Knife Lake

Evening all,

Taking a break from the halftime show and was looking for some help. I just bought a cabin on Knife Lake, just outside of Mora. I’ve been fishing throughout the summer and this winter, and haven’t been able to produce much. It’s renown for the awesome crappie bite, but we’ve been coming up short just about every trip. Any tips or suggestions?

Thanks!

Check out the videos tab and give a watch to the episode Brian Myers and James did describing how to chase open basin crappies. Should be very helpful

Thanks, Will! That was helpful. However, I saw that James and Bryan were using black jigs. Knife’s visibility is generally 1-3 feet, depending on the time of year. Do you have any color suggestions regarding jig choices?

The one in my Pic is a12″ I caught out there on glow red jig with plastics.

We have a family friend who lives in Mora and have fished knife a number of times. I suggest spending some time watching the sonar and finding some structure. We always catch them on shallow brush (5-10FOW). Some awesome lakes in that area! Be sure to check out Lewis Lake for crappies too……..

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Thanks, Will! That was helpful. However, I saw that James and Bryan were using black jigs. Knife’s visibility is generally 1-3 feet, depending on the time of year. Do you have any color suggestions regarding jig choices?

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The color combinations are constantly changing even during a single fishing outing but as a general rule of thumb I like to use darker colors such as blood red or black when there is bright sunlight and glow pink or chartruese during overcast or low light conditions. If the water is stained actually using darker colors is usually better. An excellant middle of the road choice is fire tiger. Diamond jigs, ratsos, and shrimpos are my go to jigs but the next time I place an order I’ll be looking at picking up some tungsten chekai or my moon jigs as well.

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Evening all,

Taking a break from the halftime show and was looking for some help. I just bought a cabin on Knife Lake, just outside of Mora. I’ve been fishing throughout the summer and this winter, and haven’t been able to produce much. It’s renown for the awesome crappie bite, but we’ve been coming up short just about every trip. Any tips or suggestions?

Thanks!

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Maybe just start out a some of the community holes and drill. Keep drilling and moving until you find some fish. From my experience these community spots usually dont set up unless there is some history of fish being caught there. Once fish are found and you build some confidence then its time to go looking for them in other areas.

I havent fished Knife int he winter but on Ann and Fish lake a small jig and euro larve is the way to go. Its always good to have some shrimpos or ratso on hand to for when you find those crappies that want to chase something. Small jigging spoon can be good to for neutral panfish. Save the minnows for the spring time bite unless watching a minnow pull a bobber around for the day is what you want to do.

Did I mention keep moving? Unless you want to just figure out knife lake you might want to consider jumping to some of the other lakes in the area to. I have had trips up there where the bite will go dead on one lake and making the move to another produces fish again.

Good luck.

The family has had cabins on the lake for years. I haven’t fished it very hard in the last few years though.

Although the water is dirty in the summer, it clears up a lot in the winter. You’ll be surprised how clear it is right after ice out.

When I used to ice fish there, there was a predominant sunrise/sunset bite. Even more so than other lakes. We could sit there all day and not catch a fish and then pull them up one after the other in a 1 hour window at sundown.

You don’t have to look for predominant structure. You can catch panfish fishing the first break along any shoreline of the basin on the northside (area above the islands).

I haven’t ever tried ice fishing south of the islands.

Thanks for the tips, everyone! I must admit that I am a little stumped as to where the fish are. I know the lake gets quite a bit of pressure year-round. I’m glad I just got my StrikeMaster tuned up at D-Rock. Now I can actually move around a bit and punch some holes. Is Custome Jigs’ website the best place to get some tackle? Every retailer seems to be out of stock for quite awhile.

ordering online is probably your best bet since retailers are probably done ordering new product for the winter season