Non White Bass Report

Took my family on our anual white bass fishing trip to Lake Pepin. We fished Sunday night through Wednesday night 8/18-8/21. I started doing this trip with my dad in the early 80’s and have now continued the tradition the last few years with my own family. This has historically been a sure bet fishing trip, being that we always catch bunches of white bass. The last 4-5 years have been maybe the best fishing ever for both numbers and size of fish. However, this year we crapped out. Almost no white bass to speak of in the lake. Not sure if it’s the cold August and they will run a little later but they weren’t there this week. There also isn’t the mass abundances of baitfish in the lake that are usually there which is probably the answer. There were a few brief runs with fish busting the surface and gulls diving in but they were over quickly and mostly consisted of small fish.

It was apparent pretty quickly that the white bass fishing wasn’t going to happen so we switched gears. The great thing about any river system and especially the Pepin area is that there is almost always something willing to bite somewhere. We caught lots of bluegills, a few walleye and sauger, some catfish and even a big sturgeon. I think there was actually a decent walleye bite there to be had but the kids didn’t have the patients for me to work it out so it was off for easier prey. The walleyes we did catch were trolling crankbaits on some main lake ledges.
Even though it was a hodge-podge kind of fishing trip, the kids continually caught fish and had a great time. The sturgeon was there highlite as we caught it on an ultralite, had to pull up anchors to chase it down, my son just about dropped the pole when he saw it come to the surface and yelled “mom it’s as big as a shark” and we got it all on video.

The highlite for me was finding a northern skull inside of the bigger catfish in the photo below. Judging from the size of the skull it would have been about 16″-20″. He probably scavanged it dead off of the bottom but it’s fun to imagine him getting it another way!

For some pretty average fishing, you wouldn’t know it from listening to the kids tell about it. They thout it was awesome and there mom and I would agree that it was a great trip with great memories!

Sounds like an Awesome family trip you all will remember and look forward to doing again. I have not seen many whitebass this year on Pool 3 or 4 or the Croix this year.

Mwal

Cool. Hope to have the same fortune when mine gets older.

Great pics Thanks for sharing

Great job just going with what was biting…. I think at times when you step back a little and just go with what the water is giving up, the overall experience is going to be better.

Where are the best areas near pepin/Lake city to catch panfish/crappies? I have always been chasing the white bass, but it sounds like I better be ready for something else.

I’ve never not seen a white bass run around Labor Day on the lake and can’t imagine that they won’t eventually go. That being said though, it feels like it will be a smaller less productive run than most years. I didn’t target crappies but have found them this time of year around some of the points along the Minnesota side of the lake fishing 7-15 feet deep(sometimes in 10 feet but as deep as 20-25 FOW). Crappies even when close to the bottom will always want to feed up. When fishing crappies you do not want to have your bait below them!

Bluegills can be found along the main lake ledge off of Deer Island in 10 -15 fow but can be found in many other places in the lake along with wing dams in the river.

Thanks, Just Fish!

Has anybody seen any recent white bass life on lake pepin? Are there any still in the lake? Ha!

I was wondering the same thing. We are coming up on Wed and really would like to have some fun with the white bass. It has been a long time since they really went crazy.

Quote:

---

I was wondering the same thing. We are coming up on Wed and really would like to have some fun with the white bass. It has been a long time since they really went crazy.

---

I wish I could help but I only make one trip a year for the white bass and as I said in my report, this year I missed them for the first time. I live 3 hours away and would love to have a reliable, local resource to check the run. People just don’t follow and report on them like they do other species. I feel like so many people look down on the white bass or talk bad about them that people don’t report on them. I think they are one of the funnest fish to go after. There’s nothing like it when one of the massive schools of white bass that Pepin has erupts around you’re boat in a feeding frenzy. It’s great fun for all skill levels of fisherman. The whitebass will typically run for about 6 weeks at the end of the summer. They usually start about 2-3 weeks before Labor day and run to around the end of September. I go the week before Labor day because it fits my schedule. I also think the cold August had them behind their regular pattern this year. The fishing should be good for them right now.

I hope you are correct, Just Fish as we are headed up there in a week. Last two years there has not been good. We have a friend that lives in Pepin and he told me two weeks ago that nothing was happening yet. I also have a friend fishing up there now that told me a few days ago that the white bass are not doing anything. Where the heck did all the white bass go?

Last year the week before Labor Day was possibly the best I’ve ever seen it. Fished 4 nights in a row and every night there was at a minimum 1-1/2 hours of non stop action of huge white bass. One thing I noticed 2 weeks ago is that the huge schools of shad that keep the white bass concentrated weren’t around. Best of luck to you. I’ll be looking for your report.

Thank you. I will post my story when I get back.

Has anybody seen any gull/white bass activity on Lake Pepin between Wabasha and Lake City? Thanks!

After almost a week of fishing Lake Pepin, I can now say the White Bass are no longer living in this body of water.

Unreal. I was sure I was just early for t he run but apparently not.

We fished the week of Sept 9 from Reads Landing to Lake City and caught 3 small white bass. The gulls did fly some and dive as something did chase the bait fish, but we could get no white bass to hit our lures. The flying and diving gulls was a rare sight however. A friend of mine did find some white bass chasing bait fish near a point near Lake City. He and his brother caught about 15 nice whites. That was the only time that week that they caught anything. This is the second year in a row we have had poor white bass fishing. I have been fishing the same area for 24 years and always caught limits or near limits of white bass. Something has happened to cause these fish to just disappear. Wish I knew what is going on. I really don’t believe they are all “fished out”.

Quote:

---

Has anybody seen any gull/white bass activity on Lake Pepin between Wabasha and Lake City? Thanks!

---

We found a few 15-20 while fishing Walleyes below Lacupolis on Tuesday afternoon. Likely could have gotten more if we would have followed most of the Gull activity up shallower.

Dale, we saw some gull activity around Lacupolis every day we were there as we were fishing for perch not far from there, but could get no bites and finally gave up on the whites.