How many of you have had one of those days where you simply couldn't go wrong fishing? I had one last year on an Ely area lake day trip in late July. I was fortunate enough to catch 5 smallmouth over 17" with the largest at 19" and 4 pig walleye, the largest two going 26.5 and 28.5". It was one of those days I (and Wendell) will remember forever...



Epic BW Day Trip - Personal Best Walleye

I'm old...lots of options here.

Last September in the BWCA I caught, likely, more that 20 brook trout between 15 to 20 inches in less than four hours...lost track of the exact number.

My father was an outstanding fisherman. I'm 68-have been fishing since before I can remember. As a third grader...before school...on opening day of trout season, in Northern Indiana, we were fishing the stream that ran through our farm at a nearby dam-before sunrise. Dad had me fish above the dam while he went downstream below the dam. I had caught 3 nice rainbows and the fourth swallowed the hook and I couldn't get it out. So, I took the fish along with my rod downstream to find dad to help me out. His eyes widened as he exclaimed "Where did you get that big fish!". I told him this was the smallest one...that I had caught three others that were bigger. It was time to get school anyway so he followed me back...he couldn't believe it-they were 15 to 16 inchers. Dad got the camera, took my picture and ran the film in to the Goshen News. Next day, there I was, on the front page of the sports section.

Our family summer vacation was often at Birch Point Camp on the Northwest Bay of Rainy. There was a little lake we would portage too with a walleye hole where we would catch more than 50 in not much longer than an hour...Dad and I did this more than once. We would sit there hootin'and hollerin' and pulling in fish after fish. I should go back there sometime :)

Then there was that incredible little native brook trout stream in the UP!!! Oh my!

Just had a great one 2 nites ago in my local pa. river.Wading the rapids and fishing a current seam between 2 rapids I caught well over 30 smallies and a nice 16” rainbow in 2 hrs.Using red jumpers”a local term” I just dug down by the crick by my house.I rip the worms in half and thread on a #6 hook like a jig with one small split shot about 18” above.Drift through the holding spots and smallies can’t resist worms fished like that.Garden hackle us fly guys call it.As anyone who is a big time fisherman knows some days you just gotta look up at the sky and thank Mother Earth for the unreal blessings she gives us once in a while.I left the river smiling that nite.

This is why my heart belongs to Crooked. Even the slowest days are amazing... and 9 of my top 10; hell, 14 out of 15, have been on that lake.

Looked like fun and love your dog! Your one catch reminded me of a pike that I tried to haul in on River Lake the last Sept. Too big, and towed me around for 15 mins. BTW - what net are you using. I cannot find a good short-handled net anywhere

Kind of got out of the numbers game,but 11 years ago in a day I actually measured smallmouth up to 23.8 inches and around 20 SMB over 19 inches counted. It was so wild that day I would throw the surface plug and it would be like 10 feet in the air still and you could see the bass going for it.
Air temp was 96 degrees F. May 26th,2010 after being a cold spring. Every thing came in at once.
This was a solo trip.

For me and my nephew, it was May 19 on SAK. I caught 25-30 bass over 18". Three of them were 21 - 21 1/2 inches. My partner in crime marked the day with a tattoo on his arm. We both agreed that it was the best day ever. This includes Alaska Salmon and bill fish in Mexico trips. Magic for sure.

It was late May and we were at the end of the creek, where it met the colder lake water. We both had ZMAN ShadZ tied onto the end of our lines and what was about to happen that morning is almost beyond belief. When we began casting towards the opposite shoreline it quickly became apparent this hole was stacked like cord wood with smallmouth bass. Every cast there was a fish. If we had to twitch the lure more than twice, we started to wonder why there wasn’t a smallmouth on the other end of the line. We tried to count our doubles, but after 75-some, we lost count. There were times when only one of us was hooked up, but that was rare. These weren’t little smallmouth either. They averaged in the 16 to 19-inch range, with a handful of 20s thrown into the mix. All were caught in a 20-yard stretch of the lake. If I didn’t experience it, I wouldn’t have believed it.
I also witnessed my fishing partner lose a smallmouth ten feet from the shore. The lure pulled loose and he retrieved his ShadZ another six or seven feet when the smalllmouth charged and inhaled his lure again, practically at his feet. This incredible fishing went on for hours until the action slowed. Mike guessed that we caught 500 smallmouth. I figured a more realistic count to be closer to 350. However many hundreds, it was just unbelievable fishing.

