uglymutt wrote:

Does anyone know when the docks go in at Greys Bay? Is that the DNR that does that?

It’s in. Launched there on Saturday.

Erik Swenson wrote:

Nice!

Thank you for the report Wesley. Another report thread said they did better on bouncers and crawlers. So, sounds like better remain flexible for now yet.

Headed up next week and camping at the State Park. I’ll try to reciprocate for future trippers.

Saw the other report and wished we had the same luck on bouncers. Good luck next week, hope you don’t have to deal with the same wind we had over the weekend!

Got up Thursday evening to rain and pretty heavy wind Friday morning had us holding off on putting the boat in the water. Fished briefly Friday evening at sunset and picked up an 18″ and a couple smalls. Fishing was decent Saturday morning but no real size, everything was 12-15″. I had one that looked to be 17″ish flop off as I was trying to flip it into the boat. All the fish we caught were in 17-22′. We were fishing around about a 6′ top but never caught anything on top. They appeared to be relating to the structure but not actually on it. Tried again Saturday evening for a couple hours and continued to pick up small walleye just like the morning. Sunday was windy again but we decided to slug it out for awhile and caught one decent perch and one small walleye. We fished similar depths and spots as Saturday but they weren’t there. Marked them out in 35’+ but didn’t feel like fighting the wind out in the big water so we called it quits around noon and never went back out(the wind never really did lay down or we may have tried again). Jig/minnow way outfished bottom bouncers/crawlers. Wish bottom bouncers would have worked better because it was tough to keep a jig down as fast as we were drifting and we never found a school to spot lock on.

Rainylakefisher wrote:

Just got back yesterday. Fished Thursday afternoon through Saturday night mostly on the east end from Seven Sisters to the Main Bay. Caught lots of walleye and had great weather. Size was mostly under 16″ with a few larger fish coming on Jiggin Raps. Depth was 16′ at the shallowest (on a windy shore), but also caught many out of 26-28’+ on deep breaks. We only used minnows, but others caught some on crawlers. We fished jigs and minnows first two days and switched to bottom bouncers and spinners in a slightly heavier wind on Saturday. Love the lake!

Nice, sounds like you were fishing close to where we’ll be staying this weekend. Thanks for the report!

Tommy wrote:

Just got a place in Frazer Bay and will be there from Friday night through all next week. I’ll try to remember to PM you with anything I find. I primarily target muskies, but stop on walleyes/crappies/whatever when I mark them to catch something when it’s slow.

You’re gopherwes on GPL right?

That’s me, thanks dude!

We are staying over closer to Pike Bay. With this being more of a family trip with my mom and SIL I’m not sure if we will make it over to Frazer. But any depth or presentation tips would be greatly appreciated.

Loomis13 wrote:

One thing I will say is that if you can find the crappie, they are biting and big!

Heading up in a little less than two weeks and will be in the same area you stayed. Any tips on the crappies? We’re hopeful we can catch enough walleye for a a fish meal, but not really expecting much. Getting into some crappie would be a blast!

Lac Seul August 22-27 (we hope).

Gotcha, thanks for the info. We’re looking at a place ways back in toward the dam and it looks pretty dicey back there. Any info would be much appreciated.

Anyone here ever fish the mill pond in Champlin?

The past few weeks I’ve noticed a couple portables out in the afternoon on either side of 169. I used to see a guy out a lot of mornings on my way to work, but that was several years ago. Don’t think I’ve seen anyone out there recently before this year though. Just curious what they might be after out there.

Going to give it a try this weekend. Any reports?

BRAD HERRINGTON wrote:

sorry sbout your results -headed up in a week. did you fish east or west of yhe narrows. Any luck with smallies

We fished all East of Brule Narrows. We fished a fair amount around Blueberry Island. We made it as far east as the Anderson Bay area and fished a couple spots around there.

FWIW, not that it’s saying a whole lot, but probably the best spot we fished was in the mid 20s around Windmill Rock. The other boat in our group picked up a few take homes and overs off that spot at least. We saw the same boat two days in a row on that spot so they must have been on something there as well.

Didn’t target smallies. My brother caught a few tiny smallies while we were walleye fishing though.

We hit a number of reefs ranging from tops in the teens, twenties, and thirties, as well as some shoreline structure. Seemed like fish we did catch were in the 25-30′ range.

