Lake pepin this Weekend

Rather than dealing with the crowds on opener, I went to Lake Pepin this weekend. Saturday was brutally cold and windy. I stayed in the River from Everts to the can line and managed 2 only bites on cranks. Sunday was better initially, but the winds kicked up pretty good again. We managed 5 fish for 5 hrs of fishing. 2 on bait and three on cranks. No pattern apparent. I hopped all over as the graphs was not showing me what I needed to change tactics. Temp went from 61 last week to 53 this weekend. I’m sure the cold water didn’t help but wish I saw more on the graph. Probably should have tried the back waters more but I’m still a bit timid about cruising around back there. Better weather should pick things up everywhere.

captddh wrote:

I stayed in the River from Everts to the can line and managed 2 only bites on cranks.

First you said you went to Lake Pepin. Then you said you stayed in the river. I’m all confused now. Haha.

2 of us also fished Lake Pepin yesterday with little to show for our efforts. We were the second boat to put in at Hok-si-La landing and started our day pulling cranks upstream around the Maiden Rock area. We managed 2 small saugers. On the downstream pass we picked up 1 sheepie and 1 short walleye. Seemed like more fish were being marked in 14-17 ft versus 8-12 ft.

We moved down the lake and tried straight across from Lake City as well as the area in front of the DQ. Neither of these areas produced fish. Our techniques consisted of pulling cranks on lead core and long lines. We tried a variety of colors with fish coming on UV green shad raps and wonder bread rip shads.

Hoping the warmer weather this week will turn the fish on for the weekend.

Brett

We picked up a variety pack Saturday catching a few of each; perch, sheepie, northern, smallie and northerns. Nothing of size and pulling shads on flat lines.

My guess is that this coming weekend will be much better as temps should get into the sixties. We found 57-58 Saturday.

Tried Sunday around Lake City. 1 12″ perch and that was it.

Hope the warmer weather helps in coming days.

Sure can’t get much worse.

we were the first boat out of Hok Si La on Saturday morning. Really didnt go much more than a mile or two from the landing. Pulled cranks on longline and boards. firetiger and white were all that would put fish in the boat. managed a few 16″ eyes and saugers, and 1 11″ perch. Moved up to The dam area, tried some wingdams to no avail. pulled cranks downstream, first pass put a 22″ in the boat. after that, nothing. River was cruising up by the dam.

We fished lower pepin Sunday afternoon / evening and the bite was pretty good. Mainly targeted the bottom / end of pepin trolling cranks. Fished 6 lines; 2 each of planers, lead, and bottom bouncers. on a mix of planers. Ended up with 9 “keepers” (mix of 15+” walleye and 13-17” saugers) as well as even 2 perch and crappie thrown in. Firetiger and UV shad raps produced best. Our best depth was 12 FOW that I read off a previous IDO report.

Nothing huge, but good action.

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I was down Sunday, we pulled cranks and leeches for about 6 hours. Managed about 7 keepers in the 15-17 in range and a couple over 25. I didn’t see much else being caught except a big walleye that was at least 27+.

Lake pepin.
Sunday we got 3 northerns and 4 saugers. Monday we got 1 northern and 3 eyes 14s” and 1 sauger 16″. Not bad at all.! Firetiger and minnow ( #7) cranks. Twitch stick for Northern and Bass.

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I’ve found out that if you’re trolling cranks on the Croix or Pepin, you NEED a #5-#7 firetiger shadrap in the mix!