August & September reports

August/September reports



Okay, here's the mid August report for the Murphy Group at Taltson Bay.

The trip started on a bit of a sour note, as our new favorite airline, Air Canada, managed to lose two of our rod cases. So, three of the four in our group got on the float plane with no rods at all. Many thanks go to the gents in our companion group who lent us their spare rods, and literally saved our vacation. Thanks again guys.

And the story can now be told, Pat Murphy had a trophy fish yank one of those borrowed rods out of his hands, and into the water it went!!! Talk about Angry Angler! Just as I was strategerizing on going for a swim... Thank the fishing gods for cork handles! The evil-doer went to the weeds, the rod floated up, we chased it down, grabbed it and landed the fish!! Just another ho-hum day at Taltson Bay.

Well, the lack of back-up rods hurt us some, to be sure. The fact that we have never been to Taltson hurt us a some to start, and the weather bit us, just a little, for a couple days. That's all for the excuses. When we got hot, we stayed hot for a good while. I gotta tell you, it was a blast! Once we figured out the weeds, and the key tips that John Mich and Don provided, we caught fire and nailed 'em! This place can be truly amazing. At times, it seems that there are fish everywhere! Another thing, when Taltson Pike are fired-up I have two words for you. Guided Missiles! We had some SAVAGE strikes, right at the boat. Several BIG jumpers. Very, very exciting stuff.

Anyway, here are the "documented" stats for the Murphy group of four. That's right, documented. We kept an accurate scoreboard in both boats. 451 northern pike, 3 wayward walleye (damn good lookin' walleye too), and one extremely aggressive clam. Jim Hickey has now angled a clam in each of his two trips to Canada. We hope he can keep that streak alive next year!! Back to the stats. 48 pike of less than 25 inches. Taltson Bay wigglers. 57 pike at 25-30 inches. Nice fish in Wisconsin. 123 pike at 30-35 inches. Not bad, some pretty hefty 33's too. An astounding 172 pike at 35-40 inches. And 51 beauties at 41 inches plus. No complaints here, mate!

Part of the fun for our group has become keeping an accurate account of our catch and then crunching the numbers. We crunch 'em hard! Jim Petrossi had the best single day with 44 fish. Jim's brother Dom had a day during ugly weather in which he only caught 7 fish. BUT, the last four he caught were trophies! The two Jims tied for big fish with 45's. The day Jim P. caught 44 fish, I only caught 24. BUT, 6 of mine were trophies! At the end of the day though, when I look at the totals for this trip, I'm convinced we will go back to Taltson Bay. Check this out. Just a shade under 12% of our catches were trophy Northern Pike. 38% were Pike between 35 and 40 inches. So, are you tellin' me that almost 50% of all the Northern we caught were 35 inches or better??!! That's incredible. We will be back, and with all our gear next time! We'll make a run at the record!










( editor's note: Taltson Bay Big Pike Lodge has no direct affiliation with Air Canada.)



Here's the Schmitt group report for late August:

The Steve Schmitt group has just returned from the great waters of Taltson Bay. The week was a mixed bag of warm calm weather in the mid 70's then turning to cold windy wet conditions in the mid 30's. The pike fishing for this group was all over the board as one might imagine.

The weeds that have been a staple for any fall junket continued to pump out fish, with a 48.5" being the largest from the weeds and for the group (picture to follow we hope). The trolling was a little off for the group, but still a large percentage of fish 41" and above (trophies) were taken using this method.

The group of six still had in excess of 100 pike 41" and above for this hodge-podge weather trip. The Alien Eel by Savage Gear again was a champ for many of the fisherman.

















( Editor's note: Does anyone else notice the heart shape on the bottom fin of that last fish. Looks like Steve caught himself the Love Fish. That's sweet Steve.)


Here's the report from the August 30, 2008 group:
Our week started off like yours ended – cold, wind, rain Saturday and Sunday. The weather Monday was a little better with no rain but wind. Few trophies Saturday and Sunday but the place turned on by Monday. Lots of trophies. Sunny, calm and warm on Tuesday, so the bite decreased a little. Wednesday thru Friday was very good with temps in the 50’s and enough wind to give us a chop. On Friday a short trip half way up river produced only a couple of trophies. The night channel bite was outstanding on two nights but for the most part but was ending by 930pm. We pounded the weedbeds and did very little off the rock points because the water out there was muddy most of the week. The Horton boat got a surprising number daytime trophies in the channel.
The Horton boat











Total trophy count – my boat 49 trophies. Horton boat 60 trophies.

The number of fish 36-40 was greater than any other year I have been there.. We couldn’t keep them off the hook. Our guestimate for the 2 boats would be 300+ fish

36-40 inches. This is a good sign for 3-5 years from now. The biggest fish was 46.5 inches. A little disappointing and the 1st time in my 7 years a 48 was not caught among the group.














Here's the final group of 2008's numbers:

boat 1 bob/frank
roughly 550 fish, 109 over 40"
2- 48"
2-46"
2-44"
boat 2 mark/dan
450 fish
70 over 40"
1-45"
3-44"

you can bet that about half to a third of our fish were right about 40"