Minnesota Fishing Reports - 2018

[rascalP]

5 hours ago, ThatOneBigKid said:

Hit N/S Center Wed night and we caught some decent fish.  He thought it was so cool how you could feel the deep gravel with the crank and then BAM! a fish would just bull doze your crank. 

  I have done well at times on some deep spots on S/C with a big swimbait on a 1/2 oz or bigger head. Same type of deal only no BAM.  The rod would just load up.  Cast out, let sink to the bottom, slow reel, stop to let it hit bottom. Repeat.

[shimmy]

On 8/23/2018 at 6:47 PM, sully420 said:

I couldn't agree with this more. You really have to fish the conditions of the lake and break it down from there. I've been fishing a jig and frog in dirty water and deep cranks and the jerky J in deep water with good grass and some hard bottom edges. I went out today in the wind and fished a main lake point with a dt14 and caught 2 4lbers then tried a jerky j and caught a 5 and a 6.8 

Giant! Just a toad. Awesome to see you get them giants. A bass that fat, you never know how heavy it will be. Very exciting. 

[gim]

Final trip to the river of the season yesterday produced more great results.  Finished with 20 smallmouth in about 4 hours including three 19 inchers in a span of half an hour.  I couldn't get them to smack the topwater anymore because the water has cooled some but they were still biting shallow crankbaits and a tube.

[dsidle61]

so I'm relatively new to the area and was wondering if people had any input on pelican in wright county.  I've read some stuff on the restoration they did.  Some say fish it and others say don't bother.  Was thinking of going out there for some bass/pike.  

 

[punch]

I hit Mille Lacs on Saturday morning with a few buddies. We fished the east side out of Liberty and did pretty well. We caught about 7 walleyes (one 24" tanker) and over a dozen smallies. The biggest was 4lb 1oz. We bounced around from reef to reef and the fish seemed to be up really shallow. Most of our bites came in like 10'-6' on offshore reefs. I've been getting more and more confidence with Mille Lacs over the last couple years. I'm starting to be less intimidated by the lake as i'm getting more comfortable reading my electronics.

 

I'm going to go on a little reef fishing rant here.. buckle up. 

 

I've been spending more time on big rocky smallmouth lakes in the last few years, such as Kabetogama/Vermillion/Mille Lacs. One important lesson that i've learned is that when you're targeting offshore reefs, don't waste time on a dead reef. I've learned some of the obvious signs of a good reef. Good structure, sharp drops in depth, and most importantly FOOD. If you're not seeing bait balls around the reef.. be skeptical. If you see food, start working the depths from the shallowest then out to the edges. Walleye seem to be a great indicator of an active reef. Walleye see to be pack hunters that follow food around. I've noticed that if I catch a walleye quickly on a reef, there's a 100% chance there's food in the zip code which means smallies are likely SOMEWHERE on the reef. They might be at a different depth, but most often they are shoulder to shoulder with the smallies. If you're not seeing food on your sonar, and you don't get bit within the first.. 20-30 minutes.. GTFO. Because that reef isn't active today, doesn't mean it wont be active at another point. Not every reef is holding feeding fish.. you just gotta be willing to move around and find the ones that are currently active.

 

The presentations I like to use on reefs are pretty simple. Swimbait on a 1/4th oz head, ned rig, jig head + soft plastic jerkbait, dropshot, a tube (duh), and a neko worm. Neko's are actually really great on offshore rock reefs, as they rarely get hung up. 

 

A great example of this was up in Kabetogama last fall. There were two reefs that were about 50 yards from each other. On Saturday, the southern reef was boomin.. we caught a ton of smallies.. had a blast. We went back to the same reef the next day and it was a total ghost town. I said, hey.. lets go over to the northern reef.. maybe they just moved over. Sure enough the schools were there. 

[ThatOneBigKid]

Got out this weekend on a lake in the Cambridge area. Nothing great to report other than I think the lake may have turned recently. This is a lake that has been relatively clear as of late but was very dirty in Monday. Might explain the tough fishing too. Only caught a few smaller fish for 6 hours of fishing. 

 

Had a buddy from work report similar theories, but there were on Winnie all weekend. 

 

Anyone else think the lakes are turning?

[SmallBlockMuscle]

I went Saturday and then again yesterday. Both days starting at sun up and fished for around 4 1/2 hours. Two small lakes in the West Metro and the whopper plopper caught most of the fish. From 6-8:30 the top water bite was great, yesterday I pulled a few out after 8:30 on a spinner bait. Didnt do any cranking yesterday. All the fish were in 4-6'. Had to deal with a lot of pike as well which gets old and lost me a plopper later yesterday. 

[punch]

12 minutes ago, ThatOneBigKid said:

Got out this weekend on a lake in the Cambridge area. Nothing great to report other than I think the lake may have turned recently. This is a lake that has been relatively clear as of late but was very dirty in Monday. Might explain the tough fishing too. Only caught a few smaller fish for 6 hours of fishing. 

 

Had a buddy from work report similar theories, but there were on Winnie all weekend. 

 

Anyone else think the lakes are turning?

I'm noticing some muddy water and dead vegitation floating around. I'm camping/fishing the Alex chain next weekend.. i'm hoping the fall 'chew' is kicking off soon. 

[gim]

I've noticed a significant drop in surface temperature the past 2 weeks.  Mid August it was in the low 80's and yesterday it was in the low 70's.

 

Punch, good read on Mille Lacs-type lakes.  That lake has more big smallmouth than any other around here so it has a higher "ceiling" but it has gotten to be really tough because of the immense pressure.  I was out there four times in late May and June and seems like I saw about 40 bass boats or more each trip.  I guess that comes with a #1 national ranking.  Its a blessing and a curse.  I used to be able to catch some fish on a jerk bait out there too...this year, not even one bite.  Like Seth Feider said: "You can only catch those fish so many times."

