Lake Pepin

Anyone been to Lake Pepin recently? Heading down there tomorrow. Going to do some trolling. Just curious how the bite has been. Was good a couple weeks ago.

Looking to had down on Sunday, wondering the same thing. Where do you plan on trolling? I am planning on the lower end….down from the Pickle Factory! Good luck!

I’ll be out Saturday and was out Tuesday. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you’d like to share ideas and reports.

Fishing pepin sucked Friday , trolling anyways. Verticals jigging for white bass was good tho.

Well, Pepin was not great. Leadcore produced the best result. 2.5 miles an hour.

We had a decent bite this morning immediately after the rain stopped and before the intoxicated pleasure craft started weaving through. It reminded me exactly why 90% of my fishing is done during the week.

We managed around 15 walleyes in ~2.5 hours between the 2 of us. Everything was up fairly shallow (less than 12’). All were released with everything being in the 13-20” range. There were also a half dozen tank bluegills mixed in. Everything was on a lindy rig with crawlers. Trolling cranks resulted in nothing but sheepshead in the nearby areas.

There are some huge schools of shad being pushed around by whitebass out there. It’s a great opportunity to get younger kids on fish that will put up a decent fight. We watched one flat bottom boat keep 30+ white bass. The amount of heavy metals in those fish would steer me clear from eating them, but to each their own.

I was plan on going out on Lake Pepin tomorrow morning. I was wondering if anyone had any updated reports of how things were this week and what was successful for walleyes?

I will be steering clear of the river for a while after the diesel spill.

eyeguy507 wrote:

I will be steering clear of the river for a while after the diesel spill.

If you knew how often that 1000’s of gallons of diesel fuel leaked into the ole miss by trains, you’d see how silly it is to stay away from river fishing there.

Im not saying I would fish in the spill location but a few thousand gallons of diesel spilled 55 miles from lake pepin, it won’t stop me from fishing pepin today or any other day.

It dilutes down to a non issue. As far as the EPA is concerned anyways.

You probably only hear of 1/10 spills into the river. The ones that make the news are not the only ones, nor the biggest, that happen.

LittleMinnow wrote:

I was plan on going out on Lake Pepin tomorrow morning. I was wondering if anyone had any updated reports of how things were this week and what was successful for walleyes?

I was out yesterday for 5 hours. It was extremely slow going for eyes/sauger. 3 fish total. I pulled cranks on lead and lindy rigged crawlers. There was a decent amount of grass flushing through making it somewhat tough to run cranks.

I’ve stated before and will again, that if you’re into whitebass…it’s pretty easy to catch a large number right now. We pulled cranks through one school along the channel and had all 3 lines hooked up a few seconds after marking the school. There were also a dozen or so extremely aggressive bull gills eager to hit crawlers. Practice selective harvest as the big gills are fairly easy to catch right now once you find them.

I’m not much for anchoring/spot locking and working wingdams, but if you want to get on eyes that’d be the most productive tactic. Use extreme caution if you try this tactic near the channel on the weekends. Lower P4 is notorious for pleasure craft that don’t always follow the rules of the water or remain sober.

Anybody been out this week? I plan on going out of lake city tomorrow looking for eyes.

I’ll be out tomorrow, but haven’t decided on an exact location or tactic yet.

The wing dams with decent flow have been productive for myself and others, but there’s no way I’m fighting the regularly intoxicated pleasure crafters on a Saturday in any channel to fish them. The leadcore and long-lining bite on flats and shoreline breaks has been slow to say the least in the past couple weeks for my boat. I’d look to some kind of current or tributary areas with measureably cooler water.

Good luck, be safe, wear your PFDs, and share a report.

another 21 days and a majority of the boats will hopefully be docked? At least that is when my fishing season kicks off…….can’t wait! I put in damn near 20 days of vacation in coming up so if I make it out there half that, I will be happy. I will gladly post as I go………keep the reports comin, bad or good.

