1st Brown of 2024

[Reelax]

Had the pleasure of fishing with AveJoe and Crawfish Saturday out of converse at 1st light. We got 4” of snow Friday evening and night in Fletcher so I left the plow on for good measure incase it was needed.

The Bloodline crew had launched just ahead of us. Great to see a sister boat out in winter conditions. Sounds like they had a banner day after picking up an hr or so ahead of us…

We headed across the lake in 34.5 deg surface water with no chop. We started with a laker right off then the salmon started to play in the snow… we ran long lines back 110+ with small sticks. Today the blue worked best.

Menu was corn dogs followed by marinated venison back strap closed out with a marinated pork loin. Even tough the wind picked up after noon we managed to get the 3 courses in between action… the bite was steady all day with the counter crossing double digits by 10am and 18 by the time we called it a day around 2pm.

Got lucky and landed a rare brown trout midday… square tail and big mouth gave away the hard fighter who dug down as usual..

Some of the smaller salmon we landed had 1-3 lamprey on them. We killed countless lamprey today, all small in size… there seems to be lots of them in the big bay….

The day wasn’t without miss haps. Somehow 2 heartland rods met their ends and one is on the bottom for someone to dredge up. Not sure what happened but after the wind picked up we are lucky that was all we lost…

Can’t wait till the next trip…

Fish on.

[Surprise]

Hey Matt that is sure looks like a Frostbite day.

Good to see the numbers and hear the other crew did well too.

May get in a midweek float.

[Crayfish]

Thanks for the invite and great time, Matt! Beautiful winter day out there with you and Joe, and plenty of fish and food.

Till next time.

[Gecha (Gerry)]

Another nice report from the Reelax crew. Always a pleasure to read.

[finsntins]

nice job matt,definetly looks like a frostbite kinda day!!!

[striper192001]

Great report Matt ! Are those a new version of releases.......? Plastic clips?

[Reelax]

Great report Matt ! Are those a new version of releases.......? Plastic clips?

Lavruck brand I think they are. They just have new shrink wrap to ensure you don’t catch the top line in a lower release.

I converted back from Scotty releases last year these are much easier to set…

[Crayfish]

That's these releases with shrink wrap over the backside of the clip. It's all I use for planer board releases. You can probably find them cheaper if you shop around.

https://www.fishusa.com/laurvick-planer-board-releases/

[striper192001]

Is that the way they come or did you put the shrink wrap on ? I have always loved those releases but have never seen that wrap...

[Mistress]

A few years back I needed to replace the rubber grips on my release clips, I got some vacuum tubing at O'Reilly's and at the same time picked up some heat shrink tubing to cover them. Just go easy on the heat nearest the jaws so you can still squeeze them.

[Reelax]

Is that the way they come or did you put the shrink wrap on ? I have always loved those releases but have never seen that wrap...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234659601550?m ... media=COPY

[Crayfish]

That’s cool, Matt. I didn’t realize you could buy them already setup with shrink wrap.