Early season bass at Hagg?

[Rauly]

pdxhawk Welcome aboard. It is kind of a tradition at I fish that your first post be a story about yourself. So lets hear it.

Rauly

[pdxhawk]

Hey all,

Transplanted midwesterner here just getting going on the northwest scene. Wondering if anyone has had any luck at Hagg Lake yet this early season? I checked it out earlier this week and there were quite a few boats out. Thanks!

[shalom]

Welcome Aboard . I can hardly wait to read your first story . :dance: :smile:

[pdxhawk]

A story, huh? I assume you're looking for a fishing story. :wink:

Well, being from Iowa, I've done pretty much all my fishing in Iowa for bass, catfish, walleye, and the assorted panfish. Mainly on the Mississippi. Most of my lake fishing was done up in Wisconsin for musky, pike, walleye, bass, and crappie.
I don't really have any great bass stories (although my aunt does hold the Iowa record largemouth). You probably don't get too many Musky stories around here, so here's one. These fish are notorious for showing up when you least suspect it. We were trying this new lake up in Wisconsin. Mainly we were looking for bass, but really anything that would bite. It was pretty slow, so we headed in early. As my brother went to get the truck, I tied on a bobber and worm at the dock just to kill some time. Tossed it about 20 feet across the ramp to the edge of a weed bed. Sure enough, down goes the bobber, I gave the pole a little flick, and had on a small bluegill. Just as I start reeling it back, BAM! A 45" musky nails it and actually gets the hook. Luckily my drag wasn't too tight. After about a 30 minute tug of war, I got him close enough for the net. We took a quick picture, got him back in and gave him a revival. We noticed he had some marks on his back, what looked like scars from a bird, possibly. But we didn't think much of it.

Later, we found out from the lady who let us on the lake that this fish routinely hung around this dock, and that the people who owned it actually would feed him! They had a name for him and everything, Scarback. So it turns out I caught somebody's "pet" musky. :shocked: I was just glad I didn't decide to keep him.

Good times. :smile:

[Love Fishin']

Welcome aboard pdxhawk. Great story! graemlins/applause.gif
What weight line were you using to haul that monster in?

[Fishfeet]

Now thats a story! Welcome! See you at Hagg one of these days. Ff.

[rebell]

A pet Musky? Great story, one of these day's I would like to go Musky fishing. From what I have seen and heard, they are a challenging and noble fish.

Welcome aboard!

[bucketmouth]

pdxhawk, I'd be willing to bet that most of the boats you saw out on Hagg Lake were chasing trout. Hagg has a good poupulation of Bass though. Hagg lake can be finiky in the early spring months. Like anywhere else, the early bass are usually big but few and far between. Spawn takes place about mid May. I like to fish the lake at post spawn. There are some quality smallmouth to be caught on a regular basis right through the summer. I'll usually leave the Largemouth alone while they are on their beds, but I love to fish for them later too.

The Willamette River is no Mississippi but still it too has a good population of bass. I would like to hook up with you sometime and learn some of those midwest bassing tricks, and would enjoy showing you some of the NW tactics.

We have some tiger muskie in a couple of nearby lakes and I would imagine that their numbers are on the increase as I don't think they are persued heavily. Your muskie story was great. Glad to have you aboard.

[ 03-12-2004, 09:00 PM: Message edited by: bucketmouth ]

[shalom]

GREAT STORY wELCOME aboard :dance: :smile: :smile: :smile:

[pdxhawk]

Thanks for the welcomes!

Love fishin' , it was my brothers pole actually, and I believe he had on spiderwire (12 lb?). He didn't like using a leader and was sick of losing lures on one chomp.

Bucketmouth, thanks for the info. Sounds like I've got a couple more months, then. And tiger muskie in lakes around here? Interesting......

[sbasser]

We've got Tiger Muskies at some lakes in Washington, if that helps. Mayfield Reservoir was the first I know of, and the closest to P'land. I haven't tried for them, but if I did, it'd be at night, after I learned the lake in the daytime. Lake Tapps and Potholes Res. are also supposed to have been planted with Tigers. I heard the first plant at Potholes didn't take, but the 2nd did. Probably temp related. Maybe they'll clean out some of the Cormerants? Hope so! C&R, Steve