2021 Minnesota Fishing Season

[gim]

51 minutes ago, BKhaos said:

Anyone been out on Mille Lacs lately? Thinking about trucking it out there next week and I've never been. Full disclosure, I've got no electronics or graphs outside of Navionics on my phone so am I biting off more than I can chew? Will I be able to find any smallies?

 

You will have difficulty.  Best bet might be to look for other bass boats and start in those areas to be honest.  These hot, sunny days in midsummer are extremely difficult out there - its hard enough as it is when the water is cooler in the spring and fall when I usually go.  My advice would be to get on the water at 6am when its legal, skip it during the daytime, and try again an hour before it gets dark, especially if its sunny and hot.  If you can find a day when there's some cloud cover, that will greatly help.  Going during the week also helps me instead of fighting tournaments and a lot of other boats on the weekend.  I had heard there were some big bug hatches out there recently too.

 

Also, the lake level is down a significant amount this year so choose your access wisely and keep your motor trimmed way up until you reach deeper water.  Let us know it goes.

[gim]

Anyone fishing lately?  Been a rough summer for this guy overall.  It was quite good in May and then when someone lit a match that hasn't stopped burning it went down hill quickly.  I have still been catching fish every outing, but the qualify has dropped to smaller fish.  Biggest bass I've caught since June 1 is a 17 3/4 inch largemouth.  Seems like every time I go, I have to resort to using slow ultra-finesse tactics too which is not really my jam.  Normally this time of year is when I start fishing rivers for brown bass but with the drought even that is not an option.  The only consistent pattern I've been able to use is skipping docks but again I still haven't found any real size doing that either.

 

What a complete 180 from last season.  I had the best season I've ever had last year and this year has been a bit of a clunker.

[Deephaven]

It's been the summer of large pike screwing up my bass fishing.  Amusingly not with bite offs, but everytime I get on a spot where I am sure I am going to catch bass a few 30"+ pike move in and screw things up.  They've been fun to catch because they aren't the little grass snakes, but I am shocked at the difference on Tonka size wise in that domain compared to previous years.  Haven't had a monster bass day yet, have pulled in a couple 20 inchers but so far the season is not memorable.

[MN Fisher]

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Anyone fishing lately?

Nope - last time I was out was end of May when the wife was in the hospital. Since she came home, we've been trying to find a PCA to look after her while I go fishing...still no luck.

[gim]

25 minutes ago, Deephaven said:

Haven't had a monster bass day yet, have pulled in a couple 20 inchers but so far

Those are some big bass Sean.  If I catch a couple that big each season I consider that good.  I caught 4 that big last season and 12 more that were 19-20.  This season: two 19+ inch smallmouth and no 19+ inch largemouth.  The two biggest largies I have this season are 18.5 inches.

 

I guess the one positive here is that I have not caught hardly any pike this season.  Very few compared to most seasons.  I think its because of the hot weather.  I'm sure when cooler temps show up they'll also show up...

[Deephaven]

I've pretty much only fished Tonka....but the pike have been super aggressive and large.  Hardly any under 25".  I am used to getting dinked by pike and super frustrated with them.  

[throttleplate]

11 hours ago, gimruis said:

Anyone fishing lately?  Been a rough summer for this guy overall.  It was quite good in May and then when someone lit a match that hasn't stopped burning it went down hill quickly.  I have still been catching fish every outing, but the qualify has dropped to smaller fish.  Biggest bass I've caught since June 1 is a 17 3/4 inch largemouth.  Seems like every time I go, I have to resort to using slow ultra-finesse tactics too which is not really my jam.  Normally this time of year is when I start fishing rivers for brown bass but with the drought even that is not an option.  The only consistent pattern I've been able to use is skipping docks but again I still haven't found any real size doing that either.

 

What a complete 180 from last season.  I had the best season I've ever had last year and this year has been a bit of a clunker.

wife and i are going wednesday afternoon to fish the early evening and into dark if anything is biting.

