Cedar Lake Report

[Glenman12]

3 of us out of our group of 8 went up a few days early to fish Cliff Lake for lake trout..none of us had ever fished for lakers and the results showed that..we launched Thurs morning at the public launch on 105..we headed out and looked for deep water..we started jigging in 65ft and right off the bat one of our guys got a 16" laker..we figured this was going to be easy as about 15 mins later I caught one about the same size..after no action for about 45 mins we moved to a different spot that was also 60some feet deep..but then the rains came and it turned windy and miserable..after no action jigging we decided to long line with lead core pulling deep diving cranks..all this produced was a 21" walleye and later a 24" whitefish over a few hours time so we decided to call it a day and went back to Cedar..
After dinner that evening we went back out and we each caught a limit of walleyes in just a few hours..the fish ranged from 16" to 19"..we released some of the bigger ones and then came in an filleted the rest..
The next morning we headed to the East arm of Cedar and went right to our "hot spot"..it produced absolutely nothing..I was shocked..so we went over to Peephole Bay and fished the first bay on the right..we started catching one walleye after another trolling shallow cranks in the weeds in 3Ft-6ft of water we had a blast..after dinner that evening 3 more of our group arrived and settled in and went out..we decided to head south on the west arm and started trolling the first bay on the left with all the houses on it..when we got in front of the last house in the bay we picked up a walleye..we turned around and went back over it and again caught another..we decided to anchor and jig..within an hour we had to have caught 75-80 walleyes..it was one after another..nothing big but a lot of fun..(for those of you familiar with this bay the house Im referring to has a blue slide on the dock)..word spread fast because everytime after we would see a few boats on this spot..
The next morning it was now just me and my partner and we decided to go up and try Nelson lake..didnt get anything there so on the advice of Al, our lodge owner we went to the bay just to the south of Cedar Point Resort..my partner caught 2 walleyes around 20-21" but that was it..after lunch and our customary power naps we were getting ready to head back out when we noticed the threatening skies to the west..Al came over and told us a big storm was approaching..we decided to wait it out and that was a good decision..heavy rains, lightning, thunder and strong winds for a least an hour straight finally tapering to a steady rain..we decided to stay in til after dinner..went out that night and fished Nuns Island and the rock reefs off of it but only caught a few..that was no surprise after the bad storm..fished a few other spots but only picked up a few more..late that night the last two of our group arrived so we decided to have our cabin fish fry the next day..as always it was delicious but also that day a low moved in and spun around the area for the next 4 1/2 days..rarely saw the sun again but there was plenty of wind and rain in varying degrees..we thought this along with a full blown mayfly hatch was really going to make things tough but that wasnt the case at all
The next day the plan was to leave at 7:00 and head over to the SW corner of Perrault Lake to fish Jackfish Bay..looked nice on Google Earth according to one of the guys..well that fell thru when the 4 younger guys didnt get up in time..so me and my partner wanted to give Nelson Lake another try..when we got there we saw a boat going thru the reeds at the NW corner of Nelson and disappear..we went over there and saw that a new bridge had been constructed that allowed you to go to another lake that I later learned was called Richardson Lake..its only maybe about 40 acres and the deepest spot we saw was 17Ft..didnt expect much especially when the first two fish we caught were snake northerns..but then we moved over to the west side and we really got into to some nice walleyes..it wasnt one fish after another but on each pass we would get a fish..we ended up with two 18 1/2, two 19 1/2 a 20, a 21 and a 22.. and the walleyes in thsi lake are a lot darker than those in the main portion of Cedar..that really made our morning..that evening we headed south to Sawmill bay and Hatfield bay and got totally skunked..there were weeds where we had never seen them before plus the wind was hollowing..we dedided to go in early and have a few cocktails..
The next morning we finally ended up going up to Perrault to fish Jackfish Bay..while it might look good on Google Earth it turned out to be relatively shallow and extremely weedy..plus the south portion of the bay is cut off by a rapids and there was no way we were going to try to navigate it in camp boats..two of our four boats decided to head back to Cedar but ours and another boat decided to fish all the bays on the south end of Perrault and work our way back..the wind was out of the north and blowing right into these bays so we thought it might be good..it was great ..we caught tons of walleyes and all but a few ran 18-22"..so much for Perrault being called the Dead Sea...
Well me and my partner decided to head back to Cedar but the other boat was going to fish the narrows up to and thru the burned out bridge..we made the wrong decision because the other boat caught two 24's and a 30" in a matter of 20 mins right at the burned out bridge!!!
Weds was to be our last full day of fishing..the weather in the morning was mid 40's with wind and rain and of course my turn to drive the boat..we hit several spots during the day with not much to show for it..that evening we jigged the short narrows right by the camp but again only caught a few..
Our last day we decided to go back up to Richardson lake..we caught some walleyes but not like we did the first time we fished it..I did though catch my first Cedar lake crappie up there..it was 14"..turns out a father and son went up there later that morning and caught the size of walleyes we did a few days earlier..

