Now on Lake Pepin

eyeguy507 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>isu22andy wrote:</div>
2 different YouTubers posting videos of the bite , they’ll be twice as many people as last weekend .

no need to post this $hit. sometimes you need to shut your mouth for the sake of the fishery….too late i guess…..that poler vortex should shut them off in your defense.

Are you saying me posting that post is gonna have an effect vs the Youtubers / Facebook post I’ve seen ? The trucks falling through the ice literally was viral last weekend . Or maybe I miss understood you .

FBRM is correct . Nick said the fishery is insanely healthy .

I believe there’s a couple different group of fishermen, ones that go to spots try new things or just goes to there spots and try it out and then you have the guy that follows the “Bite”. I firmly believe you could post or make a video that you are on “X” lake and they would show up and droves! I get the lake is no secret but it drives me nuts when guys can’t keep it to themselves when they are biting, AKA advertising on Facebook etc… fish are always biting somewhere but people are lazy and follow the crowds.

Kinda reminds me of a get together on winni a number of years ago. There were about 30 of us and we fished in a bay.

Had good, but not great luck for panfish.

I got a phone call from a regular that fished the bay. He was pissed that the location was vaguely mention and the resort was named.

“I’ve fished there pretty much alone for the last 15 years and now you’ve ruined it! You know what happened to Red Lake don’t you!!”

I asked him if we were talking about panfish on Winni or walleyes on Red?

Just before he hung up on me, he said “you’ll see what it’s like in two years!! There won’t be a decent sized gill in the lake!!”

Probably didn’t help when I said if you’ve been fishing it for 15 years, maybe it’s time you let someone else fish there for a while.

Pepin is a big lake with many areas to fish and enough fish to go around.

Maybe that’s true but they felt the need to drop the limit from 6 to 4 for a good reason i’m sure, hate to see it go in the direction of Milacs.

gunnar wrote:

Maybe that’s true but they felt the need to drop the limit from 6 to 4 for a good reason i’m sure,

You should of come to one of the meetings. Both the MN and WI DNR stated the limit reduction was only for the publics pleasure. Zero reason to cut it for the fishery.

I have to be careful here. I don’t want to get FBRM riled up on the difference between what the public wants and what the science shows.

gunnar wrote:

Maybe that’s true but they felt the need to drop the limit from 6 to 4 for a good reason i’m sure, hate to see it go in the direction of Milacs.

6 walleye a day is crazy any ways. 4 per day for a single person is way more then a person needs.

gunnar wrote:

Maybe that’s true but they felt the need to drop the limit from 6 to 4 for a good reason i’m sure, hate to see it go in the direction of Milacs.

THEY altered limits based on public survey of people who have zero scientific backing of what the resource can sustain. Most of which couldn’t catch a dead squirrel in a bucket.

Hilariously, the dnr is doing creel surveys at the landing to confirm that the change has made zero impact to your catch rates.

Specifically nick addressed that the one over 20″ was completely unnecessary. Fun fact. The only 9 yr old walleyes in this system is a very small percentage of males. Females are dead before 9 years old. Do not apply any walleye knowledge you have about growth and age from lakes to this fishery… none apply.

gunnar wrote:

Maybe that’s true but they felt the need to drop the limit from 6 to 4 for a good reason i’m sure, hate to see it go in the direction of Milacs.

Don’t worry it won’t.
Not even close to the same scenario.

isu22andy wrote:

Are you saying me posting that post is gonna have an effect vs the Youtubers / Facebook post I’ve seen ? The trucks falling through the ice literally was viral last weekend . Or maybe I miss understood you .

FBRM is correct . Nick said the fishery is insanely healthy .

sorry didn’t mean to blow up at you……just mad because now i got to wake up at 3 am if i want to get a parking spot! in the past 10 years there was hardly anyone there during the week and the “bite” has been pretty spotty aside from one year when that reactor was offline in March. there may be lots of other access points but not that far up the lake on the MN side and the other ones don’t hold fish like this one.

eyeguy507 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>isu22andy wrote:</div>

Are you saying me posting that post is gonna have an effect vs the Youtubers / Facebook post I’ve seen ? The trucks falling through the ice literally was viral last weekend . Or maybe I miss understood you .

FBRM is correct . Nick said the fishery is insanely healthy .

sorry didn’t mean to blow up at you……just mad because now i got to wake up at 3 am if i want to get a parking spot! in the past 10 years there was hardly anyone there during the week and the “bite” has been pretty spotty aside from one year when that reactor was offline in March. there may be lots of other access points but not that far up the lake on the MN side and the other ones don’t hold fish like this one.

I hear ya , I dont like it as much as the next guy . A post on Facebook ice fish Minnesota page ( 95 k members ) posted a large walleye specifically stating Fr..t…c area right there for god and country to see . 492 likes , 177 comments.. 4 days ago. My point being I didnt give up any secret by posting that 2 guys made youtube videos . I have no affiliation with either of the content creators – I frequently search Mississipi river fishing videos to glean any sort of little info.

From the Strib last night

This was Adrian’s road last weekend

https://www.facebook.com/100000600872212/videos/578290607084931

The pic was from Frontenac area.

Attachments:

1. 

   Peppin.jpg
   

Done with a very long and wide track.

PS that is the original power pole.

Attachments:

1. 

   77895C0F-3F72-455C-BF6E-0D8ABA977075.jpeg
   

Eyeguy started a post in 2022 about Frontenac.

Shhh!! We don’t want the word to get out!