Am going to put the waders on and fish around detroit lake long bridge area in the deep channel that runs under the bridge into a cove.

I drove by it a week ago and water so low i can now wade the cove shoreline that will be in the shade where before shoreline was deep from the getgo.

I have all worms, tube, rage menace, swimbait kaitech on t rigs and will just toss in the weeds and weed edge close to channel and see what happens.

Also will toss out a frog, popr and buzzbait if nothin happining. I will also wear earplugs so i dont have to hear the wife fishing from shore yelling out to me that she caught another big one by doing what she does best, which is throwing a t rig worm or a crankbait and being patient.

11 hours ago, gimruis said:

guess the one positive here is that I have not caught hardly any pike this season.  Very few compared to most seasons. 

same here, they have moved out long time ago, even the skinnys.

[shimmy]

Went out for my summer trip the first two weeks of July. Was definitely the hottest and sunniest I can remember. Oddly enough, our best days came on days where the fishing was bad. We had a few bags over 25 lbs. We tried a bunch of new lakes in the area and everything just seemed to be the same. Most of the lakes were a few feet shallow and weeds choked the shoreline. Side thought if anyone knows, there were some lakes where the lakes would be swamped with grass and then, all of a sudden, the grass would be gone at the same depths. Was curious if this was because the ground was less muddy? More gravel? From the boat, we could not tell. Just curious why that would happen.

 

Either way, only kept footage of the bigger bass. Couple highlights of the trip were seeing how trailer speed made a huge difference with jig fishing. It is hard because if you are by yourself, it is very hard to rule out. Makes me even more amazed at professional fisherman that can figure this out quicker by themselves. Caught one over 6+, which was a surprise on that particular day. We had caught 3-4 bass in 4 hours. Just on the struggle bus. We miss one bite on a short stretch that was 100 yards (still didn't catch any) and immediately decided to go back up the stretch, but this time up the wind. Casting the same lures, I quickly caught a 6 pounder and then we continued to catch a 25 lb+ limit in 30 minutes. Crazy how fishing a different angle changed the bite. Perhaps it was because we slowed down or maybe a few fish stirred up the others. Regardless, it amazes me at how often we miss good stretches of water without realizing it. Here were some of our big fish of the trip. We had caught a really high number of 4 pounders over the 2 weeks. We had a good amount of 5 pounders. I tried swimbaits and did terrible. I tried jointed glide baits and did terrible. Jerkbaits, did terrible. Whopper plopper did better. Fluke did well. 10" worm, brushhog, and jig were to go to baits. Light jigs with fast trailers for the win. 

 

Aside from the fluke or senko, any other rigging techniques or baits you all like that fish through jungles of weeds well without pulling out every single weed it looks at in the lake? I liked the screw lock and getting the fluke really close to the tip. Just curious if there are other setups on grassy areas where the grass comes up very easily.

 

 

[gim]

Nice work @shimmy.  Looks like you encountered at least one day with some rain.

[Deephaven]

Awesome fish.  What part of the state were you fishing in?

[gim]

I finally got into some decent fish this morning.  My Father and I caught 19 bass and a 31 inch pike north of the metro.  Early on we caught some fish on an aggressive pattern of buzz baits over clumps of weeds because cloudy conditions hung on until about 8:30am.  Once those left and the red ball of fury came out, we switched to shade around docks with plastics and that was also productive.  I caught the biggest largie I've caught this season so far too, a 19 incher.

[shimmy]

On 7/23/2021 at 4:22 PM, Deephaven said:

Awesome fish.  What part of the state were you fishing in?

 

I fish in Otter Tail County. Less boat pressure obviously due to more lakes. Generally a lot of shore fisherman with buckets. I will say this though, most of the lakes we fish are unique in their own way. Some are great for 5 pounders, others are incredible for 4 pounders, but terrible for 6 pounders. The main thing I need to get better at is finding the right lakes that can produce more 7s...Still a young grasshopper when it comes to that unfortunately. Anyone wants to steer me in the right direction, feel free! 

