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2009 Year End Newsletter
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Hello friends, it was another high water year at Moonlite Bay Camp, on Lake of the Woods, in 2009.  I am not sure if the lake water has been high for the past five seasons, or if our main dock was built too low.  I can surely recall two nasty storms over the past two seasons, which saw the water rise at least two feet above our stationary dock.  I also recall driving boats right on top of the dock during these storms, in order to hold the dock down and stop it from lifting off the cribs.  Mother nature can sure keep you on your toes at times.  I am also glad I bought fourteen blue plastic, 55-gallon drums to hold down the dock.  We sure needed them again in 2009.  

    Because of the constant worry over the last five years, that the high water would take away the top of our stationary dock, and also because of the damage to the main dock caused by the wind and waves, we have decided to move and rebuild our main dock.  We have moved our main dock to the right side of the dock house, looking out, and we have also raised the main dock up to the same level as the dock house.  I don’t think that our dock house has ever been under water, so we shouldn’t have to use boats or blue drums to hold our dock down any more.  Knock on wood, as they say.  We finished this project in late August, and the new dock looked awesome when I left to go home for the season.  I can’t wait to use the new dock in 2010!

    The 2009 season never really warmed up all that much; sure we had a few warm summer weeks, but not many.  Cool, overcast, and moist was the predominant weather pattern in 2009.  That being said, this type of a weather pattern was not necessarily a bad thing for fishing, especially for big fish.  Big fish tend to be more accessible, when the water temperature is cooler, and the skies are overcast.  Casting for musky, northern, and even bass, was at it’s best in 2009.

    Walleye fishing in 2009 was excellent all season.  Just like 2008, we got more and bigger walleyes jigging the reefs just west of camp.  When the wind kicked up, and we could not get out to the reefs, we still caught many walleyes trolling spinners and bottom bouncers.  If the weather was calm or only slightly windy, I would usually try jigging first, and that seemed to work 8 out of 10 times.  The key to jigging is finding the reefs fast and noticing what depth the walleyes are biting at.  Once you have that information, the bite can last a good couple of hours at any one spot.  

    I had my entire family out one day in late July for a, boys against the girls, walleye fishing tournament.  The four boys got to fish from a 20-foot boat, with all the gadgets, GPS, trolling motor, fish finder, and plenty of room for everyone and their gear.  The four girls were a little cramped in a 16.5-foot camp boat.  The boys started strong, boating 25-30 walleye over a 3-4 hour time span.  I think the biggest walleye was around 20 inches.  The girls boated about half that number.  The boys had the tournament won, or so we thought.  We were just about to stop fishing and head back to camp, when my daughter, announced that she was snagged.  However, her snag started moving up and down, and side-to-side, in a big fish, head shaking motion.  She had hooked into a very large fish!  Her rod was bent over at a severe angle, and I was worried that her drag was set too tight, but I dared not offer too much advice from the boys boat.  If she lost the fish while I was giving her advice, I would surely get the blame for sabotaging the girls winning fish.  I tried to keep quiet and watch.  Family tournament rules state that the most fish boated wins, unless someone catches a monster.  A monster fish always trumps most fish.  The fish my daughter had on was a biggie, but could she rely on her teammates to help her land it?  When my daughter finally got the fish up to the boat, another teammate in the girl’s boat did a real nice job of netting it, however, it was not in the boat yet!  Everyone could see that the fish was big, around 8 pounds, give or take.  The first attempt at lifting the fish into the boat failed, it was too heavy, and could not be lifted in by the handle of the net.  The net was pulled in gently, to the edge of the boat instead.  The net girl then grabbed the sides of the net, and fell backwards into the boat, accidentally sitting on a nice IM7 graphite fishing rod, which snapped in half.  The big walleye landed on her lap softly.  I have to say that the broken rod was a small price to pay to see the look of triumph on the girl’s faces after winning the family fishing tournament!  The boys took the loss hard, but none took it harder than my, eight year old, son.  He just slumped over in the back of the boat and you couldn’t talk to him.  His sister out fished him again, and she wasn’t even trying that hard.  Well, there is always next year.

