My in laws have been up to visit us on two separate occasions this year, and each time we have managed to squeeze in a substantial amount of fishing. The first time around, we just went up the road a ways and fished off of a pier. Since it was earlier in the year, the shallows were the warmest part of the lake, so the fishing was really good. However, since the rest of the lake has warmed up, we have had to seek out better fishing holes.
Enter: Pricket Lake
Photo courtesy of: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/54197534.jpg
Pictured above is the dam that forms Pricket Lake.
About a month ago, a contractor came into my workplace and through him I learned that they were lowering the waters at Pricket Lake so that they could do concrete work not only on the dam, but on the power house as well. While this may seem like useless information to the casual listener, it was a gold nugget to someone like me, who not only knew the area, but also what would happen to all the fish.
While the logs pictured below are a wonderful fish habitat all year round, they also become one of the very few havens for the smaller fish when the water levels are allowed to drop. A key point to draw from this is that where the little fish are, that's where the bigger fish are going to be as well.
Photo courtesy of: http://v1.cache5.c.bigcache.googleapis.com/static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1122120.jpg?redirect_counter=1
We went out to Pricket Lake last Tuesday for the first time, and since then we have been there we have literally caught hundreds of fish. Granted, most of those fish were pan fish, but we also caught some monster crappie, many rock bass, a couple of keeper-size small mouth bass, a 22" walleye, as well as a bunch of pike.
The in laws are slated to be here for another week, so I'm sure that our fishing days are far from over...If we catch any dandies, I'll try to get a photo to put up here.