[Deephaven]

7 hours ago, gimruis said:

I finally got into some decent fish this morning.  My Father and I caught 19 bass and a 31 inch pike north of the metro.  Early on we caught some fish on an aggressive pattern of buzz baits over clumps of weeds because cloudy conditions hung on until about 8:30am.  Once those left and the red ball of fury came out, we switched to shade around docks with plastics and that was also productive.  I caught the biggest largie I've caught this season so far too, a 19 incher.

Awesome.  After the monster thunderstorm last night I bailed on going this am and instead worked on the house.  Regrets a *****. 

2 hours ago, shimmy said:

I fish in Otter Tail County.

Awesome.  I grew up in Becker.  Never seen a 7 up there though.  Would love days of 4's and 6's, but guess I better leave the city.

[gim]

A friend and I were out for about 4.5 hours this morning.  We caught 20 bass and 4 pike.  I caught a couple on a topwater early and then it was fast-moving bladed lures like spinnerbaits and chatter baits.  We basically had to burn the lures in to get a bite.  Most of the fish came in a stretch of about 200 yards so we just kept circling back around and fishing it again.  I tried slowing down with plastics and could not get a fish to bite that.  Biggest was an 18.5 incher and water temp was 77 degrees.  The bite has improved for me the last couple weeks now.

[Deephaven]

Nice.  I haven't been out in a couple weeks and won't get to this weekend.  Next week I'll fix that!

 

[brgbassmaster]

Been doing well in bemidji area. Many bags from 17-19lbs. Whopper plopped 130 is hands down my best bait this year. Not how you would expect to catch them either. Took some of my experience from Arizona and it works up here too haha. Hopefully get out Monday this week. 

[brgbassmaster]

Another good day out here in MN! managed an 18lb bag. Finally got on a good frog bite even with the water way down. They were choking it. Also got into quite a few on a jig. 

[gim]

Best day of the season so far for this guy.  My Father and I caught 27 bass and 7 pike in about 5 hours, including a bunch of big ones.  The highlight were 20 and 20 3/4 inchers I caught about 30 minutes apart, both my biggest largemouths of the season.

[shimmy]

Those are great looking fish.

[Hawkeye21]

My annual MN fishing trip is in two weeks.  How's the bite been and what are the hot baits?  We usually have most of our success with chatterbaits and spinnerbaits.

 

We stay on Osakis but fish numerous lakes in the area.  I try to find a couple new ones every year too.

[Deephaven]

Big changes in the past week.  Went from brutal and slow to things blowing up everywhere.  Not sure that what is now will be in 2 weeks and of course the North part of the state will be at a different point in the season than the South.

[gim]

5 hours ago, Hawkeye21 said:

How's the bite been and what are the hot baits?  We usually have most of our success with chatterbaits and spinnerbaits.

I have been catching fish on both of those.  In addition to other more, aggressive moving lures.  I don't specifically fish Osakis or the immediate surrounding area, but I'm sure the water is very low there too.  Be prepared to potentially use an alternate access point even though we have been getting rain consistently now.  The water temp was still 76 degrees a week ago.  I'm sure it has gone down some from that in the past week.

[Deephaven]

I missed the Osakis comment.  That is the one part of the state I've never fished.  Keep meaning to.

[shimmy]

 

That is a great area. If you are going bass fishing, give Thompson lake and Whiskey lake a shot. Thompson lake is bass only. Fun because when you get a bit, you always know it is a bass. Your drives would only be 28 minutes and 38 minutes respectively. Worth it in my opinion. 

[Hawkeye21]

I'm not sure if I've fished Thompson before but I know I have fished Whiskey and  we had a lot of success.  This will be my 8th year and we try to hit some new lakes every time so I've fished a good amount of them.  We've been driving close to 40 minutes to get to some new lakes.