not #'s of fish , but broke my personal best for brook trout 5 fish in a row , and it went like this #2-8 #2-10 #3-0 #3-8(on wall) & #3-12

danbogey: "Looked like fun and love your dog! Your one catch reminded me of a pike that I tried to haul in on River Lake the last Sept. Too big, and towed me around for 15 mins. BTW - what net are you using. I cannot find a good short-handled net anywhere"

It's the Frabill Tangle-Free Wading Net. Too small for pike, but perfect for stream trout, smallmouth and walleye. This trip really put it to the test with the big walleyes, but it held just fine. I think it only retails for $20

Thanks for all of the awesome stories, guys! I had great fishing that day, but nothing compared to some of your stories. I guess I'll have to keep fishing

My best day ever wasn't just about fish caught; it was the environment and what preceded it:

At the end of Peninsula Point on Lake Michigan's north shore is a lighthouse. I'd read in a dusty fishing mag about a rock off that lighthouse that gathered bass. I'd gone for days and caught nothing, but kept wading, looking for that submerged rock about the size of a VW bug. Finally, I happened upon it. It was evening and the waves were high enough to keep slopping over my waders. It was hard to cast, but a fish hit on every cast. My hook-up percentage was low, only about 40% because I kept setting the hook early so I wouldn't deep hook them, but the water's clarity, the payoff after days of looking, the size of the fish, and the fact that when they jumped, they were higher than my head, made the moment sublime.

2 Trips come to mind. Both with my dad.

1. Mille Lacs Lake. 1 st time ever fishing it. Just caught walleye after walleye. They had the feed bag on. When the bite slowed, just moved a little bit and the bite was on again. Every fish was 25-28 inches. At the time the keeper size was 16-18 inches. The fish we caught were so big that occasionally when we caught a “small” one, we would say that has to be a keeper, then when we measured it is was 22-23” long. Last fish I caught was the only keeper, 17”, let it go for Karma :)

2. Lake X in the Q: Brought my Dad on his first canoe trip with my youngest brother. In a span of about 6 hours we caught lake trout after lake trout all 32-40”. My dad got a 38 and a 40”. Totally found them by accident. Early season, they are supposed to be shallow, was just crossing a bay/basin in 120’ of water and the fish were stacked at 20-30 feet deep chasing a school of Cisco’s I assume. Spoiled my dad forever on lakers. How do ya top that?

T

Awesome video! I hope to get into some big walleyes like that but my best day ever was totally numbers based.

I had just graduated college and brought a group of 9 (7 of them being first timers) deep into the Bwca in early June. We went out the first night at about 7:00. Our floatilla of 4 canoes all set up on a windblown point with a feeder creek that was a rocky dropoff into deep water. We were catching 16-19” walleyes on slip bobbers like they were dink sunfish from the dock.

We had 18 keepers between us in under an hour. I don’t know if there was a single moment where someone wasn’t hooked up. We did catch and release after we had dinner secured and the final count was over 100. To top it off a huge northern that had to be at least 15 pounds latched onto one of the fish on our stringers. Needless to say they were all hooked.

timatkn: "2 Trips come to mind. Both with my dad.


1. Mille Lacs Lake. 1 st time ever fishing it. Just caught walleye after walleye. They had the feed bag on. When the bite slowed, just moved a little bit and the bite was on again. Every fish was 25-28 inches. At the time the keeper size was 16-18 inches. The fish we caught were so big that occasionally when we caught a “small” one, we would say that has to be a keeper, then when we measured it is was 22-23” long. Last fish I caught was the only keeper, 17”, let it go for Karma :)


2. Lake X in the Q: Brought my Dad on his first canoe trip with my youngest brother. In a span of about 6 hours we caught lake trout after lake trout all 32-40”. My dad got a 38 and a 40”. Totally found them by accident. Early season, they are supposed to be shallow, was just crossing a bay/basin in 120’ of water and the fish were stacked at 20-30 feet deep chasing a school of Cisco’s I assume. Spoiled my dad forever on lakers. How do ya top that?


T"

You don't top that, T. Those were two great days.