2020 Bemidji Area Fishing Reports

[luedke]

just wondering if anyone has heard any information on the panfish bite around bemidji. i just want to get out and catch a few nice fish, if anyone has any information on where they are biting or what are some good panfish lakes that would help. thanks everyone.

[jeff9273]

I was out on Bemidji yesterday looking for perch. I caught a few but most of the fish on the graph didn't bite. I was in 40' of water. The roads are a little messy due to the water freezing a couple of inches and then being broken by traffic. The best travel seems to be off the roads adjacent to the plowed roads, but be careful trying to get back on the roads. I had to pull one guy off the embankment adjacent to a plowed road.

[ChuckN]

Fished Bemidji over the weekend, found active fish relatively shallow, perch and walleyes. Deeper bite non-existant. Jigging spoons (Go Devils) worked best while dead sticks were dead. The fish wanted activity!

Travel on the lake was bad Friday, lots of ice build up on the truck.. By Sunday, the lake froze up nicely.

[Matt Breuer]

Chuck, I found the opposite to be true. Travel was great all weekend long, and we caught most of our 'eyes and perch in 24' or deeper, with most coming out of 39-41' of water...

[cluelessfisherman]

Chuck - you were in Bemidji and didn't drop me a line???

I found the same to be true - I hit my deep water haunts that have been producing very well and found a complete absence of fish there. So I decided to spent my time chasing pannies instead of tracking the perch & eyes down.

[ChuckN]

Clueless:

I'll hit ya up next time, hopefully for some late season pannies. This trip didn't give me a whole lot of fishing time, but I searched high and low for the fish with the time I had on spots that were proven from the past.

If you want to catch some eyes and perch you should remember that spot I took you and your dad years ago...shoreline break...

Matt:

Yep, not doubting you a bit. There are spots that have a great deep bite, but I didn't have enough time to fish all the spots. I was surprised at the shallow bite for this time of the year.

[Matt Breuer]

Walleye and pike season went out with a bang, as the fish were aggressive going in to the final weekend of the season. We deferred, and fished pannies and pout all weekend.... People who did make it out on Bemidji chasing walleyes were rewarded with one of the better weekends of the year!

The panfish bite remains solid if you're active. 'Gills and crappies are still being had mixed in the shallow flats. The deep water bite for suspended crappies still exists on some lakes, but it's not nearly as good as the mixed shallow bites we've found throughout the year.

Eelpout are also getting ready for the spawn, and are becoming more and more active daily. On Bemidji anywhere from 30' up to 13' has been good. Sitting in 24-27' jigging aggressively with tippies set in 13-15' of water has been good.

Don't forget about the great perch action in our area. It's been steady all year for decent perch, numbers, as well as size have been great. It'll only get better from here on out!

[Chris Haley]

Don't forget about the whitefish that have finished their spawn and are cruising the breaks along their spawning flats.

Got twenty five the other night fishing 10ft down over 30fow.

Can't wait to get them smoked up.

[Matt Breuer]

Yummy!

Chris, we should get out after a few! I wouldn't mind adding to the batch of tulibee's I've got stocked up...

[lungdeflator]

Whats the latest on area panfish? I heard a forecast for temps. above freezing for the weekend. Are they about ready to move into spring areas?

[beef]

The pannies are getting close to the shallow areas. I'm still finding Crappies in Deep suspended waters, but they are close to shallow flats. As far as bulls go, good luck- they still seem to be in small schools crusing around deeper weed beds.

Beef

[Matt Breuer]

Well the ice is holding strong on many area lakes. It's a surprise, but most of the lakes we checked over the weekend were fishable, and some even had trucks out. I do not advise ANYONE to drive a truck on any lake in the area now, but ATV's and sleds should be fine with caution.

Fishing is out of this world. This has been a beautiful Spring on the fishing side of things. The Pannies are either up in shallow feeding or on the edges staging. Either way, they're easy targets right now. Perch fishing is phenomenal in the area, some fish are stacked up deep, while others are feeding heavily on the breaks or on top of humps or flats.

If you get out, be careful!

[Matt Breuer]

In an attempt to get everyone excited for opener, here's a story and some pictures. The DNR has been been working hard this Spring! I had the opportunity to join the Bemidji area fisheries boys for some electrofishing surveys. We ran the river and electrofished a large section, dip-netting the fish as they came to the surface. Fins were clipped for future survey purposes, to log travel, the fish were sexed, then released. It was an amazing experience, with nearly 300 fish sampled or seen, and some realy dandy's being handled. Everyone needs to remember that the MN DNR is essential in helping out every species in our lakes, rivers, and streams. Without them, we'd be lost!

Everyone have a safe, successful opener!

[Matt Breuer]

So how did everyone do on opening day?

