a white swim jig.

I moved out to the weed flat out from the creek and was throwing the swim jig until a pike took it. I had caught a couple of slimmers and had a decent size eye follow. I then went to the white jig and pig and caught or missed several more slimers. I checked out Rabbit Lake then decided I had enough and packed up.

When I got home I tried Rock for doggies for about 45 minutes. No dogs but bass and slimers were active.