I had to use a dock pole to move the Trophy backward. There were swans where I was headed on F Flat and loons in the wider bay. I got a pike in the first 10 minutes and missed another bite on F Flat. I fished the North Reeds Across Reed Edge for about 10 minutes, then went to NPBI. I didn't get a bite there.
1Pike
Despite the weather being nice in November until I took the Trophy out of the lake on the 17th of the month, this was my only trip in the boat for the month. I was preoccupied with the election, my surgery, and how sucky the fishing was in September and October.
Possible Last Bass of 2023 Big Blade/Billy Goat (Gill/Hot Snakes)
Big Blade Chatter/Billy GOAT
Skunk Out Of The Boat
4:40-6:30PM Funnel, Pt./Flat, Jaimen's Corner, F Flat
50-54℉, Cloudy some light rain, 2-5mph NE
I didn't get a bite for the first half hour plus at the Funnel and on Pt/Flat. I went to Jaimen's and caught 2 pike and 2 bass. It rained for a minute then quit thankfully. I decided to run to F Flat. My sunglasses flew off my head and into the lake in Platte. I got one pike at F Flat and missed one bite that hit when the Chatterbait landed. I should have just stuck things out in Sully, No surface activity in calm Platte.
Due to the weather turning cold at the end of October, this was my last trip in the Trophy while I had it docked at the Lake Place on Platte Lake. I pulled the Trophy out of Platte on Halloween. We are getting a warm-up in mid-November so hopefully this will not be my last trip in the Trophy for 2023.
2Bass 4Pike
10:00-Midnight Harbor Mouth, North Corner
50℉, Cloudy, 2-5mph ENE
Ideal conditions: Pre-frontal with light east winds (2-6mph). I got a skinny 23" fish quickly on the Rage Swimmer after I had a bite that didn't hook up on Agent E. I got the 25.5 pretty quickly. Then there was about a 30-minute lull where I lost one hooked fish and had a few bites that didn't hook up, I went to the North Corner and got an under on the first cast with the X Shad Shallow. Lots of weeds in the water. I got the final two bites and lost one other on the NC boulder. I got the final fish of the night on my announced last cast, a 23 incher. No keepers tonight. Had at least 5 hits that didn't hook up. Never did put on a stick bait.
I was not a spring chicken and didn't get to the launch until after 6AM. I wasn't fishing until about 6:45AM and much to my surprise I couldn't see anyone at the spot. As I was getting set up there was a red Lund heading my way. There was a bit of a SW breeze and I got blown towards the North Shore. I ran the trolling motor to get back towards the South shore. As the boat approached he was headed to go between me and the South shore. I yelled and pointed for him to go around the other way. I lined up my first cast of the morning with a white Stanley Jigs Phantom(spook). Next thing I know the red Lund is passing between me and the South shore and headed right to where my bait is sitting. I was not happy, so I yelled at the guy (I have this on video and will post it when I figure out how to post to Youtube). Anyway, if there were fish there, there weren't any longer.
Fishing the area I had one hit on the Phantom but it didn't hook up. The next bait in the quiver was a Havoc Lane's Grass Pig (Dipper). I could feel fish hitting it but they didn't hold on so I could set the hook. Next, I tried a purple Berkley Frenzy Popper and had a fish hit that and not hook up. I went subsurface with a PB&J Yum Wooly Bug and finally I got a bass.
It was only 11.25". A couple of casts later I got my first "keeper" at 15".
I caught a few more fish but it was slow. Eventually, the red Lund came back out of the river. I asked them if they caught anything and the guy swore at me, so I'm guessing that is a no. I could see another boat in the river fishing it's way towards me. They said it was really slow and only got a couple of small fish. I had to see for myself and they were right. The one notable thing is that I caught my first Dipper fish. Actually, I got two, one on an unweighted setup and one on a weighted hook. Both fish smacked it and held on.
Eventually, I left the river and went to fish the greater Pro. I was throwing the white weighted Grass Pig and I had it get bumped a few times but the fish were not taking it. Finally, I had enough of that and switched to a black-blue Pure Poison Chatter Jig and got a bass on that. After a while, it became clear the fish just were not chasing so I started pitching the Wooly Bug to groups of pads. I was rewarded with my biggest fish of the day at 17.75".
