Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
rjsobas,
Breakfast at Sportsmen’s?? We always stop there on the Sat morning when we leave from our Cass Lake visit in June.
You GOTTA get the large stuffed hash browns there!
I love ’em and so does everyone in our group.Best of luck and lots of bent poles I hope.
Gene
GeneGWe have lots of luck for small pike along the E shore in that SE bay. We drift thru the stick weeds/reeds in about 4′-6′ and cast Mepps spinners mostly (#3 with silver blade), spinnerbaits sometimes (white works best for us), and occassiionally daredevils (copper, green and white, five of diamonds is best).
You can also anchor up near a reedbed and scout for schools of Perch with bobbers and live bait.
Another idea would be to try in the river on the way up toward Little Rice lake and find some lily pads to hunt for some bluegills.
I know Kitchi is a good walleye lake too but our group doesn’t chase them in there.
Good luck.
GeneGNo musky fishing for us…8 species was enough.
BUT…a kid fishing from a jetski had a musky take a swipe at a bluegill he was reeling in on his pocketfisherman. Scared the bejesus outta him.
GeneGHard,
Yep, another great year where the planets aligned nicely for us. I’ve been saying for yrs now that we have had about 8 great yrs in a row and we are bound to run into a bad one but we haven’t. Hopefully our luck will continue for yrs to come.The best thing about the week was NO BUGS.
For a change, that was real nice.Shortline,
157 Rockies actually…nyuk,nyuk.
To us, they filet and taste like gills, just not as sweet.
No foul taste to them at all. A little lemon juice and salt on the breading and mmmm mmmm good.Good luck to all you out there.
GeneGKeith, and I quote Candy,
“you may have noticed I have a bit of a weight problem”
or how about at the end when Murray is coming off the plane and he stops at the door with a cocktail in his hand and says
“Wha…a party?”
or when they do the “Razzle Dazzle”
or when the Col asks them “am I correct in assuming that you men finished your basic training on your own?” and they all reply
“That’s the fact, jack!”
Great movie! (and I’d give either of those MP’s the Aunt Jemima treatment anyday).Now, back to Cass for PNuts:
Cass itself is about 15,000 acres of water and has 4 big islands. It is part of the Mississippi River chain with several other good-sized lakes connected (Big Rice Lk, Little Rice Lk, Kitchi Lk, Buck Lk, Pike Bay, Lk Andrusia, and I believe Big Wolf Lk too) And the neatest thing is Star Island has its own lake inside of it – I think the only “lake in a lake” in N America. That is a truly fantastic day-trip to portage to (gotta drag your boat for roughly 35 yds over the sand to get from Cass to Windigo). Lk Windigo is multi-species with good LMB and plenty of pannies and some decent pike too.
Cass is a structure fisherman’s dream that offers something for just about everyone. Although I don’t hear much about trophy pike coming out of it, Cass is a Musky and Walleye factory – and a great Perch lake too not to mention Rock Bass and Gillies for the kids – and the LMB are basically overlooked.
None of them species are gonna jump into your boat, but with some effort and time, you can have a fun and successful time fishing Cass.
Just make sure the waves aren’t rolling, but even then, there are spots to get out of the wind.
Lot of water, so little time.GeneGYep, Keith, I kinda understand that attitude of getting po’d at someone if that someone is chatting about a really small honey-hole or a specific spot on a large lake like Cass. But you and I both know they can go overboard sometimes.
Anyway, once we had a post on another site a few yrs ago, fictional like you say, about naming your “favorite spot” after a newbie to the chat scene seriously asked for specific ideas. It got so vague (“the broken pencil reed surrounded by deep water” —- you get the idea), that it became a hilarious thread – all in good fun. Yet someone got upset that we were not being “helpful” at all and it ended up with some of the long-time posters getting banned and then we all kind of jumped ship from that site. Censorship be darned!
Now when someone gets that attitude going of admonishing me for discussing how good a lake can be, I just think back to that line in that movie, Stripes, where the Sgt says “Ligthen up, Francis”.
Me, having only a week a yr to enjoy Cass, I look forward to hearing how someone else’s trip has gone as that gives me something to dream about until my next trip.
Hey, as far as I’m concerned, let’s keep Cass a great big secret at least for the next 30 yrs. I’ve been up there for the last 30, and I hope I got 30 more in me.
Good luck to you too, no matter where you wet a line.
Geno
GeneGA month later, and no more posts about Cass?
Everybody afraid they will let out the secret of this fishery or nobody fish it in the heat of summer?GeneGYep, made someone so mad that they did TIP on me.Whoever it was that filed the complaint can rest assured it was taken seriously….as unfounded as it was. The CO I spoke with was very nice too.
GeneGNow I understand where you’re coming from and I agree with you Matt….it’s no fun cleaning them, espcecially small ones.
What’s that term…”grease tester”?
And the other one…”potato chip”?
