Fall Transition

Great reports

Got on the Mississippi north of Brainerd for a few hours yesterday. Got 6 smallies all 17-19″, couple of smaller ones. Big ones were smashing a 120 size Choppo.

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Mike wrote:

Got on the Mississippi north of Brainerd for a few hours yesterday. Got 6 smallies all 17-19″, couple of smaller ones. Big ones were smashing a 120 size Choppo.

Nice. How was the river depth up there?

Looked to be down 5-6 feet at least. Plenty of water for a kayak. Spoke with a gentleman who had a nice jon boat setup, sounds like he’s been fishing that stretch for years. Said he’s seeing rocks he never knew were there.

I ran about 10-12 miles above the dam in Brainerd on Thursday. I couldn’t tell that it was down much at all. Could make it to all my spots. Fishing was decent. Will get better. Good luck. Ive seen it from the road on the way to Crosby, and it’s lower than I’ve ever seen it.

Fished Whitefish in fishing league tonight. Bass weren’t plentiful, but fat. Chatterbaits and jigs on the weed edge were pretty effective. The slimmer were everywhere. Lost about half a pound of tungsten weights tonight. Fun tho

ssaamm wrote:

Fished Whitefish in fishing league tonight. Bass weren’t plentiful, but fat. Chatterbaits and jigs on the weed edge were pretty effective. The slimmer were everywhere. Lost about half a pound of tungsten weights tonight. Fun tho

Hey Ssaamm, any feel for where the smallmouth are right now in the lakes around Brainerd/Longville? On the flats moving yet, rock piles, etc? Thx

Fry,
I fished a lake in the brainerd/ garrison area last weekend.
We found small smallmouth on deep rocks in good numbers but the bigger fish were up on shallow flats. We caught our biggest smallmouth while targeting largemouth on jigs and chatterbaits.
The bigger largemouth we’re also up shallow in bull rushes.

grubson wrote:

Fry,
I fished a lake in the brainerd/ garrison area last weekend.
We found small smallmouth on deep rocks in good numbers but the bigger fish were up on shallow flats. We caught our biggest smallmouth while targeting largemouth on jigs and chatterbaits.
The bigger largemouth we’re also up shallow in bull rushes.

I can attest to this, because I was there lol.
I was surprised to see only small fish on deeper rocks and all big fish coming from shallows. I was more shocked to catch and see bigger smallies on jigs and chatterbaits near docks. And my next morning out near chisago was more or less the same story but all large mouth

Good stuff, thx guys…

It was pretty slow for me in the Brainerd area last night, primarily targeting smallmouth. Got about 6 fish in the 1-2lb range, on three different baits. Topwater, xrap, tube. Only the tube was deeper, but that was still only about 14ft. There were a lot of surfacing fish, both on the tops of shallow rocks but also off to the edges over 20+ fow. Needless to say there wasn’t a strong pattern at all.

Surface temp was 70 degrees.

How about buzzbaits around reeds for smallmouth?

FryDog62 wrote:

How about buzzbaits around reeds for smallmouth?

I did not try as the lake I was on does not have very many reeds.

I’ve spent most of my time on the River lately. I do need to run up to Woman or Blackwater soon. I’m not much help.

This weekend the fish were hit and miss for me. I could not get a great pattern going. It seemed 1 each on every kind of lure imaginable. Over all a bass jig and craw was over all the best, spinnerbaits for some reason were no good for me odd. Got some on Ned rigs they were bigger fish but not many numbers water temp for me is around 69 degrees. The small pike were sure stealing baits ouch on the pocket book.

mrpike1973 wrote:

This weekend the fish were hit and miss for me. I could not get a great pattern going. It seemed 1 each on every kind of lure imaginable. Over all a <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass jig and craw was over all the best, spinnerbaits for some reason were no good for me odd. Got some on Ned rigs they were bigger fish but not many numbers water temp for me is around 69 degrees. The small pike were sure stealing baits ouch on the pocket book.

Fish were very scattered for us as well. 1 or 2 here and there. The docks gave up a few, bullrush did as well, along with deeper weeds. But slow weekend overall

mrpike1973 wrote:

The small pike were sure stealing baits ouch on the pocket book.