My brother did ok(definitely not great by any stretch) on bottom bouncers with floaters, smile blades, and crawlers. I primarily jigged with minnows and tried jigging/rippin raps as well. Nothing worked from a jig standpoint, tried quite a few different colors and shapes, couldn’t get anything to work.

Due to the poor fishing and our dismal, mouse infested Rainy Lake Houseboat, we decided to head in Saturday afternoon and sleep at the dock. We got the fishing boats loaded up and were ready to hit the road first thing Sunday morning.

To sum of the fishing so far in one word: horrible.

Barely scraped together a meal of fish for tonight.

Heard some radio chatter of other people catching fish but we haven’t found anything consistent.

Thanks, I’ll see what kind of cell reception I get up there. Otherwise I will definitely post a report on Monday 8/31.

Sand Bay Fish Camp wrote:

Humps and reefs. Assuming walleye: Steamboat, Fox Islands, inside the Brule Narrows. Lots of structure further east too…just might not be necessary. I haven’t fished west of Black Bay narrows recently but that does pickup slightly as summer goes on. Just be sure you know water flows and navigational markers. Red buoys on the right when you’re heading eastward. This is confusing for many first timers since most assume the lake flows west to east. It does not. It flows east to west.

Thanks for the island suggestions. We will be houseboating so where we park the houseboat will determine where we fish a bit.

Not a muskie fisherman but Independence is pretty decent muskie lake I think.

Weekender wrote:

This is far and above my skill and knowledge level, but I wonder if there is any kind of suspended bite out in the real deep parts of Namakan?

Or, I also wonder if there are some deep sand flats that they’ll hold on? I don’t know the lake near enough to say, but on local lakes here in Southern Mn, in the heat of summer there can be a decent basin bite trolling deep diving cranks.

It would take some driving around to find out if there is anything like that up there.

Trolling cranks over deep water is about the only way we caught fish on Namakan back in about 2007(?). We used to houseboat every year back then but haven’t made a trip to Kab/Nam since then so I’m not sure what it’s like these days.

Sorry for the s****y people swooping in on your spot before you’re done fishing. All I know is I am EXTREMELY jealous of that beautiful looking livewell full of walleye. Nice job!

The news yesterday was all saying they are close to announcing that the borders will stay closed to non-essential travel until July. It just hasn’t been formally announced yet I don’t think.

Of course the day I post this they push the potential border opening back (again).

Thanks for the info, dentedboatguy. What is that run like to get out to Bay of Islands? How long does it take from Scout Lake Resort? We have a couple spots we really like in McKenzie so I’m sure we’d try to get there at least one day, weather permitting. But it’s nice to know we wouldn’t have to run crazy far to catch fish, the long runs are what we are looking to get away from if possible. We’ve had at least one run-in with the MNR while fishing in McKenzie that I can remember. We don’t mess around up there, but good to know. You definitely have me prepared to bring a slip bobber rig if we get to go. I think it was your post on WC about the dock fishing there when I was trying to read up on Scout.

Heading up to the Northwest section a week from today. Any recent reports?

asch wrote:

We were up at Mylie’s Place last week. They weren’t on the humps yet. The water temp was 61 all week. They were on islands and points. Jigs and minnows worked better than bait walkers and lindy rigs. Ring worms worked better than night crawlers. Any color worked as long as it was gold. We caught a lot of walleyes, the biggest was 28″, and the fewest crappies, perch, and small mouth than in the last 4 years.

Thanks for the report!

Heading up two weeks from today. Any reports from the Morson area?

Fished afternoon 1/24 – morning 1/27 out of Zippel, got back yesterday evening. Besides freezing our butts off, not a whole lot going on up there. Group of six of us were able to find one 20″, a 19″, and I think one 14″. The rest were all 12″ and under, and a lot of those were under 6″ I’d say. According to the plow guys checking in on us and the DNR guy it didn’t sound like anyone up there was catching fish with the cold. Fished only fatheads because no one up there had anything else. Stopped in Kelliher and Baudette and couldn’t find shiners anywhere and the bait shops were all out of rainbows as well(were expecting some the day after we arrived but we never made it back into town).