We fished the Midnight rush w/ limited success. Saturday-day was a different story however, as the fish were cooperative to say the least.

Hopefully everyone stayed warm and caught some fish!

[cluelessfisherman]

Slow opener for myself. Didn't hit the water until about noon today - it's been a father/son tradition so far for opener, so I waited till my dad was able to go with me.

We headed out to the Cass chain. Plenty of short bites - not many hook ups. Had bites from 5 feet to 25 feet with 2 eyes for the pan - both coming out of 17-18 ft. One eye was milking all over the boat still.

We had steady action with the pike though with over a dozen boated and some perch as well.

It was a quick 5 hrs on the water before running out of shiners & having to get my chilled dad warmed back up.

Hope to try a different lake tomorrow after the mothers day festivities.

[Matt Breuer]

We hit 4 lakes in all Ethan, with fish coming from each. Cass Lake chain was good to us, but we found the same thing, a lot of short bites. Went through 3 scoops of shiners due to misses... Our best depths were 8-12' of water. Nearly every fish came on a Phelp's Half-Faced Jig w/ a spot-tail...

[cbrooks]

fish lake irving from one to about 4. Caught 4 northerns , 2 perch and no walleyes. Caught the northerns trolling cranks and the perch were on a jig and shiners. I'm thinking it might be another week or two for Irving to pick up.

[certified jumbo]

We had mixed success....

We had a group of twelve guys. Fished crappies on mult. lakes in the bemidji area all day friday. No dice, lots of bass and northerns.

Walleyes we did well on. We fished midnight to 3:30. Catching 36 eyes. 21 inch was the biggest. Moved down to Andrusia at day break and caught another 28 eyes. All in the 14 - 15 inch range.

It was slower on Saturday night as we picked up 15 more. We did bang our biggest of the wkd at 26 inch.

I think fishing will improve a lot the next couple of weeks. It was hard to keep the fingers warm.

CJ

[Chris Haley]

Spanked them on Red on Sat. Then after church and going to dinner with mom, caught nothing but big fish on Bemidji. All on jigs and spot tails.

[7 grand kids]

Chris, see or hear of any crappies going on URL? Going to fish it next week.

[Chris Haley]

I didn't see any. But man were the walleyes on!!!

[thrax]

Breu Man, better give Phelps and I some "scoop" since you dumped out on him for the tournament. Will be watching reports as I begin to POUND on Lake Bemidji on Wednesday morning. Sounds like reports have been better there than on Vermilion.

[Matt Breuer]

BJ? I didn't dump out, I got stuck working! I'm glad you were able to take my spot though! Hope you guys win it all!

Are you over there? How's fishing on the big V?

[Chris Haley]

I'm hoping they take second!!!

[thrax]

East End of Vermilion was good, guys catching lots of small fish, almost no big ones, tough to see one over 20 in. We've been havin much trickier time on West End, been catching but deep, 24-27 feet and have to be moving very slow. Bites are light at best. Picked up a few in Black Bay pulling Raps but no real big ones. Were also picking a few crappies up, but nothing to write home about and thought last night we would kill them, was sunny and warm all day and pretty calm, but only scratched a few here and there. Heading back to BEM today and will start fishing really hard tomorrow.

[thrax]

Caught a few pulling Raps the last couple nights. Just 2 Friday night and had a few buddies along, so real slow and had to go up to 3.5-4ft mark to get those. Tonight got 3 in less than 1hr but then it bottomed out on me. 16.5, 19.5, 20.5. But it seems the bite is finally pickin up a little. Deeper tonight right in/above the cabbage. Good sign. Some is coming up nicely now. Temps were up to 58.5 in some areas before the cooldown, was about 56.5 when I left. A few more degrees and they'll be slammin after dark.

[Matt Breuer]

Glad to hear you're getting a few BJ!

We've still been mostly hitting other lakes in the area w/ success. 20-26' of water has been good during the day, w/ the fish moving up onto flats in the evenings to feed. Still using jigs and shiners...

The panfishing in the area is getting much better, and will continue to boom until mid-June is my guess....

[Quackaddict9]

the famous Matt Breuer's fish stare pose! Nice Slab!

[thrax]

Yep, nice crappie Matt. Glad to hear you are catching also. Haven't even tried the panfish yet but maybe this weekend daytime. Will be on Bemidji again Fri/Sat nights after dark though pending weather. Maybe run into you some time soon. Although this will be last walleye weekend for a while as I plan on spankin the early season muskies and gettin the ole season count up quickly.

[lindy rig]

Will be up on Bemidji June 10-14. Last year at that time we found the walleyes quite shallow 6-8'.

You guys think they'll be shallow again this year, or has it been warmer so they may be deeper?

Just looking for an educated guess (and I'm getting stoked )