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Lake Vermilion 2017 open water fishing reports and related information.


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Have been going to Vermillion for many years but not this early.  What is the bait of choice for early walleye?

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Minnows! Fatheads & rainbows. I have had some success with leeches early if the water is warmer then normal.

Crawlers will also get a few fish early.

Cliff

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Put our boats in the water yesterday and I would second Cliffs comments.  My son also got the first swim of the season out of the way. Brrrrr. Shaping up to be a great opener!!!

Edited by RoosterMan
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Like Cliff I plan on fishing in deeper water on opener unless we get blow off of Big bay. Jigs/minnows, split shot rigs and plain lindys during the day and slip bobbers in the evening.

Have a great opener!! ;)

"Ace"

"It's just fishing man"

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I will be on Vermillion Saturday for my first time. Cant wait to catch a few nice fish! Good luck everybody!

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On 5/9/2017 at 10:16 AM, HugeHogChaser said:

I will be on Vermillion Saturday for my first time. Cant wait to catch a few nice fish! Good luck everybody!


Good luck!  Let us know how it went...

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13 hours ago, delcecchi said:


Good luck!  Let us know how it went...

Will do my friend! Thank you! good luck to you as well!

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Good luck, have fun and be safe everyone.  Look forward to hearing some reports and seeing some pics!

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Weather forecast looks great!  Which probably means a blizzard Sat am...:D:D

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30 minutes ago, Nix769 said:

Weather forecast looks great!  Which probably means a blizzard Sat am...:D:D

Naw, the national and Internet forecasters usually miss the temps up here by 5+ degrees, low.  I wouldn't be surprised to see 70 degrees on Saturday.  Fingers crossed for a good one.  Good luck to all.

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No fishin for me, I was out on water patrol for a few hours.

 

I did mark a LOT of fish in the 20-25' range.

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I fished today with my wife's nephew's two sons.

Very slow bite everywhere we went but we did manage to boat 20 walleyes and kept our limit of 12 fish! We marked very few fish today also.

Largest walleye caught was 18-3/4 inches. Most of our keepers were around 14 inch males.

27 feet to 35 feet in the mud or on the mud/sand transition was best.

Lindy rigs with fathead chubs or rainbow chubs was all that we tried.

Cliff

 

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Good to see you again cliff. We picked up a few on a jig and minnow. Lindy rigs with shiners or rainbows seemed to work best. Didn't graph much. Put 14 in the boat, got our limit of 8, biggest was 19.99". Depths were anywhere from 15 to 35 fow. Hooked up with a 30 something inch snot rocket as well. This opener was tougher then I was expecting. Good to be on soft water again.

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I agree the opener bite was tougher then I thought it would be but still great to be back on open water again!

Cliff

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We did well with jigs and minnow in 20-25 fow on westerly facing shore lines.  Tried a few leeches but still too cold.  Green/white/orange did slightly better than all black.  No hogs but everything we kept was between 14 and 17.  Adding in mild weather it was a great opener!

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West end Norwegian bite was slower than normal but once again all big fish. Our group of three caught 7 all from 21-27 inches. 

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Decent bite started at around 10:00am again today.

We fished in 19' to 24' water with lindy,orange glow bead, and suckers and rainbows.

Nothing real big again but all nice 15" to 17-1/2" keepers! Boated a total of 21 walleyes by 2:00pm.

Much warmer today but more wind!

Cliff

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Thanks for sharing your experience, guys. Some of us are sitting indoors wishing we were there and we appreciate the posts. By the time I get there I foresee wind and rain. Just like I like it.

RLG

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Never got out for walleye.  Got the crapps to bite though.  Were a little tight lipped but ultimately missed a few, boated 17, a few nice bluegill and that translated into a great Mother's Day fish fry.  Back to reality until Memorial wknd...

IMG_1234.JPG

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We were on the west end for the weekend.  We went to Black Bay and saw 10-15 boats trolling Shad Raps.  There were 4 of us so we didn't want to try that.  Instead we opted for Lindy Rigs with rainbows.  I've never used Lindy's in water that shallow but it worked!  We boated a total of 13 walleye with 3 keepers from 17 - 20".  The largest throw back was 25 and the other were consistently 21-22".  One guy decided to drag a blue jig tipped with a crappie minnow and landed 6 crappies.  One of them was 14".  I saw very few walleye caught from the trollers.  I'm thinking we did a bit better with Lindy's.

All of that before noon.  We went back that night --- nothing.  I think the boat traffic in Black Bay either drove them out or shut them off.  We tried Norwegian near the end and only 1 fish Saturday night - 28".

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My son and I boated a limit of 14-16 inch males, but we had to work for them.  My son got lucky and landed a 28" walleye in 32 feet.  He was one happy camper.  We landed a few nice smallies too throwing plastics to the shoreline.  

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It was good to be back on soft water at the cabin again.  The bite was certainly not as I expected it to be, but overall not bad.  When it was all said and done everyone in our group brought their limits home. Caught fish from 10' to 36' fow.  The average size of the fish was very nice.  It was a great opener.  Great to be back with good friends and all the kids that are picking up the tradition of Walleye Opener. 

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we caught 4 keeper walleye saturday on vermillion, and i caught a 4.1 pound Small mouth bass, my PB, from the dock. 

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Still a very slow bite today! Got all of our fish between 11:00am and 12:00pm again.

14' to 23' depth range using Lindys with rainbows and suckers. Nothing deep today.

Rainy and cool here!

Cliff

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Ended up getting a dozen or so eyes today...Jigging rap was my best bait....20-25ft was the best for me...I've had enough of this weather.

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This weekend looks like fun.  High on Saturday is 46 with 100% chance of rain. 

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45 minutes ago, Fish Head said:

This weekend looks like fun.  High on Saturday is 46 with 100% chance of rain. 

 

The forecast is improving!  High of 48 with only a 60% chance of rain!!

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • 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
    • leech~~
      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
    • jim curlee
      I had a guy hit me with a lightly used 1969 BAR, he wanted $1650 with an older Leupold scope. More than I think they are worth, I made an offer, he declined end of story.   You know if you look at the old brochures, a grade II BAR sold for $250 in the late 60s, $1650 would be a good return on your investment.    Why would anybody want a 50 year old gun, they are heavy, have wood stocks, and blued metal.  I guess mainly to keep their gun safes glued to the floor. lol   You can probably buy a stainless rifle that you never have to clean, with a synthetic stock you never have to refinish, is as light as a feather, and for half as much money, perfect.   I'm too old for a youth gun, although I've shrunk enough that it would probably fit. lol   No Ruger 10/44s.   Jim      
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