Good morning RSL family. It’s hard to believe we are in the middle of August already! Guests spent the week enjoying the weather and catching lots of fish! As many State Fairs are starting this time of year it reminds me that we aren’t too far from leaves starting to change, and our bear season is getting ready to fire up and for those football fans out there training camps have started in both pro and college. It’s an exciting time of year.
Public Service Announcement: Do not drop your phone into the lake accidentally or intentionally. We had some new guests this week and Patrick caught a huge 20-inch Smallmouth off the Beach house dock and Joe was going to show me the picture. You know that sinking feeling when you start touching all your pockets and realize your phone is missing. It was, and the search commenced. Of course, it was dark by this time, so we retraced all the steps Joe had taken the past 30 minutes. Lee came out with his headlamp, and the search continued. We ended up down by the dock, Lee with headlamp fired up started sweeping the water between the boat and dock and there appeared a black rectangle wedged between a couple rocks. A few minutes later Patrick (Joe’s son) went in and retrieved his phone! A night in a rice bath and no issues! We all must admit things aren’t built as good as they used to be as we are considered a throw away society. Not cell phones though! Cell phone technology and the build of them seem to be the only thing getting built stronger! Anyway, a good ending to a nice evening of dock fishing.
The walleye bite has remained strong, and fish have finally started to transition into a little deeper water. There were still fish caught in the 12-to-15-foot range, but by the end of the week we were seeing the majority of fish being caught in the 20-to-25-foot range depending on the strength of the sun. Minnows, leaches, and crawlers are all working now. Some spots want minnows, and some spots want leaches, but it seems crawlers are decent in all areas. Our advice: take a little of everything and see what Walter is hungry for. As the water begins to cool here the bait preference will change as well. We will keep you up to date on the latest as you get up here. Scott (aka Small Fry) boated his PB (personal best) walleye at 28-inches this week! BTW I’m not sure what’s going on lately up here but there have been a lot of Musky attacks at the boat. Newcomer Owen (Patrick’s son) was reeling in a nice walleye and a musky attacked his walleye and slapped the boat with its tail. Of course, it couldn’t be netted as it took off! Lee and Laurie were out and had a musky attack Laurie’s walleye as well. This has been a reoccurring theme this whole summer whether it’s a musky or Northern Pike. Talk about exciting when it happens! Lee and Laurie were out perch fishing and Lee decided to catch a Northern Pike while he was reeling in a perch. He did catch both, and his net woman Laurie was able to net the Pike before it let go! Nice job Laurie. The last picture below is a 38-inch Pike we revived and it swam away after sunning itself on the top of the water for what seemed an eternity! Now you know why some call them gators.
It sure was great to see Don and Laverne as well this week. Her basketball team killed it this year and they took 3rd place in nationals which was played at Kemper Arena! They also went out blueberry picking twice this week and folks there is a bumper crop of blueberries! If you are headed up in the next couple weeks, consider blueberry picking before the bears eat them all! Steve can direct you to some nice areas to fill up your container.
John and Mo commented they ate more fish this week than they ever have, and that catching fish was easier this year than any other year up here. I know you have read this comment a lot this year, but I’m reiterating what our longtime guests keep saying. It’s also great to see the new guests arrive and go out and start catching fish right away!
The boats were out in force for Monster/Micro Fish Monday! We had some nice fish caught and released for our weekly tournament! Nice job to Laurie Splude as she netted a whopper of a Micro fish for her husband Lee Splude! was able to fight and boat a 4-inch Walleye. Very small indeed! Newcomer to the tournament Patrick Sikora boated a 25.75-inch Walleye on a gorgeous sunny day! Walleyes went deeper today as it was so nice out! Rounding out our tournament was the birthday boy and 29+++++ year old Mo Moeckly with a 30-inch Northern Pike! Congratulations to all of tournament anglers and winners!
Thanks to everyone for a great week and hopefully a relaxing one. We strive to ensure every guest is taken care of and that great memories are made! Feel free to let us know where we can improve although getting Steve to cut his hair has not been successful as of yet! Harvey and I will continue to harass him about it. But in all seriousness, we couldn’t joke around and have fun while spending time here in God’s country without you the Rocky Shore Lodge family.
Also, I just went through the book for next year and we have 21 openings in May, June, and July so if you wanted to reserve, or change your time to come up now is a great time to give us a shout, email, text, messenger or just pick up the phone! I realize in the past we have had very few openings so it was nearly impossible to move people around into different weeks. This is a rare opportunity due to Covid so hopefully we can support you. At this time we just don’t see the vaccine requirement going away but it does open up opportunities for others. Remember to send us your pics so the blog isn’t as boring to read! Haha.
Photos: fish@rockyshorelodge.com
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