Tetonka Help?

I’ll be fishing Tetonka for the first time this Sunday, targeting most anything that swims. Any advice would be appreciated.

Paul V,

Sure, I can help… I am your man…. and glad to help!

Little known is that Tetonka has Tiger Muskies! I have seen one caught and heard many stories of lost fish.

Truth be known, there are many in the lake. Nobody fishing for them… so , take your “big guns” too! Live bait sucker rigging on a “dead stick” is a good idea (also for big northerns). So if you can, have a big (12″ or so) sucker following you behind the boat. On a big bobber with a steel leader or a spinner rig (spinner in front makes the two-hook rigs legal in MN).

Walleyes? Work the windy side of the lake. You have little competition. Locals try to stay out of the wind there. Start with “raps” in #11 or #13 in blue/white or tiger. Do this to see if the fish are not in under 8′ or less… like up on grass flats. Then go to deeper-diving Shad Raps. Not 8′ to 15′ then try Lindy-rigs (crawlers or minnows) in deeper drops near weed flats. I would guess the wind will have these fish up shallow…. but the cold front may force them deeper…?? You go see.

Work the inlet and outlet early and late, if it is overcast…all day can work at these places. The shallow markers on mid-lake is a good feeding flat, work the weed edges (should be some weeds yet real shallow maybe 3′). Once you hit a fish, ancohr and work the area good with live bait rigs, bobbers, and jigs. Return later and try again. Work the points at least into 3′ shallow. Sometimes the are real shallow in the wind/waves, and work shallow wind breaks behind points where there is a “slobber” line of white foam. Bait fish will hold in/under this stuff at and just below the surface.

Hawger

Hawger, thanks for the info. The DNR lake survey on their website didn’t mention muskies that I noticed, but I’ll give it a shot based on your tip. I did notice that they stock channel cats in Tetonka. I’m not much of a cat-man, but thought I might give that a try as well. Do you have any info on the catfish in Tetonka (size, numbers, location, etc)?

Yep, a fellow at Best Point Resort took a big catfish last year. I am thinking it was about 15lbs or so.

The musky thing on Tetonka has been a well kept secret… till now!

The story goes that the DNR hatchery drained a pond into the lake years ago with Musky fingerlings in it … by mistake. Sabre, Tetonka, and Sakatata are a captive river system and the Muskies are there to stay. The one I saw taken was 44 inches. Taken on 6lb test with a beetle spin and a wire leader. Hawger

Thanks again, Hawger. I’ll let you know next week how it goes this weekend.

Hawger, pure bred muskies or tiger muskies? Tigers are sterile and so when the fish in the lake die off there wont be any more muskies in the lake unless the DNR stocks more.

Is zat so… hum….did not know this. Well, it looked like a tiger to me. And I saw it real close up. I let the guy who landed it use my net. I have only seen them mounted and this one had all the “markings” of a tiger.

Like I said, the story is that they got into the lake by mistake. And it is not a designated Musky lake. this happened some years ago. The sizes are all real big that have been caught in recent years, lately I have heard of no small ones caught. So…. perhaps they are not reproducing in there. So they are limited in their numbers then. Thanks for the info!

Hawger

Hawger, I said I’d report on my trip to Tetonka last Sunday, so here goes: 2 guys, 8 hours, 2 14″ walleyes. I talked to several other people that fished there last weekend, and we actually did better than anybody else I talked to. We tried just about everything, but just couldn’t get anything to bite.

Oh well, it was a pretty nice day on the water, in spite of the wind, and if I’d been home my wife would’ve had me painting the basement. Worse yet, I may’ve watched that pitiful Vikings game.