Kabetogama Lake, MN

[Flatcoats]

two words described the trip, COLD and WINDY.

we were greeted by at least 4 footers when we arrived last saturday afternoon and decided to just hang out and put in the boat at the public ramp on sunday. ended up getting the boat in and fishing a whole whopping 20 minutes before it was just blowing too hard and getting borderline dangerous on such a big lake. we got SOAKED on the 2 miles back to the cabin. I think we probably only got to fish 3 full days out of a week's trip due to the wind, but thats what you get i guess.

we did have a decent #s day on monday when we could actually get out and explore the lake. Ended up catching a mixed bag of saugers and eyes ranging from dinks to slot fish, which is 17-28"...which made for a lot of sorting just to keep a few fish. I think it took me about 2 trips back to the resort and 20 some little fish later before i realized that a lot of the 12-13" eyes are what the people expected you to keep....guess I never really even considered cutting up a 12" walleye..but that seems to be normality up there. But in their defense, the slots really force your hand to keep small eyes just to have something to eat. On top of the slot, there's also a regulation that only 4 of your 6 fish can be eyes, and the others have to be saugers....but you can keep 6 saugers if that works out, and the saugers dont have to fit into the slot....So, its basically a cluster for keeping fish. It was an interesting trip, neat place, just glad i still have a prop intact from all the submerged rocks. Never seen water go from 60 feet to 4 feet so fast in my life!



here's some pics.



here's your sign.....saturday evening after the wind died a little...someone talked to them the next day and they said their canoe was almost half full of water....as my boat sat in the parking lot





MAN these birds are big!







some keeper saugers and eyes (minnesota standard of course)





AND funny enough....we're on a 14 mile by 4 mile lake and the best qaulity fishing by far was right off the dock with a slip bobber. Almost all the smaller fish were in 30-40fow but a lot of the nicer eyes were up shallower on post spawn feeding..so it made for some good slot action when the wind didnt let up some evenings. Caught some 22-25inchers.









and my one smallie. fished for over 8 hours without catching one and finally caught one on the last night off the dock while jigging for eyes. go figure. not a giant but i was excited since ive never caught what id even call a "decent" smallie before. was released also.

[SPIT N ARGUE DUCK CLUB]

Nice report Flats, sorry to hear you didn't have better weather. If your really wanting to get into the smallies sometime, give TenMile Lake a try; you probably drive past it on your way up to Ottertail when you go there (it's located near Fergus Falls). There is a nice resort on the lake and the smallie fishing is excellent with a bonus walleye bite that is good as well.

[obert1]

Very nice Travis. Still looks way better than being at work or home.

[Britts]

Good job Flats.