Crappie lake or sunfish lake near apple valley MN?

Hey all,

been fishing Lake Marion here for what feels like an eternity. Sadly so has others. Seems like the fish population in that lake has taken a dive. :/ I know crystal has a lot of smaller sunfish are there any other locations to get on some bigger sunfish, perch or crappie near Rosemount?

I’m not familiar with that area, but here’s a screenshot from the Navionics website. Looks lik quite a few possibilities.
You can research lakes on the DNR website Lakefinder page.
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/index.html

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   Marion.jpg
   

I have been fishing this area for quite a while.
Quality panfish, NO.
Large mouth bass, maybe.
Too much overfishing.

Tom schmitt wrote:

I have been fishing this area for quite a while.
Quality panfish, NO.
Large mouth bass, maybe.
Too much overfishing.

x2

brandmoney wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Tom schmitt wrote:</div>
I have been fishing this area for quite a while.
Quality panfish, NO.
Large mouth bass, maybe.
Too much overfishing.

x2

We got some nicer sunnies on Upper Prior on Saturday, 22′ of water. Most were small, but 1/5 was a little better.

Sorry, but there’s very little for quality in the area, been there all my life. The ponds we would ride our bikes and 4-wheelers to are either bullhead only now or get out fished by the neighborhoods built around them. I know of a few, but those ponds are held TIGHT by the people who know about them.

Grew up in the SE metro, and yeah it’s pretty tough. I almost exclusively travel now; either to a different part of the metro, down to Faribault, or farther up north.

I lived in Prior lake for many years. Never had a problem catching nice Panfish on either Prior Or Spring lake. When I lived there my buddies from up North use to all come Down and fish with me several times a winter. They could not believe how good the bite was for quality panfish in the Metro. A little to the south there also use to be great panfish on Several lakes in the Faribault area as well. Mazaska, Shields, and Roberds all come to mind.

Finding good panfish around the Apple Valley area can be tough. They seem to go in cycles. You will have many years with just smaller fish and people getting frustrated, so they move to other lakes. Then the fish get a chance to get bigger and people talk about it. Before you know it the bigger ones get taken out and you have to wait for some time before they catch back up. There is just a lot of pressure in that area. Keep jumping around to different lakes and you might get lucky on one for a bit.