Maiden rock/Methodist point lake pepin report…..

I’m am sorry to report that the bite is still slow or nonexistent. Today myself and 23 other friends got together on a mission to find figure out the bite today. We spread out over a mile and a half part of the lake and after a whole day sunrise to sunset our entire group had three keeper saugers one crappie and three white bass. We also released 2 small saugers a cat fish and a sheep head. We hit the lake with force and fished our buts off I don’t have much of an explanation for the lack of fish in this area this year but the sauger population were used to seeing there is not. Cameras today showed 90 percent sheep head and the rest of the fish sightings were stripers. We never did see a sauger or walleye on camera. The few fish we caught were on jigging raps tipped with a minnow head and on plain hook with minnow or shiner. I have never been a part of covering that much water and seeing so few fish. Good luck too you guys hopefully at some point this year we can get a decent ice bite down there.

Drew,

I would like to suggest something I found on my last outing out there!

useing a rap tipped with a minnow I had several fish come in and chase but would not eat! ended up switching to a buckshot tipped with a minnow head with the same results! out of frustration i had two fish chasing and would not bite so I RIPPED on the rod a couple times with bad intentions! I am sorry!! anyway nothing happened but then as the buckshot came to rest.. BAMMM!! fish on.. I figured my minnow head had fallen off with my violent rips.. So I dropped it back down with no minnow.. in about 20 mins. I got 3 more keeper fish nothing big.. then I switched over to a #5 Perch rap did not tip it with a minnow and ended the day catching over 20 fish..

Long story short.. there are fish out there.. They may have just been laying low today!

Thanks for report even if not what we want to hear. Good read while I am sitting at airport.

Drew I had the same results as you today! I spent six hours on the lake moving around punching lots of holes ,thinking that I could find them and didn’t catch a single fish! Did have a few lookers on the flasher but very few compared to the past years. I wont drive on the ice so it was good workout walking all over h#l!, dragging the shack and hand drilling thru 20 inches of ice. Burned off enough calories so I can pig out during the game today!

I’ve been following reports closely this year from several guys that have been fishing it regularly and hitting up everybody I know that’s tried it and that area just hasn’t held the numbers it has in the past. I had 8 keep able fish one day a few weeks ago They all came as fast as I could get my bait down until they were gone I never marked fish like that again this year. What that’s telling me is that yes there are fish there but they’re roaming and they are not many roaming schools out there.

I’ve been there three times in the last week in the mornings. Marked lots of fish every time for the first hour of light. Last Sunday before the front, caught them like crazy. THe next day marked a lot again but only caught 2. Today same story but only caught 1. I never thought to try fishing without a minnow head. WHo knows. At least I’m marking fish to play with. Been a strange year for sure.

I hear ya, it’s been terrible,not a keeper for me this past week and only a few small ones when they did bite

Of the keepers taken home has anyone opened a stomach to see what they are feeding on? I try to when I can just to see if anything is changing.

I did and seen nothing that was able to identify just a little mush