Pre-Fishing Rush Lake (Ottertail)

Aruku Shad Meets a Black & Decker Tackle Wrecker

I was fortunate to be able to go and pre-fish Ottertail Lake with Barry Mowers.  Barry isn't my partner, but he had an open seat, so I went with him.  We were fishing by 7:30AM.  We tried a weedline spot first.  All I saw there was a bunch of perch chasing my swim jig.  Then Barry took us to some reeds and he got a pike and a nice bass or two there.  We got some advice from people fishing in a pontoon, so we headed to the North end of the lake.  We actually didn't find what they told us about to start with, but we found a good area anyway.  I got a bass on a Horny Toad and Barry got a couple of bass and missed a couple as well.  We also saw some pike activity but didn't catch any.  A storm came up and on our way back to the landing we found what the people in the pontoon told us about.  We got loaded up just in time, because it poured and thundered.  We met up with another guy from the club and went and had breakfast.  When we got back to the lake I think it had stopped raining.  We went back up to a different area on the North side of the lake and fish some more reeds and assorted slop.  I got my best bass of the day on a Gambler Ninja spin in the reeds and another good one on the Horny Toad in the reeds with some pads.   I also got a decent size pike while pitching the reeds with a craw tube.  I don't remember if Barry caught anything.

Next we went out and tried to find a good weedline.  It started raining again and the wind had come up out of the SE.  I got a rock bass on our first stop on a bluegill Pure Poison with a green pumpkin Grass Pig Jr.. On about our 3rd or 4th spot I got a couple of small pike on my Aruku Shad.  I had a big 30 inch class pike hit at the Aruku Shad right by the boat but it didn't get hooked.  I threw back in the same direction and got nailed.  I figured it was the same fish but it turned out to be a big old dogfish.  We netted it and it got all tangled up.  You can see from the picture what it did to my bait.

Next we went to some reeds on the South shore Barry got a couple of good bass and I got a 25" pike.  We tried a few docks without any luck.  We cruised around looking at some things then went back up to the North side. I got a small bass on the Ninja Spin and that was the last fish of the day.  We were off the water by 3:30 I think.