Late June report

June 27,2010

Walleye fishing the past two weeks showed some improvement but the may fly hatch still impacted the walleye fishing. Bass fishing continued to be hot. Lots of big northern pike since the start of the season.Water levels have come up to normal with rain we have received the past month.Honorable mention fish over the last few weeks:

Travis Hilstat    26.5 inch walleye

Buffy Milner     37 inch northern ( her first)

Drew Cook      4 lb Largemouth Bass

Tim Severson   28 inch Walleye

Chris Turner   21 inch Largemouth

        

 Marty,Ken and myself from all  Participated in Lake Vermilion’s first ‘take-a-kid fishing event held on June 23^rd. Marty took out a couple kids, Ken and I helped with the shore lunch and setup.  This event was designed and follows what many lake communities across the state are doing to try and turn around a very alarming trend in the country that indicates kids are not getting exposed and or taking an interest in the outdoor activities. Recently the State of Mn purchased a huge chunk of land on the east end of Vermilion to develop a state park prototype that will encourage families to experience outdoor activities such as fishing,Canoeing, hiking, camping etc.  Minnesota like many other states are experiencing annual declines in fishing license sales..rearch indicates people ages 35 and down are not buying fishing licenses. If the trend continues we will have no replacement of sportsman and sportswomen of today when they naturally stop doing it as they age. This will mean DNRs budgets will not be funded, no resources to manage/stock lakes,etc.. Bottom line everyone of us that loves Lakes like Vermilion and the tradition of fishing needs to be doing anything possible to plant a seed in our youth. At least expose them to the sport so they can at least see if they like it. If you are one of those families coming up this summer and you might have a friend of your kids that you are considering bringing up..don’t worry about charges for extra people…let us know we will waive the fee. Other news for the resort this week…We purchased a cabin/new house from Milaca School district. The building was built by students supervised by Carpenters, Electricans, plumbers,etc and inspected. The building is a three bedrooms with vaulted ceilings in the living room kitchen. It was moved by Marcus Movers from St.Cloud area 250 miles to resort. They transported the building at night with state Police escorts.  Their Truck was equipped to vertically lift and lower the building over bridge Railings….truly amazing they did this without any damage to the building. We had prepared the building site on the second tier between Hillcrest and Sunup. It will have a great view overlooking the bay. We are planning On having the building in the rental mix by late July.

One other important note on fishing licenses…the state had upgraded all their retail terminals and pulled the older units…we have not recieved our new terminal….for license purchase…you can go direct  via on-line the DNR site and purchase/print your license :  http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/licenses/fishing/index.html?type=fishing  another option is stop at any gas station along Hwy 53 in Mn…and purchase there.

May/early june report

 

Walleye fishing has been tough the last two weeks..at least for catching keepers. The DNRs forecast for 2010 is that we will see a lot of large slot walleye and not as many fish in the 15-17 inch.  That does not mean folks will not catch keepers..but so far this season guests are catching a lot of trophy sized slot fish vs the ideal 15-17 inch eaters.  Bass fishing has been fantastic with a couple of 4-5 lb smallmouth this past week. Crappie fishing has tapered off some but a few still being caught. Mayflies have hatched already and this week we have experienced a lot on the surface, docks, boats etc…this would be much earlier than usual…attributed to the early ice out. In May we had several groups of returning guests all of which are good fishermen that consistently catch fish. Jim Bolman from Spring Grove Illinois returned. Their group caught countless numbers of smallmouth and Largemouth. Their group also caught numbers of walleye in the slot. Joe Sparks from Chicago caught a 53 inch musky on small spinner Bait in 6 ft of water. Joe and his fishing partner Bret drove up for A few days of fishing and reported catching 26 northern, 53 inch Musky ( photos attached) and largemouth bass . Also Pete Ventrelli from Downers Grove Illionois was up over Memorial weekend. For the second year in a row there group boated a nice musky..this time it was Pete with a nice 48 inch fish. This past week we had Len Rhien’s crew from Illinois was up..their group well with several large walleye including a trophy 28.5 inch fish.

Bass fishing has been super hot in shallow water..water temps on the surface Around 63 degrees. The last few days we experienced a lot rain which overall is good for the lake started the year being below normal levels.