Congratulations! If you're snooping around in the fishing report archives,
you are one of those dedicated anglers who spends the extra time it takes to
become an expert at your craft!
I
respect folks who do their homework and that's why I have these reports
archived. You can glean a lot of information about seasonal trends and movements
of the fish in the Northern Minnesota, 1000 Grand Lakes Area. The archives are
organized by quarters; 1- (January, February, March) 2- (April,
May, June) 3- (July, August, September), 4- (October, November,
December). When you study the fishing patterns and fish movements through these
seasons, you might just see some interesting trends that will help you organize
your strategy for your next fishing trip.
I hope you find plenty here that
will help and if you think it does you some good, let me know. I'd appreciate
questions and comments that will in turn help me provide more meaningful reports
for everyone. If you have a question
Click Here.
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February 2007
Fishing Reports
Ice Fishing
Report! Jeff Sundin 2-13-07 |
Well we’ve
discovered that starting from 30 degrees below zero is one way to make ten
above feel like a heat wave. While it’s not exactly balmy, at least it’s
safe to go outside again (at least a little) and there are a few anglers
moving around again. On the promise of a continued warming trend, we’ve
got a busy week and weekend planned and with a little luck, there will be
some more optimistic report coming in. Here’s a bit of what we have
trickling in right now.
One of the
side effects of this cold snap has been an increase in the number and size
of ice ridges forming especially on the larger lakes. Winnibigosh has two
major ridges and several smaller branches to contend with. One of them
runs out from roughly Tamarack Point West toward the North Shore. If
you’re coming from Tamarack Bay and want to fish South of the ridge,
you’ll have to head toward shore at Tamarack, cross there and then head
back out on to the lake.
The second
major ridge is running East/West from the South end Westward toward Moses
Bar. There’s a crossing near little stony that you’ll use to fish the
Center Bar and mid lake areas. I don’t know where the crossing is on the
West Side, so until I do, I’d suggest contacting McArdle's or Becker's
Resorts to get a run down on the West Side. Don't try crossing those
ridges right now! There is open water and at least two vehicles have had
near misses this week.
The Perch action on the big lake isn’t
bad but according to my friend that’s conducting the creel census for the
DNR, there’s a high percentage of smaller fish showing up in the bags
right now. Occasional 10 inchers, with lots of 7 to 8 inch fish. The
bottom line is that the action is fairly good, size is below average.
We still have a couple of week’s worth of
Walleye fishing and the reports have been consistent for the past few
weeks. There are lots of smaller Walleye with an occasional keeper mixed
in. The humps and mid lake bars have been fished heavily now and I think
you’re better off looking for some new territory. Even though it’s still
winter to us, fish will begin staging closer to shore soon. Ice fishing
for Walleye during the late part of the season has generally been better
along steeper drop off areas along the breakline in 16 to 24 feet of
water. Early morning, late afternoon prime time bite is the best.
Crappie
fishing? Scouting for new territory is the way to go. A friend of mine who
has fish house rentals has been able to keep his customers over some
decent Crappie fishing this week. His secret has been to keep scouting
even after he finds a decent school of fish. When you locate a "good
hole", fish it for a day or two and then get out of there and find some
fresh fish. I think that is really important because the fish you leave
behind tend to stay in that area and re-group when they're left
undisturbed for a while. You can go back in a couple of weeks and try them
again.
Like I said,
reports are trickling in for now. Let's hope the predicted warm up arrives
and we can get out and do some good scouting this week. If so, there will
be some more solid information coming as we head into that magic March
panfish bite.
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Here's another of many images from the deep freeze zone.
The past couple of days we've had highs reaching back up to 10 or 12 above
and a few anglers have gotten back out on the ice.
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January 2007
Fishing Reports
Ice Fishing
Report! Jeff Sundin 1-17-07 |
If you were worried about ice conditions, have no fear. This week’s cold
snap has been a regular ice-making machine, adding as much as six inches
of new ice to the good base that we already had. We fished Lake Trout this
weekend on one of the deep clear lakes that usually freezes late and even
out there, the ice was solid, clear and about 14 inches thick. In fact, I
was surprised to see that several of the Trout anglers had driven trucks
out onto the ice.
The Lake Trout opener is getting to be kind of a tradition with a buddy
and me so we went even though the conditions were kind of tough. It was 15
degrees below zero when I drove into the lake and we had to use the
portable fish houses on every hole we drilled. My Otter really comes in
handy when it gets cold like this, but even the greatest portables slow
you down when you’re trying to drill lots of holes looking for active
fish.
In spite of the tough fishing conditions, there were glimpses of hope that
kept us out there fishing into mid afternoon. I broke one nice fish off at
about 9:30 AM and had several sightings on the Vexilar. Matt caught two
smaller fish that he released and also had several sightings. Even though
we felt like the chances were good to pick up a couple of "keepers", we
never wound up connecting so I am currently fish-less and photo-less. I’m
hoping to take advantage of the warm up during the next couple of days and
hopefully I’ll catch my annual quota of a couple of local Lakers for the
frying pan.
Even though folks are still picking up some decent Walleyes, especially
early in the morning, the hot bite that we enjoyed earlier this winter has
slowed down. Many of the ex-Walleye aficionados have now turned their
attention to Crappies and a few others have turned to Bluegills to take up
the slack. Reports for both are coming in fairly good, although fishing
traffic is still fairly light compared to past seasons.
Crappie anglers are doing best by seeking out isolated deeper holes and
capitalizing on the fresh, albeit smaller schools of fish. 25 to 35 feet
of water, softer bottom with the presence of insect larvae seem to be the
ticket for finding these fish. If you catch a couple of fish that have
been feeding on bugs, you’ll know it because you can see evidence of the
larvae in their throat, the roof of their mouth or you may even see mud or
other soft material in their teeth. If you haven’t got any fish to
examine, but you still think you’re in good territory, watch your Vexilar
for a while and make note of any signs of action. Often, you’ll see fish
that look but won’t eat, return to these areas at prime time, dusk or
early morning.
