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Lake Vermilion 2017 open water fishing reports and related information.


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Line choice may be an individual preference. Guys like Tony Roach ( "In Fisherman, Power Jigging for Walleyes") use and recommend braid with this presentation, and examples can be found to promote mono as well. If braid is a problem, stick with mono. You may in fact get more hook ups in deep water with braid.

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I think the idea is that the stretch of mono helps keep them from shaking the jigging rap.

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Not a bad day. Fished the morning. Boated 12, kept 5 decent fish, lost our fair share. Half on jigging rap, half on part of a crawler on a lindy. 16-22 fow. Cliff, you could have joined us this morning, that was me fishing the first spot you checked after picking up your clients. The majority of fish came from there. But I'm guessing you did better where ever you ended up anyway. Had to work for the fish, best bite was around 830 for us, earlier then normal for me.

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LB,

We tried that spot later in the day but had no takers there at that time!

We boated 20 walleyes and ended up keeping their limit of 12 nice 14" to 16" fish. Tough fishing out there in that wind!!

Cliff

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Thanks to bassbouncer, spent the afternoon yesterday on frazier bay.   My walleye non-success continues.   Hit a number of spots at various depths, leeches and crawlers.... Total, 1 walleye (BB), 1 lake herring (me) a couple gills, and a perch or two.   

 

 

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Everybody OK?   On the radar, looks like niles bay and points east got clobbered pretty good.  

 

And of course, the places on land on down 53...

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No damage in my neck of the woods!

Cliff

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Had some nickel size hail and a lot of rain. Spent the evening in the basement watching the radar and listening to the scanner. I guess they saw some rotation and a funnel that didn't touch the ground about 10 miles from my place. Had my wife and daughters a little nervous but everybody is ok.

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We're at the south end of Frazer this week, just got some heavy rain and lightning, but no hail...

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For all you jigging rap fans out there are you generally jigging those vertically or on the move.   I seen some discussion earlier on the front hook and one thing that I have heard about that hook is a lot of people do take it off in order to prevent snags. I have donated quite a few jigging raps in the past to rocks on the big V I have donated quite a few drinking wraps in the past to rocks on the big v

Edited by Captain Acorn
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For winter jigging with Raps I cut off both front and rear hooks and upgrade one size on the middle treble hook.

Cliff

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I've been trolling at about .5mph while using a jigging rap. This way one guy can still drag a lindy. I keep the front hook intact but my boat has contributed about half a dozen to the lake so far this summer. Im still working on getting the hang of it. If I know I'm in a rough area I will attempt to keep the jig from hitting bottom which still seems to be effective. I did pick up a couple off brands that don't have a front hook that I want to try. This is just what I have been toying around with, I'm definitely not an expert at it.

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Thanks cliff and lb I have actually had better luck with the puppet minnows from northland but I have mainly jigged them vertically definently is a fun way to fish 

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Captain Acorn,

I fish Jiggin Raps quite a bit on Vermilion, have for several years now.  I Cast em, fish them vertical and move around and cover ground at a good pace with them.  I am not sure there is any key to getting snagged less, other than knowing your spots. They are certainly an effective and a great way to catch fish.  I personally do not remove either the front or the back hook.  Believe me if you fish these your going to donate a few to the depths, just part of the game. 

 

Good luck!

- Roosterman

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Was up for the weekend with the family and got out a little bit. Fished for about 2 hours in the morning and evening each day started out great on Friday nailing a 24" first fish but but over all fishing was slow for me. Saturday I zeroed but switched to spinner rigs w crawlers  Sunday and got into some nicer walleyes all 16 to 22" fish 1 mph perch colored spinners with the hammered looked to them with orange and green beads on a sand to rock transition. Sure was marking a ton of bait fish on the screen it looks like the lake is loaded right now.  How did everyone else do? 

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Tough weekend fishing for me.  Caught only 5 walleyes.  I didn't see anybody else find a good bite around me.  I couldn't keep the crayfish and perch off my crawler.  I must have caught 20 crayfish and 10 perch for every walleye I caught.

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Good advice! I appreciate it. And good to hear from you. I found fish over the weekend on reef tops with few if any bites. I should've moved on but 11-12" fish made me think better ones might come. The good fish I did find were on the sides of reefs.  I'm off the water for family business, but hoping for a good August!

Dick

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Was up Tuesday until this morning (Frazer / Smart Bay) and wow was the walleye fishing slow for me. Was out Wednesday / Thursday mornings from 7:30-10:00 ish and nary a walleye bite in all my usual spots. Tried a bit in the afternoons as well, but not too serious.

 

 Hope everyone else is having better luck!!

 

 

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Got out Saturday morning with my 7 yr old daughter. She wasn't much for fishing so she spent the whole time doing canon balls off the back of the boat. Not sure how much that helped my success, boated 4 and a 30 something inch snot rocket. Sunday was better, boated 14, kept 5 (14-17"), lost a couple of very nice eaters at the boat. 14-28fow. Found some on the humps others were off. Jigging rap out fished the lindy and crawler. Only minnows were coughed up in the livewell. Sacrificed two jigging raps to the fish gods. 

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Coming up for a few days to start the week. How was the fishing this weekend? Is the sand in big bay producing at all?

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Thinking I might try lead core  and a shadrap along the shoreline bresk.

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Spent the afternoon on the lake with my wife and kids. Managed around 20 walleyes, kept 8 between 14-17", wife caught a 36" northern, and I lost my walleye of a lifetime. Very confident it would have broke the 30" mark if it hadn't decided to do some crazy tail dance out of the net. Still cant figure out how we lost it. Caught a few on a lindy with a sucker minnow, most came on a jigging rap. Found fish from 15-26 fow, mid lake structure, most fish seemed to be on the transition, not quite on the top. Sacrificed two jigging raps to the fish gods, think L&M gives a discount if I buy in bulk? Overall a great day, weather was beautiful and the fish cooperated. 

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Nice walleye Reid!

Cliff

CT,

Getting all of my walleyes in the sand this week!

Cliff

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Well, nothing to show for efforts with lead core but I am not giving up. 

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Fished the past weekend on the West end and was again pleasantly surprised.  Nice slot fish right at the sand/rock transition points in 12-16 feet of water.  Again used 1/2 crawler on a longer lindy and added a perch colored spinner blade (colorado blade) about 2 inches above top hook and trolled 0.9-1.2 mph.  Again where there were pods of small perch there were walleyes but if there were bluegils and sunnys they weren't there.  Noticed a bunch of cormorants again in the Wake-em-up area near turtle island.  I have been very happy with fishing on the West this summer and can only hope it continues to improve.

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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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