This was my first time on Lake of the Woods ice fishing. Was disappointed in Zippel to go along with the slow fishing. Our sleeper had six beds, but I think toddlers would have felt crowded in there let alone six grown men. I wasn’t expecting luxury by any stretch but the houses were not very well maintained either. The houses were very warm, but that’s probably the only positive thing I have to say about the sleeper and day houses we were in. They also split our group into two day houses on Saturday after being in one big day house Thursday afternoon and Friday. It looked like they had a bigger group they catered to in the six person day house that we had been in, they had a portable set up next to it so I’m assuming they had a big crew. Just sucks to get bumped so we all couldn’t fish together and two guys ended up just staying back at the sleeper house once they split us up. Overall just wasn’t impressed with Zippel, don’t see myself going back any time soon.

Cool photo!

We head up on Thursday morning, right as it’s supposed to cool way down

Thanks for the report, keep them coming!

Thanks for the reports. Headed up to Zippel in a couple weeks.

Were you able to locate any crappies?

Any recent reports?

Monday: Got into camp around 3:30pm, went out for a quick couple hours of fishing on a reef close to camp, and almost got blown off the lake. Still managed to bring in a couple of unders that first night though.

Tuesday: Ran down to the Steamboat area for our first full day of fishing, not very windy and pretty sunny if I remember correctly. Struggled on some spots we fished previous years, picked up a few fish but nothing consistent. Managed a few shorelunch fish just in time for lunch. Found a nice spot with a 24′ top surrounded by 35-40′. Fished that right before lunch and stayed there all afternoon picking up quite a few slot fish.

Wednesday: Made the run down to McKenzie. Again we had very little wind and it was a very bright, sunny day. Struggled to catch fish in some good spots from previous years. The morning was VERY slow for our boat. Met up with the other boat in our group and caught fish around the edges of a rock pile/island and picked up a few fish after lunch. Decided to start heading back toward camp and hit a few spots on the way back to camp. Found a 3′ top just as we were coming out of Shanty Narrows and ended up fishing that the rest of the day. Picked up some fish as high as 6-8′ right around the top and then in the the deep 20s drifting onto or off of the structure.

Thursday: Was forecasted to be a very sunny and hot day. Had a very manageable breeze that ended up blowing some smoke from the fires around and it turned out to be a really hazy day. Started out at the same spot we ended on Wednesday and picked up right where we left off. Even got into some perch on that spot. Not jumbos by any stretch but big enough that we felt like bringing a handful home. From there we moved down to McKenzie again found a new rock pile/island that we had never fished before. Picked up fish all around the island in 15-20′ and basically fished that the rest of the afternoon. This was our best day of fishing IMO.

Friday: Ran to Mckenzie again. Started off with a slight breeze and we hit a reef right inside McKenzie and picked up the last under and over we needed for limits right away on that first spot we stopped. From that point on the wind all but died and the sun as beating down on us pretty hard so the rest of the morning was slow. Fished the same rock pile we ended the day on Thursday, we picked up some fish but it wasn’t as crazy as the day before. Did pick up a nice 23″ just hanging my line in the water while I was trying to eat my sandwich for lunch Then we found a spot that topped out at about 19′ surrounded by 25-30′. That spot was very productive to end our trip after what ended up being a slow morning.

Overall not our best numbers trip but the quality fish we caught was good as usual. We caught tons of fish in the 18-22″ range, it got to the point of “just another slot fish” in our boat. The other boat in our group had a 24.5″ and we had the lunchtime 23″ in our boat, those were the big walleyes for the week. Orange jigs seemed to be the ticket, although when fishing was really good the color didn’t seem to matter. We fished minnows and crawlers, I’d say minnows were probably slightly better but there were times it didn’t matter. My brother fished almost primarily bottom bouncers and most of time caught just as many fish as we did on jigs. I tried jigging raps a couple times and picked up a few fish on that as well. I’d say the most productive depth was 18-22′ but it really depended on the spot. We did pick up some fish shallow as well but those deeper tops we found were definitely the most productive while we were there. Water was down 3′. There was a big fire going on in Steamboat and another smaller fire down in McKenzie so there was lots of smoke lurking around.

Heading up on Monday. Any reports from this area? Bait, presentation, secret spots;), etc?

We usually fish the Steamboat area and run down to McKenzie a day or two, weather permitting.

Thanks in advance!