But they do all taste great no matter the size.(Now this reminds me of some guests at our resort that we called “the scalers”. If you think it is no fun cleaning fish, try cleaning them standing next to a group that is scaling 100 pannies – YUCK! The funny thing about them is that once perch dropped from 100 to 40, they stopped coming. Good riddance, we say!)
Anyway, so much of Cass still to be explored and one day I hope to be able to stay more than a whole week. Then I might be ble to spend time scouting those elusive Crappie. I have 2 places in mind that I would start – Dick’s Bay and Buck Lake, not to mention somewhere in Kitchi, or the Rice Lakes.
(We haven’t even started talking about the beauty of a day-trip into Windigo).PS As I think about it, I suppose instead of “higher standards” I should have written “tougher standards”. And I agree we all have our own standards, even the scalers, which is fine so long as there is no “abuse”.
GeneGGood luck to you dwag. Can’t get mine to last more than 4 yrs.
That reminds me, though, of the winner of the biggest lie in the world contest. She said:
“I’ve got two teenagers and two flashlights…..and they all work!”GeneGMark, youré welcome! What started out somewhat controversial, has ended with great discussion and even tips/explanations that can help keep me out of trouble. Still some unanswered questions though, so I think it just could string along for awhile still.
Here’s another: we know we get lucky in the shallows for the pannies due to spawning/water temps during our June trip, but I wonder if there is a similar experience to be had in Autumn. I have only made one trip in Sept (about 3 yrs ago). Anybody know about the pannies in the fall on Cass? or is it mostly walleye deeper and musky time then?
GeneGHard,
they gotta have some size to ’em for me to really want to try for them though. But the action, if on artificials, is all I need to get my heart pumpin’.Matt,
I don’t know about your slot. Like I said, my relative experience will be diff from someone else’s. You fish alot, you lucky guy, so you maintain “higher” standards. I still think it is qty/abuse not just size that matters more. I do agree with letting them go to grow, but it was hard to let that single 21″ walleye go (my sister’s biggest fish ever) when it is such a thrill and she wants it back at the dock for pics and by then it ends up in the frypan. Now, if we were getting lots of 15’s it would be easier to let that 21 go (I know, I know – take a pic in the boat).And it took us all week to get any perch over 9.5″
So I wonder, with so many under 9, and since you prefer 7-9 for gills, why wouldn’t you also use 7-9 on perch? Not knocking your pref, just curious why the diff between species.Chris, my man!!!!
I’m sure you noticed our LMB harvest was down. And I think you’ve got the idea…..more Rockies home = less LMB!
Thank you for your support.I’ve often wondered about “mgmt”. With so many Rockies avail, yet the limit is only 30. Bullhead is 100 and we might get one per year. Wassup wit dat?
This multi-species lake, Cass, has been a trip we look forward to each and every year for 30+ now. It is so nice to get out there to experience some awesome nature. When boating into PikeBay we had a beaver swim across the channel just ahead of us and also during our week we saw Eagles twice and ran into a few huge leeches swimming in the water and a found a very big crayfish in the harbor and saw swallows attacking swarms of bugs and enjoyed numerous ducks with ducklings and swarms of minnows and then to end our trip, on the way home on Rt 2 we saw a Coyote cross then walk along the right hand lane-as we passed it turned its head and gave me a dirty look (he probably knew we kept our legal limit, nyuk nyuk) – pretty cool!
GeneGThanks for the kind words BD.
Only 3 days home and I’m already starting to think of ways I can make another trip this yr…..my wife will think I’m nuts.
So many replies to my original post….all you guys fish Cass?
GeneGOK, so now there are good fish and bad fish?
No such thing as a bad fish, some fish are just better than others!We have been feeding people Rockies for 20+ yrs and nobody has complained yet – it is psychological in my opinion. But I understand it…even though there are ways to clean carp properly, I would never knowingly eat one.
My order of pref:
Perch
Crappie
Walleye
LMB
Pike
Rockies/Gills
Cats
Musky (just kidding)GeneGMatt,
Good idea to know the laws beforehand. You and I both know it is also illegal to “cull”, but people still do that. And limits are per person, but groups still help fill each other’s quota and have for a long, long time.
I think the more important point is in re: abuse.Ok, so maybe we insulted your “gills” alittle, huh? I can’t really tell the diff in taste after batter frying though.
HUGE might have been an overstatement depending on your definition. One of the biggest we measured was 10″, so my guess is most were in the 8 3/4-9″ range. We would have kept the smaller ones but we just couldn’t find any.
And that gets into the whole idea of using judgment. Mine, based on experience, will be diff than someone else’s. What’s the correct size to keep? (for any species?) If you keep small ones, you get the weird looks when cleaning them. If you keep the big ones, you get the whole “let them repro” argument. I guess it depends on the “factory”.
As I so like to do, I’ll end this post with a question:
How do you find the gills in the deeper water? Will they be nearby to their spawning area? How far do you think they swim away from their spawning area?PS I tell my wife she is “getting better looking every day”, but I’m a fisherman, and you know how we spin tales………
GeneG
