Minnesota 2020 Fishing Season

[ThatOneBigKid]

On 6/23/2020 at 4:09 PM, umdivx said:

Honestly don't really know, was more so just idling around side scanning marking the weed edges while having a line in the water while doing it.

Interesting thought I am going to have to give a try the next time I am out idling a weed line. My theory is if an old, wise 5lber gets fooled by it, there must be something there, but I might be giving the fish too much credit. Also, if it helps to find one more school on a weed line while idling I am in! 

[MN Fisher]

Wish me luck tomorrow, guys. Suppose to be a good day for the canoe and I've got my lures picked out for the first casts on each rig. Maybe I'll break the skunk-streak I've had going so far this year.

[MN Fisher]

14 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Wish me luck tomorrow, guys.

And today got scratched - did something to my back. I'd be able to sit in the canoe and cast - but getting the canoe out of the garage and hooked to the truck is beyond me this morning.

 

Maybe next week if the weather is good. (sighs)

[Nibbles]

Managed to get out on Minnetonka yesterday, seemed to be hitting pumpkin and gill colored wacky rigs and shaky heads on the drop around weedlines surrounding point buoys. Also caught a nice one on a long cast into some shallower flats by a cove.

[gim]

I was skipping docks yesterday on a small lake north of the metro for a few hours.  Caught 18 bass in about 4 hours, mostly in the 14-17 inch range, with a couple bigger.  Got the biggest one on the last spot right before I left.  Weightless senko in chartreuse black pepper was the best color.

 

Some of the carpet on one of my bunks is coming apart so I'll have to replace that before I fish again.  Also, I think my trolling motor batteries are shot (this is the 5th season on them) so I'll have to replace those too.  Probably won't be fishing again until after the 4th.

[umdivx]

I fish (and co-direct) the GreenHorn Wednesday nighters and this past Wednesday night we had a dual lake derby. we've got 20 boats and we split it up, 10 boats on Centerville and 10 boats on Peltier, if you're familiar with these lakes they're part of the rice creek watershed.

 

Anyways going into the tournament we thought it was going to be absolute horse*** of a night, pre-fishing was horrendous, nothing over 2lbs, 3 fish in 6hrs kinda deal, just bad.

 

Though the three fish we caught was off of the same 30yd stretch, off a hump leading to deeper waters. So we said screw it and said that's our starting spot, was the only place we got some "consistency". 

 

Didn't think we'd fill our 5 fish limit, but within 40 minutes of being there we pulled in 10+ fish, culling left and right and ended the night with the WIN for 19.82lbs. Turned out to be absolutely ridiculous, like this crap of a lake, the same 30yd stretch put out nearly 20lbs. Ended up being our biggest bag to date. Just unreal.

 

We never moved from this spot, stayed there all night. We had big bas of the night with 5.35lbs but we never put into the big bass pot as we didn't think in a million years we'd get big bass of that crappy lake. Just crazy how the night ended up being.

 

 

EDIT: Video of our night 

 

[Ogandrews]

Had my best day of fishing of the year so far at my normal 100 acre reservoir. Water was perfect, a foot or two higher than normal and about a foot of visibility. Got a new pb of 7lbs, although the way my buddy took the pic makes it look almost photoshopped and smaller than it was at the same time. Wish I could post the videos here, have two good videos showing it off and giving a good idea of the actual size, with one of them showing my entire double xl glove wearing fist completely down is throat. That fish came on a teckel sprinker frog and looked like someone flushed the toilet when it hit, amazing fight. Crazy how fat these fish are for the spawning less than a month ago. Had 3 others over 5lbs and 3 more over 4lbs all on dirty jigs no jack swim jigs, truely incredible day on my favorite body of water. Had a couple upper 30” pike follow our baits up to the boat but none wanted to play, the pike fishing at this lake really slows down when the water gets over 72-74.

 

2nd pic was the 7

 

I love my fishing buddy but I need to get him to start taking some more realistic pictures, not sure what he does with the camera but they always turn out making the fish almost look smaller because of how big they are in the shot, if that makes any sense.

 

Hopefully I’ll be posting some pictures of some 50”+ musky in the next week or two, after work on Thursday I’m heading over up to vermilion for 11 days and spending almost the entire time musky fishing. Sure I’ll get some smallmouth in but I really want to get another one of those ugly toothy things, hopefully 11 days is enough to figure the pattern out.

[ThatOneBigKid]

Nice work catching some hawgs guys!

 

Got out on Sunday and managed 18 and change for my best 5. All my best 5 were under 4lbs as well. Just couldn't get a real good one to bite. I caught probably 30 fish for the day, no of which were under 2lbs, and 20 of them were between 3 and 3.79lbs. great day overall. a vast majority of the fish were on drop shots. Couldn't seem to get them to go on moving baits.  

[Nibbles]

Hit up Lake Waconia today. Mostly dinks, nothing over 15", but between myself and a buddy we must have caught over 20 of them between 10AM and 3PM

 

They were really active busting baitfish up in the shallows among the weedlines despite the warm water temps and sun. Caught several within a few feet of the boat as they chased lures right up to the boat before smashing them.

 

Mostly caught on 1.5 - 2" pearl or smoke slider grubs and 4" flukes.

[gim]

First time fishing in 2 weeks this morning...basically since the heatwave started. Was on an east metro lake for about 3.5 hours and it was pretty good. Managed 11 bass and 4 pike, all on moving lures along the weed line. Biggest one I caught was 19 inches. The water is bath tub warm, 81 degrees. Even with some clouds and a recent rain, it was quite muggy out there.