all in all it was a great trip despite the weather and mayflys..cant wait to go back next year..only 11 months, 20 days and 12 hours til we go back..
and, sorry for the long winded novel...

[Pikeslayer8]

Glenman,
Congrats on your first laker. Really nice report, thanks for sharing!

Always fun to find new productive waters. Richardson Lake and Jackfish bay sounds like you had some good fun.

[HeHooksHimself]

As you know we will be heading up to Cedar lake in Sept. I will talk to you more as that time approaches. It is 82 days from now! Sounds like there is a lot of traffic on Cedar. I'm excited to try it! I will print off your post and try to hit some of those spots. Its probably much different in Sept. Fish On!

[Glenman12]

There might have been a few more boats than we normally see but I account that to the fact that nothing much was going on in the West arm of Cedar so we get the boats from Keystone and Cedar Point which we normally dont see..as for the bite in Sept, all I can say is talk to your resort owner..

[bigdaddyguns]

Thanks for the report Glenman, you guys covered a lot of water over the week. Any particular type and color pattern to the crankbaits you were using? Also did you pull any spinners or just crankbaits and jigs?

[Glenman12]

I primarily use the SR5 shad rap..this year the hot color was the Canadian Pearl which are becoming very difficult to find..last year it was the blue shad color and the year before a black/gold pattern that Rapala doesnt even make anymore..and no, we didnt pull any spinners..

[zman8701]

Congradulations on your trip Glenman! Sounds like you had a little better week than myself. I too did a lot of running and gunning at some of my go to spots and produced squat. Nelson gave up more walleyes than usual out in front of the small island and in front of the outlet from Richmond. I used to portage that lake for 10+ yrs. I nicknamed it Quit your *****in lake. That was one of my honeyholes but not anymore. That lake got pounded this year. Hopefully Aug will treat me better.

[Rich B]

Glenman,

Thanks for sharing that detailed report.....sounds like you had a fun and productive week,
even with the storms, low pressure and cold fronts, etc.

Now back to counting down the days until 2013 !

Rich

[Gipper]

Thanks for the update Glenman. Headed to Al's in about 2 weeks.

[Terwalleye]

Good for you you and your group Glennman!

We just came Saturday the 23rd as well. We had a group of 5 guys and stay in the Southwest corner at Northern Lights. Weather was not very kind all week and as a result we only made it as far as Time Sqaure one time. On the other hand the group agreed it was our most productive year of fishing in three attempts.

If we could find a weed edge, almost anywhere we tried; we could pull perch and walleys out of 6- 10 ft of water. My partner and I almost exclusively slip bobber and it just plain works for us. 90% of the fish we caught were on leeches. Smallies were on the feed and literally any rocky shore we tried with a slip bobber and a leach produced smallies. The more boulder-ish looking the better. Many 14"'s but lots of 16 to 18"s as well. If we fiished rocky points, reefs or humps, the hot bite was more in the 10 to 12 ft range. Walleyes and smallies together often. This is where the bigger smallies came. Again, mostly on leeches.

Walleyes ranging in size from 15 to 24" could be found in any of these spots and frequently swimming together.

Caught some nice pike in the 24" upto 35" inch size fishing 6 inch suckers in 8 to 10 feet of weeds; near the edge. the bigger perch came in these spots as well. Perch coming on small minnows.

Had musky follow walleyes to the boat numerous times. What a freakin' rush! No takers on the follows though. One 42 1/2 inch beautiful tiger caught on the 6" sucker. All follows and caught fish on rock humps fishing near the walleyes. These spot were very close to the 40 foot hole near the narrown leading down to the SW corner.

the mayflatch hatch seemed to be in full bloom but did not deter the fish at all. In fact; the bays where they were hatching were some of the more productive. Cedar is an awesome fishery and the more expirience we are getting; the more we are realizing that.

51 weeks cannot go by fast enough. Need to figure out a fall trip somehow!?!?!

Good luck to those of you headed up soon.

Terwalleye