Also for those coming up 63, the road is FINALLY open or so I heard. Google says closed but I heard on the radio that it is open. The economy is really kicking this year and so are hundreds of construction projects. Last 2 years MNdot has really skrewed the guys coming up 63. First it was the bridge that took 10 months to fix, now this year the stretch from ZF down south. I guarantee next year it will be closed ZF to Hammond……that stretch is pretty bad…..oh well?

eyeguy507 wrote:

another 21 days and a majority of the boats will hopefully be docked? At least that is when my fishing season kicks off…….can’t wait! I put in damn near 20 days of vacation in coming up so if I make it out there half that, I will be happy. I will gladly post as I go………keep the reports comin, bad or good.

Also for those coming up 63, the road is FINALLY open or so I heard. Google says closed but I heard on the radio that it is open. The economy is really kicking this year and so are hundreds of construction projects. Last 2 years MNdot has really skrewed the guys coming up 63. First it was the bridge that took 10 months to fix, now this year the stretch from ZF down south. I guarantee next year it will be closed ZF to Hammond……that stretch is pretty bad…..oh well?

Hate to tell you this eyeguy but 63 is now closed from zf to Cty 2. Something about replacing culverts and some black topping. I stopped by one of the watering holes in zf the other day and got the news from the bartender.

It’s not completely closed…but they are replacing culverts in spots so sections will be closed.
And the rough spots where they already replaced some. Not a good road right now to pull a boat on.
It will be a while before it’s done too. It’ll get repaved so the whole road between Roch and LC will be nice…when It’s done.

It was pretty slow going today in the lake. If you want to get on a numbers bite, the wingdams in the channel above and below the lake are best with the lower flow and high water temps. We chose not to fight the traffic of the channels today. We did however manage to see a cruiser hung up firmly on a wingdam that was clearly visible on our way by. I wish the idiots would keep to MN’s 10k+ lakes.

We managed a few tossing cranks across points early this morning before busting out the trolling rods. Flickers and JSR’s put a few fish in the boat over a couple hours. Biggest was 24″. Trolling cranks and bouncers is definitely a slow go right now from many I’ve talked to.

Started the day at the south end trolled around with little to no luck besides a few big sheephead, made our way toward the north on the minnesota side and found a few saugers that wanted to bite. Got at least 20 to end the day. Best luck was bouncing from 14 to 20 feet of water with lead. Never fished north of lake city.

63 closed

Me: “Your guys resale on that boat with all that nasty boat to boat bumper rash is gonna hurt ya”

Goodhue county CO: “Yeah we try to be careful”

Me: “Ever get any of those guys with the fancy glass sparkly boats get butthurt over some bumps?”

CO: “I am one of those fancy glass sparkly boat guys”

Me: (awkward silence)………….

Nice crew really. Always glad to be stopped and see presence.

Dragged crawlers, some spinners and cranks along shore for a lil while with no eyes to show but caught some other fish to keep it interesting.

nhamm wrote:

Me: “Your guys resale on that boat with all that nasty boat to boat bumper rash is gonna hurt ya”

Goodhue county CO: “Yeah we try to be careful”

Me: “Ever get any of those guys with the fancy glass sparkly boats get butthurt over some bumps?”

CO: “I am one of those fancy glass sparkly boat guys”

Me: (awkward silence)………….

Nice crew really. Always glad to be stopped and see presence.

Dragged crawlers, some spinners and cranks along shore for a lil while with no eyes to show but caught some other fish to keep it interesting.

I don’t get stopped often on P4, but the crews from Wabasha and Goodhue counties have been friendly and do a nice job. They’re very visible which is half the battle.

They snuck up on us in an unmarked boat. Was about to say something rude for cutting off my trolling run.

They sneaked up on you.

Steve Hix wrote:

They sneaked up on you.

So what is the proper sentence too use the word “snuck” anyhow?

Did I use the word “too” in a non gramical fashion?

riverruns wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Steve Hix wrote:</div>
They sneaked up on you.

So what is the proper sentence too use the word “snuck” anyhow?

Did I use the word “too” in a non gramical fashion?

You feaked up.