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Island Lake Reservoir - First Time Tips?

Skhots
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Skhots Enthusiast

Skhots

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Heading up to Island Lake Reservoir this weekend. Wife and company aren't interested in holding a rod all day for naught so I'd like to find them, and myself some action. 

I can't seem to find many recent reports on this lake so I'm hoping some of you can point me in the right direction. 

Looking to get into pretty much any fish. Bass, walleye, crappie, sunnies, pike.

I was thinking I'd jig and worm the walleyes, bobber and minnow for crappies, plastics for bass.  

Possibly crank or rig walleyes as well.

Any particular area to stay away from? Any areas to target for each species?

 

Any help is appreciated and thanks in advance. 

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Down Deep Mentor

Down Deep

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The walleye bite has been good on Island.   Fished there on Monday afternoon/evening and did very well.   Fished off a main channel island shoreline in 15 to 15 feet of water.    We were pitching jigs and minnows and cranking them back slowly.   There are a couple of good year classes in the lake now.   I caught lots of 15 to 16 inch walleyes since mid June.  Walleye fishing has been good all season.     Island Lake crappies is a secret that I've only been able to crack a few times.  Pike are around and are caught,  but I think they have way too much food in the lake to be interested in the fisherman.    The lake has musky and they are willing if you work at it.  The picture  is a couple of limits we caught a couple of weeks ago.  

 

IMG_0511.jpg

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Skhots Enthusiast

Skhots

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Nice. Thanks for the info.  Fishing 15 to 15 fow? lol so 15fow is the place to be? 

Not asking for specific spots but what do you mean by "main channel island"? Where are the channels?

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Down Deep Mentor

Down Deep

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Main Channel means  any large point  or island along the original river bed.  Start and the dam and head by the most direct route to the Hwy 4 bridge or vice versa.  That is the main river bed.  Any big point or larger island on either side can be good especially if there are some shallow weeds adjacent to the deeper water.   There are also lots of mid channel reefs along the way.    The deeper edges of the reefs are a good place to run some cranks.  You might even pull a musky doing this.   You will see where the other boats are.  These areas are big so there is usually no problem with crowing in on someone. 

Yep 15 feet of water is great unless the fish aren't in 15 feet of water.  Sorry about that.  We hit the walleyes pretty good yesterday  (Thursday) in 10 to 20 FOW pitching jigs and minnows.   This is the time of the year the walleyes should be deeper and off the sides of the reefs.   They may well be there, but we haven't needed to fish them there.   I'd offer to show you around, but I'm headed to Canada on Saturday. 

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