Good afternoon, been doing some research on the lakes around Faribault. Wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a starting lake to target walleyes. Just hoping to try and get on a few and if its slow have panfish to fall back on if possible. As of right now I’m leaning towards French Lake or Roberds. Thanks guys!
I was on horseshoe looking for a bite on Saturday. Looking for walleye or settling for crappies. I got neither just some pike and perch. 12 inches of ice and half tons driving out.
I have fished both lakes you mentioned and not much help. I think I have caught one walleye in 30 or trips around Fairbault over 25 years. That was on Elysian trolling cranks! Let me know if you get one. Much easier on the river.
Got one out there ice fishing exactly one week after the season was closed.
Faribault area is better for panfish than walleye 10 days of the week. There are some but not many, normally are small, and hard to get. The Faribault area never comes up when I am thinking of going for walleye. I think Pepin.
Where on Pepin would you go out of? I’m fairly new to SE Minnesota and have been looking for some walleye.
In my past life I’ve drilled thousands of holes in that area.
I don’t envy anyone trying to consistently catch walleye around there.
Best advise I can give is bites typically start and end abruptly. Classic structure at sun up and sun down. Drill early and let things settle. Hole hop a pattern on holes on classic structure. Bites between witching hours are typically poor.
Don’t miss fishing them lakes that’s for sure
Yeah I’m in Rochester and looking to target walleyes through ice. Not a lot of options for hard water on the river especially with the power plant going in Red Wing. Is there some options for eyes through ice on pepin? Any general ideas where to start would be greatly appreciated.
I haven’t drilled Mississippi ice in over 6 years, but when I did I went out of Frontenac and the next access south.
There’s some current running past Frontenac so use caution.
You get below pool 4 and there is lot of backwater to ice fish. I’m not pulling my ice fishing stuff out of storage this winter but will likely explore pools 5-9 next year on the ice.
I don’t mean to shy you away from fairbo area, mainly setting expectations.
the problem with most of the lakes in the faribault area is people keeping small fish if you look most of the lakes in that area are stocked quite well but as soon as the walleyes get around 12 to 13 inches the lakes gets pound and they fish most of these fish out should have slot limit on all lake south of st cloud i grew up on sheilds and it use to be a great walleye lake but not any more
Always best to fish lakes with natural reproduction, no stocked only lake will ever be better than ‘good’ for more than a year. All those lakes down there have been boom/bust for years.
Yeah I’m in Rochester and looking to target <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleyes through ice. Not a lot of options for hard water on the river especially with the power plant going in Red Wing. Is there some options for eyes through ice on pepin? Any general ideas where to start would be greatly appreciated.
you can catch em out of hoksila, maiden rock and frontenac beach. i have never tried the first 2 on ice but have gotten a few out of frontenac beach. there is current there and inconsistent ice as you go out further into the channel and especially on the point. seems someone always goes in there every year.
Always best to fish lakes with natural reproduction, no stocked only lake will ever be better than ‘good’ for more than a year. All those lakes down there have been boom/bust for years.
Is there a single lake in that area that actually has a reasonable amount of natural reproduction? I’m gonna say no. They all rely on artificial stocking and I’m fairly sure that most lakes/rivers other than the big ones with sustained natural reproduction have stocking to keep them going. Heck, even Upper Red was stocked at one point.
That being said, if you time it right on a small lake that has recently been stocked, you can still catch some fish. It will probably never be better than an outing at a big walleye strong hold though and to expect that would be foolish.
We have caught smallish walleye on each lake up there. roberds we’ve caught the most.
Thanks for that info! I’m stuck between French and Roberds. Decent panny bite on roberds? Looking for something to fall back on if I get skunked on the walleyes..
Mazaska would be another good option to consider. Some walleye are had and a decent panfish lake. Also, Lake Byllsbe in Cannon Falls is another good fishery.
We don’t really like fishing Roberds we’ve had marginal success.
We have caught our largest panfish on Mazaska and French. We kind of make are way away from shanty town and find humps and or basin edges.
Cedar we’ve caught a lot of panfish on the basin edges as well.
Canon we have only done real well on Perch 2 years. the other years its been very hit or miss.
How is the ice at Frontenac Beach? That’s the only place I’ve been looking for eyes within an hour of Utica.
G-No natural walleye reproduction anywhere in the southern 1/3 of the state (except for rivers) timing like some have said is key, good luck, lots of people are keeping very small fish. Friend of mine knew a guy who lived down there and fished A LOT he would give us good info, that’s about what you need to do well.
Tim Hurley, last fall I talked to the DNR in Waterville and was wondering what happened to all the big walleyes we caught in Madison during the fall of 2016 and 2017. He never really answered that. I then asked him if they have stopped stocking it. He talked around that by saying there is some natural reproduction taking place there. The last thing he said was not to be optimistic about walleye fishing there for the next couple of years. 
Like everything natural reproduction is not black and white, the way I have heard it walleyes in all systems attempt to spawn, they have great success, no success and everything in between. My only point is to not expect the DNR to stock a lake to the point where its a great fishery, they are lucky if they can bring it up to ‘good’. Lakes have cycles too and to some extent you have to accept that, Red lake had a fluke crappie spawn that may never happen again in our lives, crappies are still spawning out there, but not where it will produce millions of fish.
