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Hi All... I'm getting the chance to fish Darling next week. I'm not a fisherman, I used to just drown worms, but have switched to artificial now (easier) :-) I mostly use jig heads with twisty tails. So, what's the hot spots? Best type of fish to go after? Bait choices? (Don't know how to use leeches.. yuck.. or minows) etc... Any help is appreciated... and in case your wondering, I put eveything back (that assumes I catch something).

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If I was you and wanted to stick with artificial bait, I would get some white power bait twister tails and some 1/16th jig heads and either cast them, or troll them along the weed lines. I've been doing this and the crappies and sunnies have been hitting well. You will also get a bass or two, and on a rare occurance I've even picked up a walleye or two. I suggest getting a couple of bags if you're going to be here for a week or so as it's nothing to have the tails bit off a half dozen or so an evening. Good luck and let us know how you did. grin.gif

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well... Fishing was as good as I expected... my other half and I usually went out in the morning (8-9AM) for a couple of hours. between us we caught 70 fish. About 1/2 of those were smallies in the 12-16" size. About half way thru the week, I switched over to sinkos and a weedless setup... Much harder to hook fish on this, you really need to get a good feel on this kind of setup. I must have yanked the setup out of the fish's mouth over a dozen times. But it was fun. Spend most of our time around the docs in the beginning using jigs and twisty tails (that is where we caught the majority of the sunnies and I'm guessing some kind of bass.. long an skinny with bass colors, but not very big 6" or so ), then after the protected area opend up near Arrowwood, we hit the cabage. Caught most of the smallies there... wow, when they came up an hit the sinko as it hit the water... that was exciting !!!! I tried the weed line one evening, but all I got was about 20-30 bug bites :-(

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Quote:

About 1/2 of those were smallies in the 12-16" size.


Smallies are very, very rare in Darling. I caught one in Darling back in the early 80's, but that's it. I'm guessing you were catching rock bass or largemouth bass. Rock bass are the ones with the red eye, and yes, they are pretty thick in Darling. Glad to hear that you two had fun. That's what's important.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
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