I have caught a lot of these things lately. I mostly avoided them in June/July, presumably because it was so hot and dry and sunny all the time, but they must be making up for lost time now.

Slimy, aggressive, and over populated in many lakes. No wonder the bag limit is 10 daily.

Slow day on Mille Lacs for me on Saturday. Started off with a decent smallie in about 10′ of water over some rocks., trolling a jointed flicker shad. Then got that bit off by something big and toothy. Nothing the rest of the day until the end, spent too much time moving around. Saw some marks deep but couldn’t get them to bite, and too windy to do any finesse fishing in the kayak. At the end of the day heading back to the launch managed a pair of 4.5 pounders, one in about 5′ on a flicker shad and the other right on the edge of the reeds on a wakebull.

Sunday on the north Mississippi was a bit slow until evening. Plenty of smaller fish were deep, but got a handful of 17-19″ fish on top water.

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Nice work Mike. Sounds like the river is producing brown bass for ya.

Slow for me, weeds seem to be more isolated, tried plastics and cranks. Only caught fish on cranks, steady retrieve was best.

Brought out the old buzzer “Rusty Barngate” on Saturday. West metro, water temp 66 degrees, air temp at daybreak 46… gotta love the steam rising off the water this time of year!

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Things have definitely slowed down for me since August which was on fire. A fish here, a fish there, nothing real big and no consistent pattern either. Still observing almost 70 degree water temps too.

Nope no fish in blackwater. What’s a blackwater? There’s no fish there.

Can’t wait till the smallies find their winter holes.

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Slow weekend for me as well a few bass on weed edges not many small pike are killing my tackle inventory The water 69 degrees water very dirty and riled up.

I fished kabtogama over the weekend. 65 water temp. Smallies liked top waters and that was about it. They were a tough bite. But whopper plopper 110 in perch pattern was the one that got the big fish. They all hit on or after a pause.

Had a few snakes on that lure as well, but no bite offs.

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Temp was 87 Sunday. 57 today and rain. Fished a bit. The bigger ones were out. Not big numbers, but got a 4-12 and a few other nice ones Water temp 66. Tx rig chigger craw 1/2 oz weight. It’s going to be a good next 4 weeks.

Was out on White Bear this morning for about 5 hours. Found a nice cranking bite with good numbers. Not much for size but caught many on the perch DT10. Fishing on main lake points in about 15-20 fow with weed tops coming up to 10-15 ft. Burning the DT10 through the tops.

It turned out to be one of the most frustrating days of fishing I’ve had though. I lost more fish after hooking up than I ever have including two 3 lbers right at the boat. The smaller bass I caught I couldn’t get the hooks out and the big girls seemed like I was fishing with barbless trebles. Can’t explain it. Going to have to change the trebles out. Good thing is, I think we are entering the crankbait frenzy.

mahtofire14 wrote:

It turned out to be one of the most frustrating days of fishing I’ve had though. I lost more fish after hooking up than I ever have including two 3 lbers right at the boat. The smaller bass I caught I couldn’t get the hooks out and the big girls seemed like I was fishing with barbless trebles. Can’t explain it. Going to have to change the trebles out. Good thing is, I think we are entering the crankbait frenzy.

I had the same thing a few weeks ago. Lost a number of nicer fish, but the dinks were hooked solidly.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Was out on White Bear this morning for about 5 hours. Found a nice cranking bite with good numbers. Not much for size but caught many on the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>perch DT10. Fishing on main lake points in about 15-20 fow with weed tops coming up to 10-15 ft. Burning the DT10 through the tops.

It turned out to be one of the most frustrating days of fishing I’ve had though. I lost more fish after hooking up than I ever have including two 3 lbers right at the boat. The smaller bass I caught I couldn’t get the hooks out and the big girls seemed like I was fishing with barbless trebles. Can’t explain it. Going to have to change the trebles out. Good thing is, I think we are entering the crankbait frenzy.

Interesting, did they break water when they came un-hooked?