Five Lakes Bluegill Trophy Hunt- 2013

[Slip Sinker]

After doing a little research on lakes within a twenty mile radius of my location, on the DNR Master Angler website and a call to the local DNR office I was motivated and directed to focus for the Master Angler Bluegill from this lake. My experiences previously on this lake are considerable boat traffic from pleasure as well as a lot of fishing pressure... food fishing for gills. So I’ll have my work cut out for me but I feel good about this mainly because of the above avg growth rate for panfish from this lake.

Good fishing

Ken

[Slip Sinker]

    in my continued quest for 11 in plus gill to mount i set out for Five Lake yesterday morning. you could get a few hours of quiet time fishing before the jet skies come out. i found a great top water bite on my orange and white spider.I brought two flyrods, the 4wt and the 3wt only. After 2hrs of continuous action of 4 - 7 inchers (missed landing a few with some weight). i decided to pull up anchor. What would make a fisherman do such a thing? I could do this all day long (excluding some physical limitations) It is the quest for the bigger fish. so i moved my position to the extreme south west bay and started fishing docks because without the weed beds this was the only cover. this was the ticket. i started catching 7in plus fish with a toad hybrid. the morale is dont get complacent with your fishing process... IMPROVE and EXPLORE!!!

[Slip Sinker]

Thanks Dick

[dick tabbert]

Great info Ken

[Slip Sinker]

Thanks Jeffrey... it would be great to document all this upfront work and then follow up with a trophy!

[Jeffrey D. Abney]

Nice report Ken......

[Slip Sinker]

After a late start i finally reached my favorite spot on the north east bay of Five Lake. the lakes vitals at this time 90 deg surface temp, a thermocline at 12 ft, ugly algea bloom on the west end, a 90 percent clearing of all weeds and a fly hatch was going on. A quick drive around the deep water basin on the east end revealed alot of fish suspended above the 12 ft thermocline revealing depletion of oxygen levels below the thermocline.
Quickly started catching fish on on a popper and a 3wt and 4wt fly rod. alot of action and i had a blast all the way till dusk. very few of the fish reached the 8 inch mark and averaged in size of about 5 to 6 inches. tried fishing drop shot at the 10 ft level for bigger fish but ended up empty handed.

[Slip Sinker]

Five Lake contour map.