2016 Detroit Lakes Area Fishing Reports

[Chill62]

Went out this weekend for trout Saturday morning.  27 degrees and I had to thaw out the drain hole in my boat to thread in the plug.  Was on the water at 4:45 and we were bundled up tight but it was cold going across the water.  At one time the phone said it was 17 windchill.  We fished till 1 pm, fishing was slow but managed 7 trout (20", 16, 4 12-14").  After a well deserved afternoon nap we went to try a lake by Perham that the girlfriend has a lake place on and we went out to a crappie hole well when we got there with no live bait and medium light/UL gear notice they are all walleye fishing.  I didn't have any live bait so used a 2.5" gulp on a jig and was jigging that around on the break near shore.  Few norts up shallow but when you got 11-16 fow they fish were actively chasing bait fish.  I ended up getting a 17.5" eye, lost one right next to boat, and I hooked something that felt huge but with only 4 pound test I had to baby it and I lost it.  Went out the next day same lake and northerns were crazy feeding up shallow and saw a few eyes being pulled out on lindy's on the breaks of the weeds with shinners.  Everything was associated with standing cabbage.

How was everyone else's opener?

[paceman]

Went to a small lake in Otter Tail County on the opener. Fished from 6:00 am until Noon. Yes it was very cold!. Glad I left my youg son at home. Even had ice forming in the boat and in the rod eyes!. Lindy rigging shiners we did very well. Limited out on nice eyes. Mostly 16-19". Fished fairly shallow wind driven points. 7-10'. Others that fished slow and shallow also did well on jigs. You just had to go slow. Boats that simply drifted with the wind or trolled to fast did not catch many. Water temp was 53.

[paceman]

Went to a local lake for a quick trip last night after mowing the yard. Fished from 6:00 until 8:30. Mostly after crappies. Took me awhile to find them but when I did it was game on. simply tossing a small jig- plastics into and along emerging weedlines, 2-6 feet I caught 15 crappies, 9 sunnies, 14 snake northerns and a bonus 18" eye. Wasn't in the fish cleaning mode so everything went back. I like fishing Wednesdays as the lakes are usually quiet. I was on a pretty big lake but only saw 4 other boats!

[paceman]

Went out super early Friday Morning and again Saturday evening to a little local lake. Walleyes were on fire. Lindy rig with shiners in 8-10 feet produced limits both times. Friday we caught most of them drifting with the wind and they were very aggressive. As soon as the sun came up and the wind laid down the fish moved out deeper and much softer bites. Saturday most were caught back trolling into the wind, they just wanted the bait to be moving slower and were not very aggressive. Just a little tick or just  weight from them hanging on. We missed 5-6 that came off as they were not well hooked. Looking at the forecast the hot bite should continue for awhile!

[Chill62]

Went out saturday middle of the day ended up getting a few walleyes and a bunch of northerns.  Went back out in the afternoon/evening and it had died off but northerns were still active.  Right before dark they turned on like crazy hitting jig and a minnow and slip bobbers.  Walleyes were throwing up shiners so big time shiner bite right now.  8-14 fow was what we found but we also anchored most of the time due to three people in the boat and two inexperienced.

[bbfenatic]

I am a crappie guy year around so no help with the "eyes"....I am finding the bigger crappies in their summer patterns already on area lakes...cabbage is close to being mature already with early ice out and finding them concentrated pretty good in that 10-12' range in the cabbage or right on the outer edge of cabbage, any pink plastics (no live bait needed) is the key.  Good Luck!

[Chill62]

13 minutes ago, bbfenatic said:

I am a crappie guy year around so no help with the "eyes"....I am finding the bigger crappies in their summer patterns already on area lakes...cabbage is close to being mature already with early ice out and finding them concentrated pretty good in that 10-12' range in the cabbage or right on the outer edge of cabbage, any pink plastics (no live bait needed) is the key.  Good Luck!

When we were walleye fishing we ended up pulling up two very nice crappies on Shiners.  We were on a break but there wasn't any cabbage laying around so I don't know what they were doing out there.  One was caught reeling in so they must have been suspended both were last light.

[AKAL]

I got out this past weekend as well. I utilized the full moon Saturday and Sunday. Pulled flicker shads in 4-8 fow launched the boat at midnight fished till the sun started to rise, caught quite a few nice eyes most were caught closer to the 7 fow going 1.7-1.9 mph. Tried jigs with shiners with no success but I do not care to use them so didn't give them a fair shot.

