Well the first two tournaments of the season are in the books. A cold spring and long winter made water temps considerably lower than normal for this time of year. In prefishing it became evident that fishing was going to be tough. Everyone I talked to that had done any prefishing pretty much agreed. This isn't too unusual for a spring tournament in Wisconsin. It seems every fish in the lake is 13.5" when there is a 14" size limit.

In practice we didn't catch many fish but I felt I had found several areas that would hold fish. Saturday I started on one of those spots on Bone lake. I had found a stretch of scattered grass and rock in 5-8 feet of water about 80 yards off the bank. Third or fourth cast with my drop shot produced a short fish. About 5-10 minutes later I had another short fish and a nice perch. Not what I was looking for but promising enough to warrant coming back after trying a few other spots.
On the next spot my partner started throwing a spinner bait. Bone is a pretty well known musky lake and a spinner bait is often a good way to find them.  A couple Muskies and a big northern later I was still with out a fish and my boat was starting to smell like a fish market. Turned out the fish had moved shallower. Guys brought in limits from the 2-4 foot range. Much of my time had been spent in the 5-8 foot range thanks to the small fish I had caught early and a nice keeper that my partner caught. I never took the time to move up. I only ended up with one fish for weigh in that day. Needless to say I wasn't too happy but tried to regroup and get ready for Deer lake on Sunday.

It was expected that Deer would be hard. I fished the lake two years ago and caught 30+ fish but only one fish over 14". Sunday turned out to be the same kind of day. I had learned from my experience the day before and tried shallow and deep. We saw large schools of small fish cruising the shallows. It was pretty obvious hat fish will start spawning in the coming days as the water continues to warm. Between my non-boater and myself I would estimate 40 short fish caught. My partner managed one 14" fish off a dock and I didn't weigh a fish. There were lots of guys with me at the weigh in with zeros and only one limit of fish brought in.

All in all it was nice to be on the water again but I sure will be glad to get back on Minnesota waters, especially when they get a little warmer. If Muskies and big northerns turn you on, I can definitely recommend Deer and Bone lakes in Polk county Wisconsin.