Big Stone Lake – Advice

I am heading to Big Stone Lake on the border of Minnesota and South Dakota with a few guys. This will be our first time to the lake. We are planning to target walleye and maybe perch and bass. Does anyone have suggestions on color for walleye/perch on the lake? We were thinking of doing Lindy rigs and of course trying other things if Lindy rigs aren’t producing well. I would love any advice on color/tactics/lures/etc you might be willing to share.

Thanks!

All I can tell you is big stone can be very rewarding and very challenging at the same time. Fished it multiple times. Sometimes I want to go back and some times I say f that lake im not coming back

Check with Artie’s bait , they will let you know

I second what Bearcat89 said, it’s a hate and love lake lol. First time out with my new-to-me boat there last year and damaged my lower unit. It ain’t call Big Stone for no reason lol. Weedlines are the best for now for bass and walleye.

Was out there over the 4th. Never tried to catch walleyes as the algae was getting bad and is probably really bad now. With that said I did really well on perch. Had to move a bunch and sort through a bunch but did well.
If your set on walleyes, spinners with crawlers on weedlines.

jkarels wrote:

Was out there over the 4th. Never tried to catch walleyes as the algae was getting bad and is probably really bad now. With that said I did really well on perch. Had to move a bunch and sort through a bunch but did well.
If your set on walleyes, spinners with crawlers on weedlines.

Thanks for the info on that. Can I ask what the perch preferred? Any special depth?

Hate to give advice on a lake that I have not fished, gonna anyway! Friend has a place close to that lake, lake is on my short list, looked into it, cool lake. If you have SI use it to find big boulders near deeper water, bang some cranks on the tops of the boulders, then if you have confidence in the area, TEXAS rig a smaller senko and let it slide between the boulders, you could also use a weightless leech. Walleye guys want to troll you can’t do this stuff trolling, walleye guys hate the algea, walleyes don’t care. I have heard their are BIG sunnies by those boulder and who knows what else, keep an open mind and have fun.

I used to go out there as a kid. It’s a really cool lake. Lindy rigs with chrome green hooks would out fish everything 2:1. Granted, it’s been 20 years and I probably was using 12lb mono on a 1000 size spinning reel.

I miss catching those sheepshead, giving them a little tap on the head, and feeding them to the pelicans. It was hilarious watching those birds successfully inhale those big fish and try to fly away.

Sent you a PM

Heard walleyes only biting during the night.

Thanks! Some great advice here. This lake is completely new to us, so this will help us to have better success with our 2 days of fishing.

1.5-1.7 mph with spinners. Any slower and you get more sheep and small perch.

Update on our Big Stone Lake trip. We did not catch much – had a good time, but we didn’t have a lot of success fishing. Saw quite a few people catching small to medium size perch jigging and using bobbers. Our best fishing was trolling Rapalas. Best was a green and white Salmo. We caught maybe 2 fish with bobber, none jigging and none on spinner rigs. We used spikes and fat heads on our jigging rods and bobbers. Most of our fish came from 12 fow.

Not sure what the others catching fish were using.