[paceman]

I did not do as well last night. Gorgeous evening out though! Lindy rigging shiner my first fish was a 8" sunfish! hungry little fellow! Caught quite a few northerns, bass. Missed quite a few but I think they were crappies as I finally hooked a few of them. Did catch 1 18" eye but it was the only one. Worked that spot for another hour but nothing else. Really peaceful out, lake went to glass and very few other boats out. Will probably be a zoo out there this weekend... Will go to a smaller out of the way lake up in the woods

[paceman]

Only made it out for a few hours Saturday afternoon with my son. Tough weekend with Graduations and family stuff and then had to be on the Cities Monday/Tuesday.. We decided a quick panfish trip would be fun. To say the crappies were on fire would be an understatement. Jack caught the first one in about 15 seconds after turning off the motor. I let him fill the box. I tosses all of mine back but in about half an hour he caught our 2 man limit of perfect 10-12" fish. Simply casting small jigs/plastics in 9-10 feet along the weeds worked great for us. Once done we went home cleaned them and had an awesome fish fry. now I just need tyo find time to get back out again..

[Chill62]

Got out this weekend and did really well on walleyes.  Early in the morning the fish were 8-10 fow till around 9 am then they slowly tappered out to deeper water and at noon we were in 16 fow still catching them.  They were liking a jig in a minnow and I was using Northland's Fire Ball Jigs tipped with a shiner.  Half the fish were hooked right next to the throat they were hitting them so hard.  Kept 11 fish and released 2-22" and 2-18.5" slot fish.  Was a fun time.

[bbfenatic]

Been out chasing crappies when weather permits. Have found them on several diff lakes both S and N of DL in the cabbage 8-12' deep.  With these up and down temps this spring females were confused and many did not even lay eggs so will absorb them and not drop them unfortunately....I found beds this year deeper than I ever have and only had a couple outings where I caught all males protecting beds. Buddy with 14.5" caught on edge of cabbage in 12'

[paceman]

Finally found time to wet a line Saturday Afternoon. I chose a small out of the way lake hoping it would not be very crowded. I did not chose wisely as the lake was very busy with pleasure boaters and other fisherman. Lot's of folks were panfishing the shorelines. Which is good for me as the mid lake humps were empty and I prefer to chase walleyes. Lindy Rigging crawlers on the windblown humps was really quite productive. Amongst the bazillion small northerns, sunnies and rock bass  we managed to put 8 very nice 16-19" eyes in the box. We also tossed 2 smaller ones and 2 bigger ones back. Good to be on the water again!

[bbfenatic]

I have built a 12 month calendar over the years which shows me where to catch crappies, on what lake, what spot any week of any month.  I went to two guaranteed spots on a popular lake Saturday and no crappies...none...surprisingly I was pulling eyes one after another out of the cabbage I usually catch crappies out of....water so clear I also watched many "eyes" follow up to my boat....just using plastics.  I am stumped for the first time in many years and first time out in many outings both summer and winter I did not catch a single crappie.  Strange year with early ice out, warm then cold then warm then cold again...just hope things get back to normal soon or I will have to go "on the hunt" again and start a second calendar of crappie spots cuz I refuse to become a walleye guy!

[Chill62]

Sorry for the later post.  Went trout fishing on Saturday morning at the crack of dawn.  Got there around 5:15 and before I could get the other rod rigged up we caught two for the livewell.  We caught 9 lost four and one was huge.  We tried for two hours to get our tenth fish and didn't succeed.  So we switched to bass fishing and caught an easy dozen in an hour before it was getting too warm for us.  Biggest trout was 19", biggest bass was 17" and all bass were released.  The big bass had a crawfish sticking out of his gut.

[KEN W]

Is the Mayfly hatch over yet?

[paceman]

Lots of lakes over here and they all seem to hatch along with a  variety of other bugs at different times. Some lakes are done, some are in the middle and some haven't even started yet. Lots of fish being caught right now, It is a great time of the year to get out!

[bklimek]

I'm headed to Big Pelican for the first time next week.  I'm super bummed because my Ranger will be in the shop.  Was looking forward to fishing some smallmouth, walleyes, and panfish.  How has fishing been on pelican?

[paceman]

Buzzed out early Saturday morning before the lake got busy. Launched at 5:00 am. The lake was dead calm which I don't like for eye fishing but I had the lake to myself for the first couple hours.  Fished until 8:30 then had to leave for kids sporting activities. I only caught 4 fish but they were very good quality. Lindy rigging a crawler in 18-20' produced a 19, 21, 24, and a 26" eye. As I was leaving the wind was finally starting to blow and more boats were showing up. I would imagine the fish catching only got better!

[paceman]

Fished the last 2 hours of light last night on a local lake that is not well known for eyes. But it is close to my house and I did not have much time. As expected I caught everything but walleyes. Northerns, bass, crappies, sunnies.... Interesting as the wind switch 180 degrees while out there. Water temp was 71.7. A few coworkers did really well on a different lake with leeches. I was using mostly crawlers...

[Chill62]

Sorry for lateness of the post but I've been super busy with work.  Gotta love it when you are a few people down but they want more stuff done.  

