August 12 - 19 Report from John

Hello Lunge Lodge lovers!

My good friend Dave and I spent the week at Lunge Lodge from August 12 - 19. This was our first trip to the lodge. What a great place! Not only were the staff very friendly, helpful and enjoyable to be around, but so were all the guests. We were amazed at the instant camaraderie.

The fishing was not fast and furious, but this was as we expected for a warm week in the dog days of August. Dave and I love to fish for big Pike, but we found it difficult to entice the big ones to bite. Our best luck with pike was as you would expect, on the deep weed edges, usually along coontail weeds. We did not do as well in the cabbage-type weeds. My best luck was with an erractic retrieve with a Strike King Bleeding Spinnerbait.

We fished off and on for Musky and did have 4 follows during the week. One fish that I saw was in the 50 inch class. He followed my chartreuse Storm Dawg. Each of the musky we saw was in the mouth of a cove or channel, typically coming from one of the points.

Although we didn't fish for Walleye, I did catch a 23 inch fish the first evening. It was caught and released on a 4 inch clown-colored Rapala Husky Jerk. The fish was caught late in the evening next to the small island out in front of the lodge. This is the island with the marker where the river splits into the Little French and the Five Mile Bay channel. Another walleye was lost on the same lure that evening and we noticed a lot of folks fishing that area every evening.

Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass fishing was also tougher than in the spring or fall, although we did manage many small fish, several in the 2lb range, two 3lb fish, and one 4lb 3oz. fish. We tried a variety of lures, and even resorted to fishing nightcrawlers, something we typically don't like to do. Most were caught on lures, the 2lber on a nightcrawler, one 3lber on a silver-blue Rapala X-Rap, and the other 3lber on a spinnerbait, and the 4lber was caught on a two-tone Yamamoto Senko. Probably the most fun was the last evening, in the Bob's Bay area, fishing a red-white Heddon Zara Spook. In the last half-hour of sunlight, I managed to land and release 7 smallies and 1 pike. In addition, Dave and I missed a number of other fish, with Dave raising an especially large fish.

Overall, we had hoped to catch more fish. But, exactly when has anyone not hoped to catch more fish? For the dog days of August, we were satisfied with our catch and thrilled with the new folks we met. Our records show that we caught 22 largemouth bass, 21 smallmouth bass, 24 pike, 1 walleye, and had 4 musky follows. All fish were released so that some of you folks could catch them again.

Let me just finish my report of our first visit to Lunge Lodge by saying that it will not be the last visit. The staff is great, the food is awesome, the boats are outstanding, and the scenery is absolutely amazing. You could not ask to meet a better group of people than the folks at Lunge Lodge.

If you would like to see a slideshow of some of my photos from our trip, click here.

Take care,
~ John