Brian Klawitter wrote:

Done with a very long and wide track.

PS that is the original power pole.

Man what are the odds someone polar plunges into that baby this weekend .

Oh I hope not! Sharon, stay off the river!!

One more photo…

Attachments:

1. 

   Wayne-Crane.jpg
   

I was just reading an article where they interviewed a recovery team and it was 10 grand for a recovery on Mille lacs in 33 feet without having to use a diver.

Ice took a beating from the wind on Friday. The current picked up hard and ate the ice from the bottom. What was 12″ with 7″-8″ of it clear is now 8 with only 2″ of clear. Didn’t stop a vehicle driving all the way out there without stopping to auger any holes to check. Probably not done with people going through.

Attachments:

1. 

   20230129_165225-scaled.jpg
   

Was it a circus out there this weekend ? Last weekends looks like I Should have brought a grill out and sold wieners at Frontenac .

I was driving through from picking up a trailer and swung down there to check in on 2 coworkers. They had asked me for advice earlier that week and I wasn’t real confident having not been out there since the madness…but gave them some place to start that was safe or as safe as ice gets on the river. I hate giving people ideas of where to go just solely from a safety purpose or the “what-if” factor on a river, so I took time to stop in.

They had 2 saugers and 2 jumbo perch on dead sticks from when they went out until noon or so and claimed to have “lost a nice one” – who knows what that means. They caught them right away thinking it’d be a hot day and said the herds came out afterwards and an bite went to nothing. Ice was 5″ of clear, and 4″ of slushy white crap that a spud bar would go through in one weak swing. There were NOT as many people out as the previous couple weeks, but still plenty compared to what used to fish that area 3 or 4 years ago.

Heard another side by side with tracks went through yesterday. Parked on the wing dam. Got out to drill a hole and watched it go down with all his gear. Expensive mistake

didn’t know there was a wing dam there, you must be referring to methodist point? I was out on a friday after work before the big snow and the access was still all effed up from a month ago. that point looked like open water but I was a ways off of it. fishing was ok like usual. got 3 nice sauger and some solid whitebass but it was a struggle getting them to eat. nothing on set lines and all fish came on a tiny tungsten with a Maki.
solid 5″ with another 8″ of crap on top. won’t find me out there after all the snow!

Trying their best for the Darwin award today

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_20230301_210538.jpg
   

Way to close to be driving

Attachments:

1. 

   20230301_170413-scaled.jpg
   

buckybadger wrote:

I took an old trailblazer out in that very area many times (long before the crowds and chaos of today) without issues. I’d drill and measure periodically and knew where the current generally pushed through. I’d wait for 15-16” of ice for a buffer. There’s nowhere near that this year. There are spots right now that’d swallow a small wheeler even in mid January that people are completely oblivious to.

The crowds are bringing people who don’t understand rivers or what depth changes and points due to ice as current it is deflected even hundreds of yards away. Another big issue is the measuring of ice. If it’s not clear, it’s not worth much. My last time out there early before the circus now with a tape measurer I had 9”, but after careful inspection 5” of it was clear and the rest compacted crap.

This sounds morbid, but I’ll honestly be shocked if that stretch from the mid point of the channel to the shore near point no point and methodist doesn’t take someone’s life. There’s that many people flocking to an area they do not understand.

Bump

eyeguy507 wrote:

didn’t know there was a wing dam there, you must be referring to methodist point? I was out on a friday after work before the big snow and the access was still all effed up from a month ago. that point looked like open water but I was a ways off of it. fishing was ok like usual. got 3 nice sauger and some solid whitebass but it was a struggle getting them to eat. nothing on set lines and all fish came on a tiny tungsten with a Maki.
solid 5″ with another 8″ of crap on top. won’t find me out there after all the snow!

Yes, that one was on the rock point that acts as a wing dam pushing current up and deteriorating the ice from below. Today’s was straight across from Warrentown.

He definitely shouldn’t of been were he was, but there’s a pressure ridge, crack that formed there, solid 12-13 on one side and the other. Very luck guy. By the sounds of it truck is back on shore and he’s on his way home to is family. I sure hope people spread the word and give guys the heads up that aren’t familiar with the area.

gregory wrote:

He definitely shouldn’t of been were he was, but there’s a pressure ridge, crack that formed there, solid 12-13 on one side and the other. Very luck guy. By the sounds of it truck is back on shore and he’s on his way home to is family. I sure hope people spread the word and give guys the heads up that aren’t familiar with the area.

Sorry but anyone that drives out that close because they have a “solid 12” inches of ice is an idiot. This is a river not a lake. I’ve seen almost 6 inches difference of ice thickness in the same hub shack out there but everyone drives around like it’s the same everywhere. It’s actually surprising there hasn’t been more go through and or die.

The water in Red Wing is starting to rise. It’s been around 2.60′ all winter. Yesterday and today it’s at 2.94′.

That’s 3 more inches of moving, warmer then Lake Pepin water heading down that way.

Good Luck to anyone not in a boat over the next 6 weeks.

Red Wing Water Levels 2023

Brian Klawitter wrote:

The water in Red Wing is starting to rise. It’s been around 2.60′ all winter. Yesterday and today it’s at 2.94′.

That’s 3 more inches of moving, warmer then Lake Pepin water heading down that way.

Good Luck to anyone not in a boat over the next 6 weeks.

Red Wing Water Levels 2023

Perfect. Another week or so and I can dust off the ice gear for the best bite of the season while everyone else is packing it in.