9/9/19 Spent 8 days on LOTW over the Labor Day holiday with a group of six fellow anglers. My time was split between doing some walleye fishing and also participating in my first tournament, Bassin' for Bucks. Both were fun and productive, but ultimately we had to withdrawal from the tournament because of a bout with what appeared to be food poisoning. But I have to say, I learned a lot about tournament fishing, the build up, the planning and also about how the team must have a common direction and be able to adapt to changes. I also learned that I have much to learn about bass fishing on LOTW, as most of my time is usually spent fishing for walleye when I am there. But regardless, it was a very educational event for me as I got to fish areas on the water that I had never fished before and also use techniques I had never applied before as well.
As far as the fishing, the group caught a lot of fish during the trip including walleye, SMB, LMB, crappie, perch, pike, sauger and also a few run-ins with some muskie as well. I did not spend as much time walleye fishing as I normally do on LOTW, but the fish I did catch were very solid fish with the bigger ones coming from the Whitefish Bay area.
The highlight of my week came on the last day fishing by myself when I landed my fish of the week, a 29 inch walleye that weighted in at just under 10 pounds
So my 2019 LOTW season has come to a close. The entire Midwest of the US and lower part of Canada experienced one of the most bizarre weather years I have seen which caused fishermen this year to be very adaptive. Having to be adaptive is not necessarily a bad thing though, as it causes one to fish in manners and places outside one's comfort zone and in the end one learns things that one may not have known before.
6/9/19 Images from our spring 2019 LOTW trip, the weather cooperated and we caught a ton of fish including walleye, perch, smallmouth, pike, sauger and lake trout. No one in the group experienced any issues with their boats, trailers, etc, which is always a plus.





I was able to put the Lowrance Livesight transducer through some final testing before release, I have to admit the downward view is amazing when vertical fishing, the coverage area is greatly improved over traditional sonar.

It will be interesting to see where this technology leads, but I have to admit it is amazing to see the fish live as the are chasing ones bait.
Thanks again to the folks at the Rod & Reel Resort for all their help during our stay and of course also to Allison for the great food.
9-10-18 Did two trips this year to LOTW this year, the first in early June and then one last week during the first week of September. Much of my time on the first trip was spent breaking in and rigging my new Ranger 620T, but I still did manage to get in some quality fishing. Had success with plenty of walleye, some Lake Trout, perch, SMB and of course some pike action.

On our September trip, I did not have to worry about rigging, so it was all fishing. Once again the walleye did not disappoint, with high numbers of walleye and smallmouth caught by the group. First fish in the boat for me was this nice walleye below, but the issue was we were catching primarily nice solid 14 to 17 inch walleyes on main basin reefs, but we lacked numbers of larger fish.
So what did we do, we started with a clean slate, used our electronics and went after new areas and depths. Well it worked as we found nicer fish and then at the same time discovered new fishing waters.
What we also discovered was that primarily in Whitefish Bay, we were fishing too shallow. I was marking larger fish in the deeper 34-36 foot range off of the reefs, but in the early part of the week, we could not get those fish to bite. Well by the end of the week that all changed and we were able to connect with those larger fish
Lesson learned from this trip, never get comfortable just fishing the same old areas you are used to fishing on each trip, try new waters.
9-7-17 More than likely my last trip to LOTW for the 2017 season, but honestly this is my favorite time of year to fish this great body of water. Spent five days on the water doing some fishing and some testing of some new units and software. Fishing was very good with numbers of walleye, pike, smallmouth and perch caught. Lake trout fishing has been challenging since the spring on LOTW, only heard of one nice fish being caught during the time i was there.

Much of my time on the water during the trip was spend testing, where many times I am by myself. This can make getting quality pictures a challenge and once in awhile, netting can also be a challenge. I lost my fish of the week, a nice 29-30 inch class Whitefish Bay walleye right at the side of the boat. Had a long fight (I thought it might have been a trout), the fish was resting at the side of the boat, reached for my net and the fish gave one last head shake and there went my jig out of his mouth! Oh well, was fun to catch and it is always an experience to fight and see a fish in that size range.

In addition to the fishing and testing, I also did a lot of the leg work for an upcoming webinar I will be doing entitled "SonarCharts Live with Lowrance Carbon 12 on New Waters" on October 19th. I fished many new areas I had never fished before on LOTW and was able to get some just incredible results.
