Fishing Open on Ottertail

[Juice]

So did anyone has success fishing on OT? Went out fishing at midnite and managed to catch 2 suckers. There was lots of people down there at the dam and down river. People started fishing from the bridge casting out jigheads with minnows casting down stream and letting it remain on the bottom. Saw someone pulled up a 3lb eye...But it looked really slow.

[Gissert]

Hey Juice-

Looks like everyone is still out fishing. I did not even wet a line in that wind yesterday. I spent the day cleaning up all the stump grindings in the front yard.

My sister and boyfriend fished turtle yesterday, but it was slow. They ended up chasing crappies after a while.

[Mark Christianson]

Got on Ottertail at 6:30 am Saturday.
I got a walleye almost 16 inches at 6:40am.

That was our only walleye. We left the lake about 10:30am, and in the 4 hours, we saw 3 other walleyes caught.

Darn fish.

[Jigging Bob]

Fished Turtle all Friday night in coveralls and full winter gear still froze to death, caught one **** crappie and one bass. Saturday morning woke up to a boat full of water do to the white caps splashing into it from the 100 mile and hour winds. Once we got that all drained me and my brother went out and froze to death again. Did ok not great. Alot of little northerns, 5 bass, 2 of them were pretty decent. And that was about it. We quit earily Saturday night. Tired of freezing our asses off. Good thing we got off the lake cause it hailed a bit later Saturday night. Finally Sunday ended up getting a warmer day, so we went and ate breakfast put everything in the boat and got ready to fish and not more than 10 minutes on the water we got pored on. After freezing in the wind all weekend and being soaking wet and just having a horrible weekend fighting the elements without catching fish. We decided to just pack it up and head home. Oh well Happens every year on opener. Thats ok though at least we tried. I haven't heard to many good reports from anywhere. I am waiting on my being sick after all this. Glad to see I wasn't the only one who got out though.

[ChuckN]

On Saturday 2 boats, 4 guys on OT and only 2 walleye, one was a keeper. Worst bite I've seen on the big pond. I think I saw 3 walleyes caught all day by other fisherman.

I headed to a smaller, shallow lake and had a couple fish in the boat before the storms and rain rolled in on yesterday.

[yourresort]

Most fishermen staying at Three Seasons Lodge agreed that the bite was slow. They had mixed results, however.

Many of the guys who frequent the lake did well. Some had limits and I did see a number of larger eyes (20"+). There are plenty of nice sized bags in our fishgut freezer.

If there was a common reason (Excuse) for not getting more fish, It was the wind making it hard to hold a spot. The need to present slow with the water temps was, difficult to accomplish.

Thanks to all the guys who stayed over the opener. We had a great crew!!!

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Paul Ness
Three Seasons Lodge on Otter Tail Lake

[Guest]

You are welcome

We had the same experience - we caught three walleyes total (zero for me!) none of which were keepers.

We fished for about 10 hours in that wind on Saturday. Sunday was nicer.

It was the slowest I've seen Ottertail ever too.

[deacon]

Yes it was a tough bite Saturday, 3 of us managed 10 eyes in 8'-11' from 6am to 1pm. Jig and minnow worked best. If we caught a fish we would anchor in the spot immediately to try to stay on the fish.

Sunday, after sleeping in we fished from 8am to 11am and caught 12 eyes, 10ft was the magic mark. Had to have a yellow jig and a fathead minnow. Bite was extremely light, had to fish with Ultra-lights to detect the bite. With little wind we just moved around real slow, most fish caught in 2 spots, had to stay in the exact spot.

Wish I was going out this evening the weather is great today.

Be safe and good luck to all.

[bigbucks]

We fished Ottertail Saturday afternoon & evening in the "lovely" wind. I would agree the action was slow. We did manage to boat 10 walleyes in the 12-19" range for 3 of us. I was surprised how deep they were. I was expecting 15' or less, but we got them anywhere between 14' & 30'. Small jigs with leeches....... Or maybe some other presentation, but the depths were legit.