I caught a few more and missed a couple of bites doing that. Eventually, I went to where it was calm and looked for fish. Saw one good bass, a few average to small ones and one nice pike. Not a single dogfish. Eventually, I got back into the wind and got one on the Pure Poison and an Orange Swim Jig with Havoc Devil Spear trailer. I got a few more hits that didn't hook up and on one of the hits the Spear tail came off. I switched the tail to a 4" pumpkin Action Plastics Grub and got a couple pike. As I was fishing down the shore a couple of guys from the Bass Snatchers came by (Ruff & Ludenia. They were getting the lay of the land and hadn't started fishing yet.
I worked my way to the GOMH and into Platte where I got a 15.25" on the Pure Poison, along with a couple of pike.
I worked into Channel Inn Bay where it was calm and it was dead, not even panfish.
Eventually, I worked my way into the Big West Bay. I tied on a baby bass Ninja Spinnerbait and the pike fest was on as I drifted the weed flat in the wind (and it was windy folks). I think I caught about 15 pike and two bass. Eventually, I made a switch to a smaller black and red faux Ninja and the bass and pike evened out a bit. I think I finally narrowed down an area that was holding a few bass and I headed in.
It was an ordeal getting the boat trailered in that big wind on a NE shore access, but I did it and didn't break anything. I'm lucky I didn't swamp the boat and break stuff.
I ended up with:
24 Bass (Best 5:17.75, 16.25, 15.25, 15.25, 15)
26 Pike
Note: My "new and improved" trolling motor bracket didn't survive the first trip. I can still use it for now, but we are gonna need to try something else.
The weather is about to turn nasty for a couple of days so I figured I better get the boat with the new/used motor in the lake today when it was going to be reasonably decent outside. I had everything ready to roll around 6PM. Much to my amazement as I pulled in to the Rock Lake Public Access, the Rock Dock was in. The motor started right up and so I took her out for a spin to see how fast the 25 horse would go. I had loaded in a bunch of gear to weigh down the boat just like when I will be using it in the summer, plus I had the trolling motor battery in front because I planned on doing some fishing. I was a bit disappointed that out of the gate the motor only just barely made 21mph. However I had the manual trim at it's lowest setting and so I started putting the motor up one notch at a time. Each notch gained me about .5 miles per hour and I settled in at the hole that pushed the boat right at about 24mph. Still a little disappointing as I was hoping this motor would put me in the 26 to 27mph range. It will be interesting to see how fast I can go with a passenger.
Once I was satisfied that I had gotten the best performance I was going to get. I ran into the Platte River Outlet (PRO) to do some fishing. The PRO is basically a fair sized shallow bay that gets weed choked in the summer and it is where the water flows out from Rock down a small navigable stream (best if by canoe, but I did make it from Rock to Platte with a motor boat once) into Platte Lake. I was surprised to see that the lily pads had already come up big time in the PRO.
I ran all the way back to where it narrows down to the stream and there is a beaver lodge. I cast out my glow Cubby below a bobber and on about the 5th cast a fish made a V wake right at my bobber and the fish nailed the bobber taking it under. The bobber came out of the fishes mouth when I set the bobber and I reeled in real fast and quickly changed up to a blk/red Monsoor Swim Jig with blk/red Zoom Speed Craw and threw back in hopes it was a big dogfish. On about my third cast the fish waked right behind the jig and took a nip at the speed craw and turned away before I had a chance to see it. It was calm but cloudy and so seeing down into the water away from the boat wasn't the best, thus I had to blind cast and couldn't sight fish. I am pretty sure it was either a big dogfish or a fair sized pike. I had a couple more wakes that didn't hook up down by the beaver lodge and then I slowly made my way East working the Northern area of the bay. I had a couple of fish bump my lures and one fish stole a tail on a white Zoom Super Speed Craw. Basically it was starting to get dark and I had worked my way back to where the PRO bay narrows before it opens up to Rock Lake and I thought I was going to get skunked, when this little bass hit the Monsoor Swim Jig over some dead rice. . A couple minutes later I got another bass that was just a bit bigger. A couple minutes later I made a long cast to an irregular feature that is something akin to an old beaver lodge, but I am not certain if that is what it actually is and I got hit by this 17.25" bass. I accidentally changed some adjustment on the camera and so this pic for some reason looks lighter even though it was taken 10 minutes later and it was darker out than the first fish picture. Also this was the only pic of about 5 I took that was reasonably in focus.
As I made my way into Rock Lake I had a hit and brought in a 24" pike and that was it.
.JPG)