[gim]

Took a friend of mine on Saturday morning to a metro lake and he caught a new PB largemouth, a 20.5 incher.  When we started it was cloudy and the bite was on immediately.  That lasted for about 40 minutes.  When the sun came out it almost completely died.  Still managed a few before we finished but it was significantly tougher.  Still no plastics, all on moving lures.

[gim]

If anyone is in need of replenishing their tackle, the new Scheels in Eden Prairie is FULLY stocked. I seriously have not seen so many items in stock in months. It’s been difficult finding items this season and I don’t care to order them online because of shipping costs and delays. It was refreshing being able to find what I was looking for. I literally had about 10 specific items I intended to look for and they had every single one of them in stock.

[ThatOneBigKid]

Had an 8 hour tournament out on Green Lake (Chisago) on Sunday. Ended up with 19.1lbs and landed in 2nd place. Also missed out on the big bass side pot by only .01 of a pound. Was a really fun tournament all together. Caught all my fish on deeper off shore structure with a 4.3 Kietech swimbait and a Football jig. 

 

 

[Byang98120]

Anyone ever fished Lake Auburn in Victoria? How is it? Considering going there this weekend because they have canoe rental. Originally planned Steiger Lake (a recommendation), but no canoes unless we rent from MWM/REI/ETC.

 

Open to other suggestions. My friends and I do not own any kind of boat.

[MN Fisher]

I haven't fished it - but the state record largemouth came out of there in 2005, and another 8+ pounder was caught in 2017...so good chance of some large (for MN) size bass.

[Nibbles]

2 hours ago, Byang98120 said:

Anyone ever fished Lake Auburn in Victoria? How is it? Considering going there this weekend because they have canoe rental. Originally planned Steiger Lake (a recommendation), but no canoes unless we rent from MWM/REI/ETC.

 

Open to other suggestions. My friends and I do not own any kind of boat.

Btw you can rent a rowboat there through the Three Rivers Parkway system - I was ecstatic when I found out about it as someone who doesn't own a boat.

 

Probably makes for slightly better fishing than from a canoe.

 

There's only 1 available and you have to reserve ahead of time online, so might have to plan it out a few days or a week ahead of time.

 

Take a look and select the Lake Auburn Campground option to see what boats are available. You have to select the day in the search and do it day by day which is a bit annoying, but overall it's still pretty convenient https://www.threeriversparks.org/page/watercraft-rentals

 

 

[gim]

The bite slowed down for me the last couple weeks.  Presumably because of the hot temps.  So I had an idea and did something I haven't done in years.  I went night fishing.  I started at 8pm and established some spots before it got dark, dodging waves from recreational boats.  I stayed out there until 11pm and boated 10 bass, including an 18, 19, and 20.5 incher.  I caught all of them on a black spinner bait with a colorado blade.  Needless to say I plan to do this again.  Next time I might try a topwater.  Here is the 19 incher I caught at 9:15pm.  I caught the 20.5 at 10:45pm and it was pitch black out.

[ThatOneBigKid]

Had a tournament on White Bear Lake on Sunday in the downpour and ended up getting 2nd place. All my fish came in the first hour and a half as the rain was rolling through. Had numerous back to back to back cast fish catches. Short of it raining cats and dogs it was a fun morning. Ended up weighing just over 14 lbs and got beat out of 1st by .08 of a pound. All my fish came on deep hard bottom on the edge of the weed line in approx. 18-20ft of water. All finesse tactics between 1/8 and 3/16 of an oz. 

 

[umdivx]

Out pre-fishing on Tonka for a tournament I have on Sunday and ran into this nice 4lber...

 

Now here's hoping they're still on the spot come Sunday.

 

 

[ThatOneBigKid]

22 hours ago, umdivx said:

Out pre-fishing on Tonka for a tournament I have on Sunday and ran into this nice 4lber...

 

Now here's hoping they're still on the spot come Sunday.

 

 

Nice one. From all I have heard, finding Tonka smallies is like finding them on WBL. They are like ghosts. Here's to hoping they are still there for you.

[umdivx]

19 hours ago, ThatOneBigKid said:

Nice one. From all I have heard, finding Tonka smallies is like finding them on WBL. They are like ghosts. Here's to hoping they are still there for you.

Well good thing I've sorta figured out them on WBL too  

[MN Fisher]

On 7/28/2020 at 4:27 PM, umdivx said:

Out pre-fishing on Tonka for a tournament I have on Sunday and ran into this nice 4lber...

 

Now here's hoping they're still on the spot come Sunday.

I'm heading out to Tonka tomorrow - I'll see where the LMBs are hiding

 

 

If I catch any that is.

[gim]

Best day of the season so far for this guy yesterday.  A friend and I caught 29 bass and 1 pike in about 4 hours.  Mostly skipping docks with weightless stick baits but also got some on moving lures early in the morning.  Biggest one was 20 inches and I even caught a blue-silver colored largemouth, something I've never seen before.  The best part was that I didn't see a single other boat out there all morning.

[ThatOneBigKid]

8 hours ago, gimruis said:

 

That is a crazy looking Largemouth. Never seen one like that. I wonder if it is sick?

[gim]

It seemed healthy. Fought and acted like the others I caught. I sent a photo to the DNR area fisheries office for an explanation.