Conventional Crappie methods and presentations are working fine. I like
blade baits like the Frostee, Demon and Swimmin’ Jigs. Tail hooked minnows
are general best and I like to run the hook parallel to the dorsal fin.
Fish these small groups of fish for a couple of days until they get
thinned out, when the action slows it’s time to move on.
Bluegill anglers are finding their fish shallower and closer to weed
growth. The big trick with the ‘gills is to keep the bait as nearly
motionless as you can. Hold the bait almost still a few inches over the
bottom and set the hook at the first sign of a bite. Heavier than average
baits work well as long as they’re small. If your selection isn’t quite
that sophisticated, you can use the conventional ants, glow bugs or even a
plain hook and add extra split shot sinkers a foot up the line. Tip your
hook with a wax worm and you’re in business.
Click Here For Fishing Report Archives
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The cold snap! Fifteen Below should
stiffen up the old ice sheet.
Walleye fishing has slowed, but you can still pick up
enough for a fish fry.
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December 2006
Fishing Reports
Ice Fishing
Report! Jeff Sundin 12-28-06 |
Ice conditions right now in the Northland are about as favorable as you’re
going to get. We’ve had a great week for ice making with very light wind,
almost no snow cover and daytime highs staying just below freezing. Ice
thickness varies somewhat from lake to lake, but we’ve been fishing the
over deep water and finding 12 to 14 inches of good solid ice. In fact,
I’m surprised that I haven’t seen some pickups running around on Lake
Winnie already. I think a lot of folks are like me in that that don’t want
to be the first one to drive out, but as soon as we see some other folks
out there we’re gonna be right behind ‘em.
Fishing continues to be decent. The really hot "pre Christmas" bite has
slowed a little, but fishing action is consistent enough to keep most of
us happy. I’m usually an advocate of fishing Walleyes during "prime time"
sunrise and sunset, but our last couple of trips out, it seems like the
Walleye bite is actually more reliable at mid day. Yesterday, we didn’t
get to the lake until about 1:30 PM and our first spot produced fish
almost immediately, then just when you’d expect that later afternoon run
to kick in, there was a minor spurt of small fish and then, game over.
Whether it was just our spot or not is hard to know for sure, but I’ll be
shooting for earlier start times this week just to test my theory.
Walleye location (for us) has been right up on top of structure. If we
find a main lake hump that tops out in the low 20-foot range (20 to 23
feet), we find the deeper edges and then drill holes from there back up
onto the top. We’ve been moving from one hole to another trying to "cherry
pick" the active fish. We’ve been watching our Vexilars and seeing lots of
fish move up to the bait, sit there and wait for a couple of minutes
before they finally bite. The only way that I’ve found to speed up the
action has been to get my bait out of the hole for a minute, freshen up
the bait and then drop it back down. If you don’t get hit in 30 seconds or
so, move on to another hole.
Jigging baits like the Forage Minnow or Swedish Pimple are still working,
but I had some better action yesterday using the larger size Demons tipped
with some really nice Emerald Shiners I got at Fred’s Bait. Hook the
shiner in the center by running the hook along the backbone parallel to
the dorsal fin. Get the bait about 12 inches off the bottom and let it sit
still to trigger more of those finicky biters.
Perch fishing is still up for grabs. We’re finding some nice Perch on some
of the main lake humps, but certainly not all of them. Some folks are
sticking with the shallow water and continue to have good action there
too. No matter where you decide to look for them, the secret is apparently
to find better schools of minnows. The more bait we see on our flashers.
The more Perch have been in the area. Once you find them, jigging spoons,
small jigging Rapalas and the Perch Eye imitators are all working equally
well.
I usually
have a tidbit or two about Crappies. Initially we heard some good reports
about the Crappie fishing, but once everyone started zeroing in on the
Walleyes, the talk about Crappies kind of slacked off. I’m not fishing
them either, so I don’t have any great stories to tell. I’ll keep my ear
to the ground and see what I can dig up this week.
Click Here For Fishing Report Archives
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Ice Ahead! Jeff Sundin 11-26-06 |
The past week delivered a bit of a setback for ice fishing enthusiasts by
dishing out some brutally nice days. Sunny and calm with daytime
temperatures in the high 40 to low 50 degree range doesn’t exactly put the
ice maker into high gear. In spite of the nice weather though, there are
still several smaller lakes with a nice clear layer of skim ice and as of
Sunday 11/26 a handful of the larger area lakes are skimmed over with some
fairly good looking ice as well. As usual, the deeper lakes and lakes with
lots of wind exposure are still open except some ice around the edges.
We checked
the public landing at Jessie Lake on Saturday and found the lake frozen
across most of its surface, but when we stepped out a few feet from shore
the thin ice cracked and broke easily. The good news is that daytime
temperatures just barely topped 30 degrees so ice will be forming steadily
all night long. Every day without snow is a bonus now and with a few cold
nights and barring any heavy rain or snow this week, it looks like we’ll
have a decent base of ice to work with. The forecast of falling
temperatures and light precipitation ought to play right into the plan and
those of you that are anxious to get into the Pike spearing season next
week should have a least a few good spots to choose from. |
Stepping out
a few feet from the landing revealed that the ice is far too thin for foot
traffic just yet. But it's heading in the right direction. Sharpen the
auger blades! |
Jessie Lake located 15 miles North of Deer River had
about an inch of ice cover across the entire lake on Saturday.
Click Here For Fishing Report Archives
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