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SunrisePaddler
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09/13/2022 08:23PM  
A friend and I are doing the Granite River route next week, planning to bring a very modest collection of tackle. Goal is a couple fish dinners for two on a four-night trip. The rough trip plan is a night on Clove, a couple nights in the Gneiss/Maraboef area, and a final night on Sag.

I have a feeling that once I start digging around in my tackle box I'll be tempted to bring way more than I need.

Curious, what would be YOUR go-to lure or setup for late Sept fishing along this route?

And would you be favoring any particular approaches or general locations given the time of year? (I'm not "fishing" for your honey hole locations, but I'm all ears if you offer them!)

SP

 
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MidwestMan
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09/14/2022 04:49AM  
Mepps would be my go-to for your route. I’m an amateur and forget what sizes are what but anything mid-sized Mepps should produce. You may need to vary your retrieval speeds. Good luck!
 
OMGitsKa
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09/14/2022 01:42PM  
Nothing beats a jig & minnow in the fall.
 
SunrisePaddler
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09/15/2022 07:29PM  
Good thoughts, thanks.

OMGitska, I was considering bringing crawlers to jig with, but your minnow suggestion got me thinking, Not sure I'm up for bringing live minnows, but I'm looking into salted minnows. Glad you shared that. Thanks.

MM, I'm with you on the Mepps. My #4 has officially been added to my small arsenal for this trip. I have another Mepps with a plastic minnow (Mepps Comet Mino) so maybe that one makes the cut, too, just to work in both the minnow and the Mepps suggestions in one lure.
 
cyclones30
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09/15/2022 09:21PM  
Buy a smaller to medium sized whopper plopper style lure. Berkley Choppo is one but there are many options now. Find some calmer water, rocks that drop to deep water, near weed edges or whatever and bass and pike will be exploding into it.

Jig and plastic if you don't want to mess with live bait will work wonders. I like the authentix brand plastics
 
SunrisePaddler
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09/18/2022 08:42PM  
cyclones30: "Buy a smaller to medium sized whopper plopper style lure. Berkley Choppo is one but there are many options now. Find some calmer water, rocks that drop to deep water, near weed edges or whatever and bass and pike will be exploding into it.


Jig and plastic if you don't want to mess with live bait will work wonders. I like the authentix brand plastics "


Thanks for the suggestion! I included a plopper.

Getting pretty excited here as I prep for my midweek entry. Fit the chosen lures in a tidy 5x9 box, probably still more than I need but pretty much what I was shooting for....fits a small assortment of jigs, Mepps, rapalas, spoons and, of course, the plopper. This'll tuck nicely in my daypack.

I've never used the Emerald Shiner bait, looking forward to giving those a try jigging below rapids along the route.

 
09/27/2022 10:24AM  
Let us know how you did and what was working for you.
 
SunrisePaddler
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10/04/2022 12:59PM  
Captn Tony: "Let us know how you did and what was working for you."


Sure thing. Had a super fun trip with some good but not great fishing and ate our fill of bass.

I caught a couple nice sized SMB with the firetiger Rapala shown in this pic. I caught one 18" SMB casting along a weedy shoreline across from the island site on Gneiss (where we enjoyed hanging out for a couple nights, great site). The SMB in the pic was just shy of 21" caught trolling between Horsetail Rapids and Sag Falls, got three leaps out of the water during the fight, super fun fish to land!

Got a couple unremarkable NP on a Mepps #3 spinner. Pretty much struck out on jigging with live crawlers/salted minnows/plastics. No walleye for us. Early morning fishing day trip in Devils Elbow netted only a couple fish. Trip partner caught a few bass jigging below falls into Gneiss.

 
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