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Nichols Lake near Hwy 53


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I haven't seen real good reports from the local Duluth area so I'm planning on driving a little farther North up Hwy53. Has anyone fished for crappies recently out of Nichols Lake? Is there a road plowed from the landing to the 30 foot hole? Any info would be helpful...I'll post after I hopefully catch my limit, thanks!!

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I haven't seen real good reports from the local Duluth area so I'm planning on driving a little farther North up Hwy53. Has anyone fished for crappies recently out of Nichols Lake? Is there a road plowed from the landing to the 30 foot hole? Any info would be helpful...I'll post after I hopefully catch my limit, thanks!!
I have a place over on the South Shore. I havent fished it this year, but there is a road over and lake looked good with lots of trucks driving around.
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I fished Nichols last year 2x. After the first time I told myself I would never fish it again...but I still did. Caught small, small crappies pretty much everywhere. I don't recall one crappie being bigger that 6". Couldn't find the bluegills in the lake either...

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I fished Nichols last year 2x. After the first time I told myself I would never fish it again...but I still did. Caught small, small crappies pretty much everywhere. I don't recall one crappie being bigger that 6". Couldn't find the bluegills in the lake either...

With stunted pannies, first thing I thought of is that it sounds like a pike fishery could be going strong, and a quick look at the DNR Lake Finder survey data backs that up. Hmmmmm, tip-ups for early ice pike next year? I think so! Here it is with still nearly a month to go for laker season and already I'm thinking about first-ice pike next Thanksgiving. Always looking over the next horizon. gringrin

But where there are small panfish, there have to be some decent ones, too. smilesmile

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I think I would drive a little bit up 53 and hit Murphy (Horse shoe) or one the local lakes in the area. Done good after season end never seem to do any good prior to that.>>>later the load

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can't be any worse than leoria was lips, and did someone say big pike........I think I'm gonna have to beat you to that spot Mr. Foss :), or you could always come down and join

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Kaslow-

I caught 3 perch (very small) and 3 crappies (two were keepers), but I threw back since I didn't have enough to eat. Caught everything in 15-18FOW with orange color lure and minnows...nothing on grubs. You might want to try the deeper whole during the day? Road conditions were great too and I was able to drive all around with my blazer...with the warmer weather it might get a little sketchy! Keep me posted, I might try again this weekend.

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evin- instead of heading out there last night. i went out to caribou and finally got on the crappies. i was kinda shocked on how shallow i was to finally catch them at this time of season. but i did. did pretty good caught a few keepers as well small ones. but lost a some hogs that made my drag roar once they hit the bottom of the hole. i was catching them pretty shallow as well, thought that being in 10 fow at this time was weird fishing 5 to 6 feet under ice in the weeds just about. but ended up paying off for 2 nights of being skunked out there in deeper water.

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  • 4 weeks later...

ok first off i know this is a little late seeing as the ice is pretty much all gone by now, but i seen one of my favorite lakes mentioned and i knew i had to say something about it. This lake has an amazing early season crappie hole (the thirty foot hole). A friend of mine who has a place on the lake invites me to fish it with him often and on the last time we went we both limited out on 10-14 inche crappies all day. Not to mention a few nice pike to keep our lures fresh. So long story short, its an amazing crappie and pike lake... plus dont forget to try some great summer bass fishing.

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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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