Top 5 Pike lakes

What are your top 5 open water Pike lakes in Minnesota. Including Lake of the Woods but excluding Rivers. Where would you open water fish for Trophy Pike?

I cant give you a top 5 but I know what my #1 would be. Rainy Lake.

Red lake,burntside,cass,mille lacs

LOTW for me. I’ve fished Rainy quite a bit for pike and my experience has been LOTW produces more big fish and is a much easier body of water to pattern.

Federal wrote:

Red lake,burntside,cass,mille lacs

Yep, I need to try Burntside & Cass. I’ve done Rainy, Red & Mille Lacs. Won’t return to Mille Lacs and didn’t like fishing Red, to much of a bowl and shallow.

James Holst wrote:

LOTW for me. I’ve fished Rainy quite a bit for pike and my experience has been LOTW produces more big fish and is a much easier body of water to pattern.

Your Muskie show last week guarantee’s I’ll be on LOTW next summer.

Another I’ve heard great things about but haven’t been able to fish is Basswood. Basswood is the lake that produced the current state record pike. It also has a 25 HP limit on the lake if memory serves. Every pike guy I talk to about big fish invariably gushes about the quality of the bite.

I really want to get into a shallow water pike bite that I can throw streamer flies at. I see these videos, 99% of them out of Europe, and it looks fantastic. Hmmm….road trip……

I have fished basswood for 10 or 12 years, normally focus on walleye, some of my buddies have gotten in to some good ones, but I know the potential is there.

One of the things that turned me on at Leech musky fishing was that the pike would keep thing interesting while in pursuit of its cousin!!! I lost one fish that hit boat side on the east side that I thought was an estimated 40″-42″ long, then caught and released a 38″ fish an hour later and based on its size I told my brother that I would make that 40″-42″ more like 42″-45″. While we saw muskies the pike were the action fish that kept us going!!! Only got into a few pike (biggest 38″) musky fishing on Mille Lacs, but have heard that population has gotten better… Can only imagine either or any of those border lakes from LOTW all the way to the east including Crane and Kab. The BWCA showed us a few big pike back in the day, but we were canoeing and not really chasing the big fish.

Mark

I got to fish Basswood a lot and guided a lot of people to very large pike up there. I would rank that Lake #1 I have had 50″ fish in the boat, and have heard many people talk about 50″+ northern in that lake. It also holds the North American Record and if that were to be beat it will come out of Basswood, I am sure the smallie record will be beat by a Basswood Lake fish too. I’m not ready to give away the secret areas yet. Part of it is in the motorized zone and a majority of it is outside the motorized zone and goes into the quetico. Its an amazing lake has big everything in and even the people who motor into the lake do not fish it too hard. Its big and intimidating for most people. I got a lot of lakes I would list as top 5 lakes in the BWCA that go untouched. #2 would be Mille Lacs, the number of 40″+ fish that lake has is unreal I hope it does not get fished out for them because there are a lot of little ones too.
#3 Birch Lake in Ely/Babbit Minnesota a 20 mile long lake that buts up to the BWCA and connects with multiple rivers with very low pressure.
#4 I have to include my home Lake Leech on this list. Numbers are awesome here and many people catch their personal best on this lake.
#5 Mine pits in Crosby Minnesota. Lakes filled with trout that you have to hike into. Talk about a gold mine for very large pike. They are overlooked and underfished. They just got opened last year to fish for the winter. I have caught a couple fish over 40″ in those waters from a canoe.
Lake of the woods I am sure has some very large fish in it but I cannot rank that one since I have never fished it before. The other lake I would rank up there is Vermilion and Red Lake. Very little pike pressure on either of those lakes and good food sources. I have seen some very large pike get caught in Vermilion. I like to fish for walleye but chasing big pike with a fly rod is one of my favorite things to do. You don’t have to go to Canada to find big pike.

Mark, I spent a bunch of time on the deep basin of Namakin last summer. Marked many fish deep that I can only assume were Whitefish. Maybe I’m wrong. Anyway there had to be big,big Pike feeding on those. How to get down there to get ’em is the question. Every fall lots of big Pike are caught up there and they have to be somewhere during the summer. Wish I had the answer to fishing deep in the heat of July & August for those Pike because they have to be there.

Good old-fashioned speed trolling with spoon plugs.

Dusty Gesinger wrote:

Good old-fashioned speed trolling with spoon plugs.

These fish are in 75+ feet of water. Speed trolling won’t get it done IMO. I agree speed trolling is a good presentation but it generally works in water 25′ deep and under. At least thats what I’ve found. Others may have figured it out.

LOTW, Basswood, Mille Lacs, Grindstone, any BWCA lake with whitefish or the like

Dutchboy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Dustin Gesinger wrote:</div>
Good old-fashioned speed trolling with spoon plugs.

