Big V Reports 2023

Headed up for a long weekend starting tomorrow 5/18. Anyone have any success on opener?

Finding small ones around Frazer Bay. Any depth from 12-30 has worked. Jigs if they’re schooled, trolling a spinner if scattered.

Rainbows have worked well as bait.

Thanks for the info Tommy. We will be staying in Pike Bay at Glenmore Resort. Guessing we will start working shallow in that bay and if nothings working head out to more of the main lake area.

Pike bay is full of fish. I had a co-worker up there for opener. Lotsss of fish being caught!

Yeah I’d imagine Pike is good right now. In fact, my dock has actually been the best spot for size (still Frazer). So shallow seems to be the ticket.

I’ve heard shallow as well. Heading up tomorrow to fish with my source of info. You traditionally can go catch all the 10-12 inchers your heart desires in 30 feet this time of year but if you want quality stay shallow

shallow

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Nice eye DaveB! Just got back from our trip. We caught most of our fish in Pike Bay. Lot of small guys with some upper teens mixed in. Pike bay was anywhere from 60 to 64 and the main lake was at least 10 to 15 degrees colder. We jigged mostly and did a little bobber fishing and trolled cranks a fair amount too. My biggest was only 18″, but he got a free pass since he had growths/warts all over his body!

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Sounds like a great time!

My group got 2 up to 19″ over the weekend. Most still 10-15″ though. Still fun. Probably going to pivot to Smallmouth soon.

Good report David.

I was up a few days back. Thursday evening was good for numbers of smaller fish. Got a couple 17s for breakfast on Friday but otherwise mostly smaller fish 10-14” on jigs and minnows in 5-12ft.
Friday was a good mixed bag. I casted shallow rocks with a husky jerk while my dad jigged off the break. Both of us caught slot fish and keepers. I also picked up a handful of very nice smallies full of eggs. Guessing they will be bedded up soon.

Any reports lately? The wife and I heading up there Sunday for a short fishing trip.

My boss told me it’s the best fishing he has seen on that lake in years. We are heading up next week. He said the shallow bite has been fire. To tip the hat he has been on plenty of big fish as well.

Bearcat89 wrote:

My boss told me it’s the best fishing he has seen on that lake in years. We are heading up next week. He said the shallow bite has been fire. To tip the hat he has been on plenty of big fish as well.

Thanks thats what I want to hear lol!

spyder357 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
My boss told me it’s the best fishing he has seen on that lake in years. We are heading up next week. He said the shallow bite has been fire. To tip the hat he has been on plenty of big fish as well.

Thanks thats what I want to hear lol!

They have 3 islands and cabins up there so he fishes it weekly all summer long. He always points me to a hot bite some where. But as of lately it’s been a good consistent shallower bite with plenty of fish over 24

Heading up for the long weekend. From what I can see in the forum history, seems half a crawler on an either a bottom bouncers or jig should catch fish this time of year. Curious if anyone uses a full crawler on a bouncer/crawler harness? Or are you just burning through bait faster at that point?

My tests this weekend were inconclusive. Didn’t have much luck, but also didn’t get a whole lot if time on the water. A few here and there but full crawler or a chunk didn’t seem to matter.

I was up over Labor Day Weekend, stayed on the East end. This year was slower than the last few years. I found a lot of fish, but many just didn’t seem hungry. There was a bug hatch that happened as well.

I found most fish on off the first break or near bottom transitions, 15-18FOW. I got kind of sick of catching 10-12″ fish and decided to go after Smallies on Saturday, and ended up catching all my keeper walleye off a rock point on an island. Just threw a paddle tail at them and got lucky I guess. Caught my limit in about 5 minutes. Then keep fishing around the island and caught a bunch of smallies. Did this same thing Sunday and had the same results.

All in all, I had fun and look forward to going back next year.

Do you recall what the water temp was?

TillrLife wrote:

I was up over Labor Day Weekend, stayed on the East end. This year was slower than the last few years. I found a lot of fish, but many just didn’t seem hungry. There was a bug hatch that happened as well.

I found most fish on off the first break or near bottom transitions, 15-18FOW. I got kind of sick of catching 10-12″ fish and decided to go after Smallies on Saturday, and ended up catching all my keeper walleye off a rock point on an island. Just threw a paddle tail at them and got lucky I guess. Caught my limit in about 5 minutes. Then keep fishing around the island and caught a bunch of smallies. Did this same thing Sunday and had the same results.

All in all, I had fun and look forward to going back next year.

Honestly thought Big V was like this 365.

Ripjiggen wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>TillrLife wrote:</div>
I was up over Labor Day Weekend, stayed on the East end. This year was slower than the last few years. I found a lot of fish, but many just didn’t seem hungry. There was a bug hatch that happened as well.

I found most fish on off the first break or near bottom transitions, 15-18FOW. I got kind of sick of catching 10-12″ fish and decided to go after Smallies on Saturday, and ended up catching all my keeper walleye off a rock point on an island. Just threw a paddle tail at them and got lucky I guess. Caught my limit in about 5 minutes. Then keep fishing around the island and caught a bunch of smallies. Did this same thing Sunday and had the same results.

All in all, I had fun and look forward to going back next year.

Honestly thought Big V was like this 365.

It is. There’s a 100 ways to catch eyes out there. Some times your traditional things work and some times not. We seem to catch our best fish while bass fishing up shallow.

the_hat wrote:

Do you recall what the water temp was?

It was 74 Sunday evening, but in the upper 60s(69) in the mornings.

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Water must be cooling down still. Has the fall bite kicked into gear yet?

Almost like the lake is turning over currently the surface is full of debris and dirty. The fish are few and far between some deep some shallow but were very tight lipped the last week. Had to really work hard to get what we did from trolling with lead core to lindy’s to jigs all were tough to get bites. Water temps are 63-65 degrees marked fish from shallow water out to 40 fow and very scattered. Good luck!

Bowhuntr wrote:

Almost like the lake is turning over currently the surface is full of debris and dirty. The fish are few and far between some deep some shallow but were very tight lipped the last week. Had to really work hard to get what we did from trolling with lead core to lindy’s to jigs all were tough to get bites. Water temps are 63-65 degrees marked fish from shallow water out to 40 fow and very scattered. Good luck!

We fished from Tues thru Friday this past week. I agree with the turnover comment and noticed that the ciscos/whitefish were occupying the entire water column when previously they were not below the thermocline. The water temp when we arrived was 60.5 and climbed 7 degrees while we were there. The bite got tougher everyday, though we had decent flurries early and later. Got one musky opportunistically while walleye fishing.

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Planning to head up to muskie fish on Vermilion this Saturday and Sunday (10/21-10/22). Will be staying Saturday night in Tower. Anyone else going to be up there this weekend?

How did you do?