     Northern pike fishing in 2009 was also very good, mainly because of the cool overcast season that we had.  The weeds started slow and this meant that we were able to use one of my all time favorite lures, the spoon, fairly late into the summer without having to worry about snagging up on the weeds.  I like to throw spoons for northern as soon as the fishing season opens, and I will keep throwing them until the weed growth in the lake, makes it too difficult to retrieve them.  Northern pike just cannot resist the action of a spoon.  Dare Devils and Little Cleo’s are my favorite spoons, but there are others.  2/5 to ¾ ounce spoons in gold, silver, blue, green, chartreuse, white, red, and fire tiger are my favorite combinations.  After the weeds in the lake were up, spinner baits, in the same colors that I just mentioned, did the trick when casted over and around the weed beds.  My favorite time to fish Obabikon Lake for northern, is when the weather is wet.  I always seem to catch bigger northern in the rain up there.  Northern generally bite better in the rain everywhere, but it was really noticeable in 2009, especially in Obabikon Lake.  White fish Bay was producing some really fat northern in 2009.  I spent one day up there in 2009 and had some good pike and bass action both casting and trolling spinner baits and crank baits.

     Musky fishing was excellent, especially early on in the season.  In fact, a good number of muskies were accidentally hooked, caught and released before the actual musky season opened on Lake of the Woods.  You are not breaking the law if you are targeting northern, and you accidentally hook a musky with your northern lure.  You are breaking the law if you are targeting musky before the musky season opens.  I was in the boat when guest pulled in a 45-inch hog on a ¾ ounce fire tiger spoon.  At the time I really wished that I had my big rubber coated musky net in the boat, because that net would have made it so much easier to get a good picture of the fish.  I did not bring my musky net with me, however, because it was not yet musky season, and having the musky net in the boat might look like I was targeting musky before the season was open.  I tried to pick this fish up in my hands, but it was so strong that it just shook itself out of my hands. I steered it into the water so it would not get hurt.  If you drop a big fish in the bottom of the boat, you could damage it.  I was able to land another 45 incher right off the dock at camp.  It took a little crayfish bait that I tossed up next to a few rocks.  I was able to get this beast in the rubber-coated musky net, which meant that I was able to get a few nice photos of the fish before we released it.  The rest of the musky season went well from the stories that I heard from the guests, however, most musky fishermen are very secretive about their spots, so these stories are limited to the size of the fish only.  Sabaskong Bay, Burrow Bay, and Obabikon Bay were my favorite musky areas in 2009.  Weedy saddles and bays with a few large boulders around are my best areas when looking for the elusive muskellunge.

     Bass fishing was very good in 2009.  The bass were in their usual spots on the rocky shorelines and rocky points.  Our smallies love anything that resembles a crayfish or an injured minnow.  I mainly throw jointed shads, shads and Wiggle Warts in Crayfish, fire tiger, silver, black, and red combinations.  These three lures have caught me a ton of bass over my last fifteen years on Lake of the Woods.  In my case, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, however, many people are catching lots of bass and other species on using plastics or rubber.  Tube jigs and Senkos are two of the most common lures I have heard of.  Another method of fishing for bass as well as other species is trolling crank baits.  I experimented with some deep diving shad raps in 2009 and I caught a good number of bass and walleye with this technique.  The trick was to keep the lure near the bottom, but not on the bottom.  This also works well on sunny days, when a lot of the fish are in deeper water.

    Crappie fishing in 2009 was much better than last year, but I am not exactly sure why.  Even though the weather never really heated up in 2009, the crappies still schooled up anyway in mid to late summer.  In late July and most of August, we were able to bring in some nice stringers of crappie.  Smaller jigs 1/8 to ¼ ounce, tipped with a small minnow on an ultra light rod, worked very well.  Jumbo perch on the main lake turned on at about the same time as the crappies did.  These perch taste just as good as the walleye in the lake, and the limit on them is 50 per license.  I like to call these big perch, bonus fish, as they can really add to, or complete a big shore lunch for a bunch of people on any given day.  

     That is all for 2009, I would like to thank everyone who came up last season!  We are now excepting bookings for 2010.  A $100.00 per person deposit will guarantee your place and cabin at Moonlite Bay Camp.  I will be exhibiting at the Omaha Boat, Sports, and Travel Show in Omaha NE February 25-28, 2010, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sport Show in Milwaukee WI March 10-14, 2010.  I hope to see you at the sport shows.  If you can’t make the sport shows, just email me anytime to pencil in some dates for the 2010 season.  Please do not wait for Sport Show time to make your booking!  Our website is www.moonlitebaycamp.com and my email is mike@moonlitebaycamp.com.  You can also call us at (239) 947 9085.

Happy Holidays,

Mike and Tasha

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