MinnRick

Thanks all, very helpful!

Greetings All. A couple of quick ones on fishing the foil in summer.. For tournaments on our northern grass lakes, if you've decided to target milfoil what percentage of the time are you typically spending working the edges vs. up inside the bed probing sweet spots that you've pre-located? Are there any good rules of thumb (weather factors?) which tell you when you want to focus on the edges vs. inside? I've heard many times that hard bottom spots buried up underneath the foil can be the sweetest of the sweet spots. Aside from getting out and imaging in the early spring, are there any good techniques for finding hard bottom areas in foil beds once the weeds are up? Thanks! -- Rick

Been out on Minnetonka a couple of times in the last 10 days. Both were pretty nice days - 55-60 air temp. Water temps two weekends ago were in the 60-62 range and then yesterday they were down to 56-58 depending on where I went. Caught a few peanuts both days but simply could not find any size. Must've hit a dozen different points, humps and drops (edges and inside) and a few flats. Tried slow, fast, vertical (jig, tube, Tx Senko, jig worm) and horizontal (buzzbait early, chatterbait later in the day, frogs in the pads) - kitchen sink time - and just couldn't find 'em. The hard-bottom spots along the foil edges that have jacked in the summer aren't producing at all. Not looking for anything specific here, just some local expertise on where in general they tend to locate in our natural lakes up here when the water temps fall through the 60's and 50's in October. Thanks all. -- Rick

Thanks for the feedback! Think I'll give traditional sonar a try. I recall reading somewhere that harder bottom spots can sometimes thin out the foil growing out of them a bit, which just might make those areas (or some of them, anyway) easier to ping through. Seems reasonable enough and you'd just need to catch a quick glimpse of a double-echo to potentially have a sweet spot. Experiment, experiment, experiment.. Tight lines all.

Need some fish location advice.. When looking at a good quality lake map or at a graph with a good mapping chip, are there any contour shapes/patterns/signatures that can reliably indicate hard bottom? I fish a lot of milfoil-matted natural lakes in the upper midwest. Identifying hard bottom along the weed edge is straightforward enough - brighter coloring on a well-tuned side image. But what about firmer areas that are buried up underneath the foil? SI can't penetrate to see them so I'm wondering if they might be identifiable, once the boundaries of a good foil mat are known, using map contours (irregularities, presumably) under the mat. If contours aren't the answer, what are the best ways to find buried-up hard bottom spots inside of big milfoil beds? Thanks for your insights, all.. Rick Plymouth, MN

Question for anyone who knows Medicine Lake here in the Twin Cities.. I was doing some graphing earlier this season and found a handful of scattered rock areas out in the 14-18' depth range - well off the outside weed edge (Medicine's is around 9-10'). I'm wondering if any of the big girls prowl out that deep, in and around those rocks, even though there isn't any weed cover immediately nearby. I have it in my head that productive water ends, depth-wise, at the weedline. Do I have that wrong, specifically when it comes to deeper-water rock? And if so, how deep is it sensible to go in a stained-water lake like Medicine? Or how about in clearer water like, say, Wayzata Bay in Tonka? Thanks in advance! -- Rick

Thanks FryDog, that helps (my ego, at least ;). Tight lines!

Thanks a TON for the responses. I didn't know about the Stupid Tube or that Grigsby HP hook (with a bell) - both look like they have excellent promise for the weedless, inside-weighted tube skipping application I'm after (for docks). Tight lines all!

Evening MN! Up with the family near Walker and decided to give Woman Lake a try yesterday (7/2). The Northstar Trail had been in there a month ago and some the bags were shockingly large, with bags over 25# and multiple individual fish weighed over 6# (have to assume they were smallies). Anyway, I was on the water by 6am and spent the next 4 hours moving from hump to hump throwing surface plugs, tubes (various colors) and spinnerbaits, both up on top and around the edges/drops. Nothing. Decided to try graphing some shoreline on the west side and found some nice stretches with scattered rock.. nothing. I just couldn't find a smallie bite to save my a**. Went to some rice later in the day and flipped a couple of decent largies but I'm still chapped that I couldn't get anything going with the lake's big time smallmouth population. If anyone out there knows Woman and can give me a clue what I should have been doing and (in general terms of course) where, I'd be grateful. Water temps were slightly over 70. I'm sure a big part of this was user error ;-) but it'd still be nice to know if an early July bite is typically this tough! Thanks in advance. -- Rick

Is there a way to rig a tube with one of the top quality tube hooks (e.g. TK190) AND an inside weight? I've tried bell sinkers but the loop is always too small for the TK190 keeper to thread through. Are there any slick ways to rig this up? I've long used EWG hooks with traditional inside tube weights - they skip great and do catch fish but I'm after the better hook-up percentage that comes with the specialized tube hooks, which don't work with the traditional inside weights because of the angled hook penetration. So I'm currently stumped. Any ideas, anyone? -- Rick