Did a big camping and fishing trip over Father's Day weekend.  Caught 32 trout between our boats biggest being 20" average around 14".  When we weren't trout fishing we switched to small mouth and caught about 20/25 ish.  Few were in that 16-18" mark but mostly around 10-12".  They were not up shallow but on the edges of the breaks.  Sure if you trolled or slower presentation would have caught more because I"ve never seen so many big bass before in my life, notice how I said SEEN!  Very disappointing watching two four pounders swimming right by your lure!

[bjamin]

Got out at sunrise until about 9 am on Wednesday with the kids. Thought we'd try a little trolling for walleye right away and then switch to panfish, but we kept catching a walleye here and there and we were getting enough bites that the kids wanted to keep fishing for walleye (no objection from me). The fish we caught were in 20-25 ft of water near the bottom of the drop-offs, all on spinners with crawlers or leeches. 

[paceman]

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the wonderful weekend. The weather was fabulous! I only made it out fishing a couple times and was pleasantly surprised as to how well we did! I love to get up super early and try to be the first ones on the lake. Did that both Saturday and Sunday on 2 different DL area lakes. Launched the boat at 5:00 am. Off about 9:30 before the weekend riftraft arrived. 2 man limits of nice walleyes. 18-22'. Spinners-leeches. They hit them hard! Friday afternoon I took my son and one of his buddies out after crappies. Took us a while to find them but we did. Had to be right on the weed edge. Simple jig/plastics in 9-10' on this lake was the ticket for a livewell full of good eaters!

[Chill62]

I fished Saturday morning for trout, my uncle was up from Texas and we ended up getting 11 for the four of us.  He was sure happy because he doesn't fish that often aka once a year when he comes up to visit and he out fished everyone else.  Sunday was a bit too windy for us on Big Pine so we stayed on shore but we tried to sneak out a few times on Monday with mixed results.  We tried some new spots and caught three eyes in the morning.  One hit on a crawler and I mean HIT like a freight train and the other two were on leeches all 16".  Tried jigs with nothing but perch.  Tuesday I took off and hit my favorite crappie hole and they were biting.  58 crappies, 9 blue gills, 1 bass, and 1 northern all on fake bait.  Had best luck with either glow pink solid or a clear pink with sparkles that glows.  They were in the shape of insects and were amazing!  Blue Gills prefered a 2 1/4" clear green over my 3" pinks.  All fish were caught in that 6-14' of water in the cabbage.  I was using a tube jig that was glow white with pink swirl "Lava" as the company calls it and that was awesome!  You had to fish down in the cabbage so I was using my 6' 6" UL swimming the jig through the weeds.  There was no doubt when you got a bite though!!!

[Chill62]

Got out this afternoon with a buddy of mine on a small lake.  Threw the same stuff I threw at them on Tuesday and the crappies were still up in that 6-13 feet of water but the big ones were not up there like they were on Tuesday.  My white jig with Lava Pink on it was the hot ticket until I lost it, I was very heart broken!  Key colors were still pinks, I tried a ton of other colors but shades of pink were the best luck.  The old man got mad because I threw everything back on Tuesday so I kept a limit of 12-13.5" crappies.  Half of them still had a small deposit of eggs within them so I do not know if the bigger ones have spawned and have gone out to deeper to recover or not.  Water temp was 79 degrees but I'm not 100% confident since I screwed up my transducer two weeks ago and may need to replace it.

[busse3775]

Any one been out on Lida recently?

[fisherdog19]

Gonna be up at our new condo on Big Pine tomorrow for 2 weeks.  Looking for some help finding crappies, gills and maybe a few eyes as I've never been on the lake before and have no idea what part of the lake to try and what depths to start my search.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Chill62]

I haven't heard any reports lately we've been doing decent prior to 4th of July.  Did amazing with a jig and a minnow earlier with a shinner.  

[Chill62]

Took the old man and girlfriend out on saturday.  Wind was whipping so picked a small lake and my boat was still doing 360's as we tried to fish.  Caught a bunch of nice crappies 11-13" and they were caught on a tube jig with a 2 1/2" soft plastic body that looks like a centipied.  Been using them this year and having great results.  The girlfriend was starting to get discouraged one because she was in the middle of the boat and didn't get the bow and two she wasn't getting things to bite her line.  She tied on a ice fishing jig and started jigging over the edge of the boat.  She probably started catching blue gills like they were going out of style.  She probably caught 75 gills in the day and a few of hers were flirting with 11".  Graph wasn't working right so I'm estimating we were in that 10-14 fow and the crappies liked the faster retrieval and the gills wanted something smaller and slower.  Was a lot of fun.

[Chill62]

Almost one month since a post on this site?  I think the page is cold or there are a lot of people who aren't on the water.  I haven't been on the water due to harvest and trying to get ready for deer hunting.  I got wondering the other day, how many people are getting ready for ice fishing?  I know I am and the other day I booked my first winter trip of the year for going trout fishing in December.  Got me wondering if anyone else has any trips planned or if you just wing it lol.