These fish are in 75+ feet of water. Speed trolling won’t get it done IMO. I agree speed trolling is a good presentation but it generally works in water 25′ deep and under. At least thats what I’ve found. Others may have figured it out.

Do you think you could release a fish taken from 75 feet of water? Might be pretty tough on the fish.

Good point Steve, however at this point it doesn’t matter, I can’t catch ’em anyway.

Rainy lake north west side is hard to beat.

Another lake that has some super tanker pike is lake burntside. Not big numbers but some fish well over 25#

And Devils lake ND.

I would say LOTW, Rainy, Basswood, Birch, and a lake that I just cant say. These lakes aren’t in any order. Now if you are talking about anywhere in the world. I would say Wollaston lake, Lake Winnipeg, a couple lakes in Sweden and I would throw LOTW or rainy in there as well.

TheguN wrote:

Rainy lake north west side is hard to beat.

Another lake that has some super tanker pike is lake burntside. Not big numbers but some fish well over 25#

And Devils lake ND.

When you say West side you talking North Arm? Or US side West of the Brule Narrows?

Steve Root wrote:

I really want to get into a shallow water pike bite that I can throw streamer flies at. I see these videos, 99% of them out of Europe, and it looks fantastic. Hmmm….road trip……

I fish NYS and Ontario for pike (many good sized fish (32 to 42+)”). If you want them shallow why not fish them in May, June and again in later fall. These fish should be in (4 to 10)’ of water. They should hold shallow in just about any body of water during these months. In Conesus where I often fish most of the bigger fish move to the Thermocline in July – September to chase alewives.

Good luck

Allan Davis wrote:

I would say LOTW, Rainy, Basswood, Birch, and a lake that I just cant say. These lakes aren’t in any order. Now if you are talking about anywhere in the world. I would say Wollaston lake, Lake Winnipeg, a couple lakes in Sweden and I would throw LOTW or rainy in there as well.

If your talking Canada more 40+ inchers (up to > 50″) likely come out of Kesagami then probably anywhere else. Location just south of Moosonee.

North arm. Canadian side..

Dutchboy wrote:

Mark, I spent a bunch of time on the deep basin of Namakin last summer. Wish I had the answer to fishing deep in the heat of July & August for those Pike because they have to be there. ” />

Dutch:

I think the only thing you can really do is to fish the biggest deepest baits you can find to troll… and then just run ’em in 25′-30′ of water over that 75′. Deep is going to be the way to go… Dipseys maybe??? I still wouldn’t run a lot deeper than 30′- 40′ for the health of the fish. I rearely fish deeper than 35′ for ‘eyes.

I got to Rainy last summer as a friend has a cabin just on the Canadian side… We were fishing ‘eyes in late July and everytime we got bit in 30’ of water I wondered if we’d find a big pike. Cabin owner says lots of nice fish… I fished with 20# floro just in case of the toothies… just in case I could hang on to the big fish for the NP pool…

Thanks Mark that’s what I was doing with no success I hoped maybe somebody would have a another idea. One thing i need to do is find out for sure what I’m seeing on my locator. Might need to try and live bait something until I can pull something up from down there.

Oh well, have a few months to try and figure it out.

Dutchboy, I’ve done quite a bit of deep-water trolling on Namakan the last few years and am still trying to put together a consistently successful strategy. I use mostly Rapala Tail Dancers and similar baits. The largest one will go 30″ down. I stick to the edges of the deep basin from 30 to 40 feet. I have a few favorite pieces of structure that have produced quality pike, but not what you’d call trophy class.
My best was a semi-accidental 42″ in late June, hooked in the lily pads of Moose Bay maybe 15 feet from shore. I was fishing a tiny crank for bass when she took a swipe at it. I fished down the shoreline a ways, then put on a spinnerbait and came back to that spot. She was still there and nailed it on the first cast.

I’ve also been intrigued with all the marks on the screen over deeper water, but the little time I’ve spent away from structure hasn’t produced for me. There don’t seem to be any larger hooks that would indicate game fish among most of that stuff. According to the DNR report, they could be whitefish, ciscos, smelt or who knows what.

“Fish Species: black bullhead, black crappie, bluegill, burbot, cisco species, lake sturgeon, lake whitefish, northern pike, pumpkinseed, rock bass, sauger, smallmouth bass, tullibee (cisco), walleye, yellow perch, golden redhorse, mooneye, redhorse, shorthead redhorse, silver lamprey, silver redhorse, white sucker, golden shiner, mottled sculpin, rainbow smelt, sculpin, slimy sculpin, spottail shiner, trout-perch”

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