Faribault lakes are very fertile and most do not have gobs of stunted pike, why they stock fish in a lake like Big Marine puzzles me but if they stopped now people would complain, the DNR has the ‘fun’ job of trying to keep everyone happy.
Fished French yesterday. One perch and two 8 inch crappies. Nothing wanted to bite. I’ve heard those lakes are more of a night bite as well. I suppose I will try Frontenac beach next weekend.
G-No natural walleye reproduction anywhere in the southern 1/3 of the state (except for rivers)
This is about as accurate as CNN. I would bet SW MN lakes (Sarah, Shetek, Benton, Shakotan, etc) have a lot more than people give credit.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tim hurley wrote:</div>
G-No natural walleye reproduction anywhere in the southern 1/3 of the state (except for rivers)This is about as accurate as CNN. I would bet SW MN lakes (Sarah, Shetek, Benton, Shakotan, etc) have a lot more than people give credit.
There is probably some natural reproduction to a certain extent in some lakes. I don’t think Tim’s comment was meant to be taken literally. The majority of southern MN lakes do primarily rely on artificial stocking though. That information is easily available on the DNR’s website. The type of habitat walleyes need to spawn and reproduce naturally is widely known and if a lake doesn’t have much of it (or any at all), we know that it’s not happening there. Many of these shallow prairie lakes could also receive winter kill because they aren’t very deep.
Ok, did I paint with a broad brush, maybe. Jake, Shetek as you know is full of Walters, are they succesfully spawning in that silty lake or going up into an inlet river? Not a biologist. That lake has excellent numbers because of a combination of natural reproduction & stocking. I got compared to CNN! Dang!
Ok, did I paint with a broad brush, maybe. Jake, Shetek as you know is full of Walters, are they succesfully spawning in that silty lake or going up into an inlet river? Not a biologist. That lake has excellent numbers because of a combination of natural reproduction & stocking. I got compared to CNN! Dang!
Yes, I will agree with that. There is plenty of inlets in these lakes for them to spawn in/around. I know the lake Sarah strain is stocked in a high number of lakes around the State, due to the fact it has such a high natural reproduction number.
Is there a single lake in that area that actually has a reasonable amount of natural reproduction? I’m gonna say no. They all rely on artificial stocking and I’m fairly sure that most lakes/rivers other than the big ones with sustained natural reproduction have stocking to keep them going. Heck, even Upper Red was stocked at one point.
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There isn’t a ton of natural reproduction in southern MN. Lake Shetek and Lake Sarah have decent natural reproduction but they are also heavily stocked. However, there is allot of lakes in the northern half of the state that rely solely on natural reproduction. Even small lakes. The only reason Red lake was ever stocked was because it was severely over-fished and the walleye population crashed. (side note on the URL walleye crash. Walleyes and Crappies compete, so once the walleyes were diminished that gave crappies the chance to flourish until the walleyes came back)
One of the main reasons southern MN doesn’t have much natural reproduction is because of the land use. All of that siltation from agriculture covers up the bottom substrate. There’s lakes that have 8 feet of silt covering the bottom! Not all of those lakes historically had never ending mud bottoms. Allot of that is runoff from farm fields. If you drive around southern MN in the winter look in the road ditches. They are all black with soil that blew off the surrounding fields because everyone tills everything into oblivion. All that runs into our lakes as well. Walleyes really struggle to spawn when their preferred spawning habitat is covered in silt.
If you actually look into walleye numbers and catch rates on some of the lakes that are stocked you would be appalled. The DNR should probably end stocking on 20% of the lakes they currently stock. The problem is, once you start stocking a lake the public won’t allow you to stop, even if it’s pointless. You can go to some of these lakes and talk to the cabin owners and they will all tell you the same story about Joe fisherman 10 years ago that caught two walleyes. They are all telling the same story. Dumping a bunch of walleyes in a lake that can’t support them doesn’t make fishing better. It’s just a waste of money. BUT people don’t know enough about aquatic ecosystems to realize that. A good proportion of our stocking is just theater.
I worked near a small lake in the Metro area. I would walk around it in the summer for my lunch break. Saw the DNR stocking Walleye fry one day and had a good talk with them. They were using this lake as an experiment. Over a few year, I talked with them probably 20 times, and there were several million Walleye fry stocked yearly over the period of maybe 10 years, with fingerlings mixed in some years.
Well, long story short, there is no measurable evidence of a Walleye population in this lake today. I started fishing in in the Spring, just to find out for myself, and picked up a couple of Walleye, but nothing big or many.
Last conversation with DNR, they said it was fruitless, and also said the this is the expected outcome in about 75% of lakes they stock. Same statement, public will not allow them to stop even though science shows it is not working.
Completely agree with Armchair Biologist and Toddrun. Stocking walleyes in some lakes has been useless for years. Not only because of lack of suitable habitat, but also because of the over-abundance of small, aggressive pike. Those things gorge on walleye fry and fingerlings. Its just a buffet.
These are problems that can be fixed though. Improve lake quality/habitat and remove the small pike. It takes time, funding, and will power from the politicians and authorities though.
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