[FryDog62]

Was on a West Metro Lake yesterday and flogged all the typical spots... nothing... went deeper.... a couple pike... finally at 15-18 fow just outside of the weed line with a DT14, I got a 15 inch, then a 17 followed by maybe my largest LMB of the year - estimating 22 inches - jumped twice, got to the boat, grabbed the net... and then gone...

[starkeer]

3 minutes ago, FryDog62 said:

Was on a West Metro Lake yesterday and flogged all the typical spots... nothing... went deeper.... a couple pike... finally at 15-18 fow just outside of the weed line with a DT14, I got a 15 inch, then a 17 followed by maybe my largest LMB of the year - estimating 22 inches - jumped twice, got to the boat, grabbed the net... and then gone...

What rod do you throw the DT14 on? I've been going through my gear trying to figure out what rod I want to throw deep crank on. Thanks

[FryDog62]

36 minutes ago, starkeer said:

What rod do you throw the DT14 on? I've been going through my gear trying to figure out what rod I want to throw deep crank on. Thanks

I throw it on a Duckett White Ice 7’-3” MH.  It has a softer tip and is usually a great crankbait rod... and with fluorocarbon line usually does a great job keeping fish buttoned up on treble hooks.  Despite losing a big bass, it’s a great rod for cranking.

 

Heck, it kept this scud missile attached an hour earlier!

[punch]

4 hours ago, gimruis said:

I've noticed a significant drop in surface temperature the past 2 weeks.  Mid August it was in the low 80's and yesterday it was in the low 70's.

 

Punch, good read on Mille Lacs-type lakes.  That lake has more big smallmouth than any other around here so it has a higher "ceiling" but it has gotten to be really tough because of the immense pressure.  I was out there four times in late May and June and seems like I saw about 40 bass boats or more each trip.  I guess that comes with a #1 national ranking.  Its a blessing and a curse.  I used to be able to catch some fish on a jerk bait out there too...this year, not even one bite.  Like Seth Feider said: "You can only catch those fish so many times."

This is why we're heading all the way up to Kab where the smallies are totally un-pressured next month. 

 

Mille Lacs is still awesome because it's like 1:15 minute drive from my house in the north metro. I get there's a lot more bass pressure nowadays, BUT the lakes so d**n big it's easy to find your own water. Most people tend to hit the more obvious spots & community holes.. but if you can read your graphs/maps you can easily go find your own spots away from the other boats. 

 

[FryDog62]

48 degrees at the ramp this morning, but the Berkley Choppo bite on top was still good...

[A-Jay]

1 hour ago, FryDog62 said:

48 degrees at the ramp this morning, but the Berkley Choppo bite on top was still good...

Nice ~ 

And how did you convince that fatty pike to stand straight up like that ?

A-Jay

[FryDog62]

44 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Nice ~ 

And how did you convince that fatty pike to stand straight up like that ?

A-Jay

Actually it was in a buddy’s freezer all night

[A-Jay]

24 minutes ago, FryDog62 said:

Actually it was in a buddy’s freezer all night

Well that es-planes it ~ 

A-Jay

[FryDog62]

47 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

Well that es-planes it ~ 

A-Jay

...right next to my bottle of Grey Goose ?

[punch]

Fishing wasn't great tonight up on Lake George, but I did get to go test my new toy.. got an ultrex this week. 

 

[JackKlassen]

5 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

48 degrees at the ramp this morning, but the Berkley Choppo bite on top was still good...

how do you like the choppo compared to the plopper?

[ThatOneBigKid]

@punch Congrats. How do you like it? Is that a 60" shaft?

 

Hitting the river tonight after work looking for some smallies. Hope all goes well. 

 

 

[FryDog62]

8 hours ago, JackKlassen said:

how do you like the choppo compared to the plopper?

Thx, I’ll give you my unbiased opinion... and I’m not sponsored by anyone either...

 

The larger sized Choppo to me is exactly like the WP... in fact if you had me cast them without knowing which was which I don’t think I’d honestly know.  There is that rich baritone sound the prop makes at a certain retrieve rate that seems to get most strikes for me anyway, and the Choppo has this as well.  

 

The 90 size, I actually stopped using the WP because like others got frustrated with it nose-diving at the wrong time.  So I was skeptical picking up the 90 Choppo at first, but found it did not dive at all.  Granted I used it on more limited basis than the bigger Choppo, but it was screaming “smallmouth killer” the whole time.

 

The other difference between the Choppo and WP is price.  About 1/3 less in cost which I think is refreshing in this day of crazy escalating tackle prices.  Whether it’s as durable over time as my WP’s, I don’t know (a plus for WP’s - always have had good luck there) I don’t know but the Choppo seems to be very good quality too.  

[punch]

30 minutes ago, ThatOneBigKid said:

@punch Congrats. How do you like it? Is that a 60" shaft?

 

Hitting the river tonight after work looking for some smallies. Hope all goes well. 

 

 

It's a 36v 52” 

 

 

[Dubtee]

Nice TM punch, you'll love it.

 

Nice report Fry.  I'm headed out tomorrow morning for a 1/2 day bite and have a plopper tied on and ready.  Supposed to be a little chop, so I am expecting some mega blow ups!

[gim]

I went out on Labor Day morning and it was arguably the best day of the season for me thus far.  That cloud deck with a pending incoming storm likely played a big role.  My biggest largemouth was 19.5 inches and I even landed another "accidental" tiger muskie.  No finesse tactics, all fast moving lures in 5-12 feet of water.