New to the cities area and looking for some local lakes to hit after work on weeknights. I live close by to Lake Harriet and Lake Nokomois, is either lake worth checking out? Any spot recommendations for a new guy? Any advice is appreciated!
I fish or have fished both frequently, Nokomis more so last year and Harriet this year. Depending on what you’re after, both are worth checking out. Both will surprise you with the size of fish that can come out of there…
As far as spots, on Nokomis there’s a hole in the SE corner, there’s a hole on the east side slightly off of a turn where the shore juts out a bit, and there’s the northwest area north of the beach with some structure. I think right now though they’re probably setting up for the pond hockey tournament which is scheduled for the end of the month and is always off of the beach. Again, locations depend on what you’re after.
On Harriet, quite a few folks fish off of the bandshell area, I think because it’s near the main parking lot. I’ve also seen many folks along with western shore of off the concrete shoreline. I don’t fish either of them, but I do drill until I find the weedline and go from there.
For both, check out the DNR’s website and the lake depth maps. They will be a valuable resource for deciding where to start. You can also see which fish are in the lakes. For the most part they both have crappies, sunfish, bass, walleye, pike and muskie (Nokomis has tigers I believe).
Bonawitz07 Thanks for the advice, while it would be great to catch a Muskie, I don’t believe that is what I am in search of. Mostly trying to find some Walleyes and crappies and panfish. A little more “green” on Walleye fishing however.
Have you fished around the fishing pier at all? Seems like a decent gradual drop off there.
Also what is bandshell? Term isn’t ringing any bells.
Once again thanks and tight lines!
There are two fishing piers on Harriet, one on the NW corner and one in the SW corner. I haven’t fished around either but if I had to choose one I’d go off of the SW pier. Comparing to the depth map, there’s a sharper drop off before the gradual drop from 30 to 40 feet. You may find fish relating to this drop off and because it’s a quick drop, there’d be less space to cover.
The bandshell is just the big structure in the NW corner. It’s literally a bandshell lol not sure how else to explain it. Hard to miss though. There’s a lot of parking around it.
For crappies I’d aim a little deeper and try at dusk into night. For walleye, if you’re going at the prime times at sun up or sun down I would go up shallower. I’ve had my best luck at sun down right near the weedline. If fishing during the day I’d go deeper. Harriet has a lot of varying depths and turns, it’s one of those where you’ll have to drill holes until you find what you’re looking for.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
