Nokomis via boat

Just got a bow-mount and took the opportunity to get on Lake Nokomis, an electric-only lake in South Minneapolis. Let me start by saying that launching a glass boat with nothing but a bow-mount is a tricky thing. At this location it involves very long bow and stern lines, a nice shove off the trailer, and wading up to your waist. Launching was easy compared to loading. There’s a nice protected harbor but when there are several sail boats tied up it can be tricky.

I spent most of Monday just getting to know the lake. Lots of trolling around pulling cranks and lindy rigging for the first time. Away from the shoreline the lake has very little structure, lots of sandy flats and no junk floating around. That and the limited traffic make it a great “practice” lake for new techniques. I’m going to get up to speed on bottom bouncing here as well.

I threw everything I had at this lake: Crankbaits both trolled and casted (reef runner, thunder stick, flickr shad); Swim baits (Storm Swim Shad and 360gt in a couple different sizes and colors); Lindy rigged with crawlers; Slip bobbers with crawlers and leeches; and slow dragging & jigging with a bunch of different plastics — ringworms, moxies, and pulse-r’s in white, chartreuse, blue oyster, and firecracker chartreuse.

So how’d I do? On Monday I managed a perch fingerling and a couple of over-zealous sunnies on the slip bobber & enormous leeches that came with me from Tutt’s in Garrison. And right at the end of the day I pulled a perfect 17″ eater walleye from about 10 feet of water, flat sand bottom. 1/4 oz white Bfishin h20 jig with the firecracker chartreuse ringworm. On Tuesday I spent WAY too much time fishing that same spot with the same presentation and got skunked — but I had a NICE fish almost to the net that I lost due to my own shoddy knot. Was using the same jig & ringie from the previous day and I should’ve checked and re-tied it for day two. Dumb. And now there’s a fat mid-20-inch eye swimming around Nokomis with an h20 jig stuck on its lip. Sorry about that buddy!

All in all, for those days when leaving the metro just isn’t feasible, it’s a good local option. I’d go back. There are definitely fish to be had. Marked ’em all day. Might have to beef up the tackle and try for muskies some time this summer as they’re in there as well. One note — the most recent DNR summary says that water quality on the lake is such that you should not even bother looking for fish deeper than 13 fow. That report is 7 years old and I don’t think it’s accurate any more, based on my observations on the FF. There were some marks as deep as 18-20.

Given the lack of structure on that lake you should probably spend more time fishing the bridge-if I were to fish there right now I would spend about half the time at that bridge. The walter you caught was probably not relating to anything too specific so work areas quickly and move on. I had one great day out there and about 6 other trips that were either so so or bad. You do well on the river based on your other posts; in town you should pick another lake and focus on bass (my 2 cents)
Good Luck

tim hurley wrote:

Given the lack of structure on that lake you should probably spend more time fishing the bridge-if I were to fish there right now I would spend about half the time at that bridge. The walter you caught was probably not relating to anything too specific so work areas quickly and move on. I had one great day out there and about 6 other trips that were either so so or bad. You do well on the river based on your other posts; in town you should pick another lake and focus on bass (my 2 cents)
Good Luck

Thanks for the thoughts Tim! I’ve heard Harriet and Calhoun are worth checking out, especially the latter for bass. I’m still getting the hang of my bow-mount so I wanted to start small and low-traffic.

We did spend time at the bridge but only an hour or so. Noted for future! I think the thing about Nokomis that surprised me most was that the fish were obviously scattered and we still struck out trolling despite covering LARGE swaths of the lake. The fish were pretty neutral I guess. Lots of forage to keep their bellies full.

Nokomis just does not have many fish and actually Hariet does not either. Harriet does have some larger fish though and can be good right at sunset. Calhoun has more than the other 2 combined but does have tricky structure, you can be in the zone, sneeze or stop to look at ‘nature’ and be in 50′ of water! At Calhoun I sometimes throw a marker out to stay on structure.
Good Luck!