Rush

[jcfishr]

Four days and counting until we leave for our annual vacation on Rush Lake. This will be our fourth year on this lake. Although our fishing results have improved every year, I've always been puzzled about
why the walleyes are so deep.

All the seasoned Rush vets seem to fish them from 20-30' this time of year with good success. Does it have to do with the lake structure or forage base? Would it be a waste to fish for them shallower? Any recent water temp info? Thanks!

[taxmancommeth]

Is this the Rush Lake (as in East & West Rush) in Chisago county, in East - Central MN?

If so I have heard that the lake has some strange current below that the 'eyes like.

You also find the 'eyes deep like that (in spring dfeeding & spanning epriod) in lakes that have lots of up & down in elevation...

Rush,
Clearwater
Pokegama in Grand Rapids, mn

My .02

[CrawlerKing]

I just fished in a tournament on Rush this past Sunday. A lot of teams were fishing deep and one guide I talked to said that for the past week a lot of his fish were caught in 35 to 50 feet of water, but in the tournament the top 3 teams caught all of their fish in 9 to 11 feet of water. We were successful by fishing very light and very slow with 4 of our fish coming on crawlers and 2 on jumbo leeches. We found a tip on one of the shallow humps in the lake that had a hard bottom...on the edge of the break that dropped from 9 ft. to 17 there were scattered clumps of weeds and the fish seemed to be relating to these. All of our fish were probably caught in a 30 yard area. If you are familiar with the lake, the area we were fishing was on the south side straight out from the two towers on the south shore. Hope this helps!

[jcfishr]

Thanks for the replies. This is the Rush lake just south of Detroit Lakes, not the ones by Rush City on 35. Rush definately fits the category of lakes with lots of ups and downs.

How was the tourney? Were the fish pretty active or did you really have to work for them? I agree that slow is the key. I'm very familiar with the two towers...much appreciated. I'll report back on how we did.

[CrawlerKing]

Fishing in the tournament was slow....the 34 teams only weighed 64 walleyes...it was a lot of fun, but you really had to grind it out...you knew that you were only going to get a few bites, so it was very important to make those count....we had 9 bites in 8 hours of fishing and managed to turn those into 6 keepable fish.

[HuskerTornado]

I'm going to Rush this Saturday. Hopefully, it will be another productive trip. A group of about 23 of us will be going this year. 25 of us were up last year.

[jimlovestrout]

see the other rush lake

[jcfishr]

Fishing was slow, even for the vets. Had to work hard for the eyes. Some were caught in 25-35'. Small ones though. The qaulity fish seemed to be shallower, in 6-10'. Our nicest eye was 18". Also caught a 10" sunfish, what a bull. For sunnies, look for emergent vegetation in about 10' of water. Still fishing with a small jig and a leech was the ticket.

[HuskerTornado]

The fish as of Saturday had yet to turn on. The weather over the week of 19-25th was the worst I have ever seen on Rush. Huge swells, high winds, cold air and water temperature, and also a cold rain made fishing miserable. We pulled quite a few quality fish, but it wasn't without a lot of work. The fish did not respond well to trolling cranks, although we did catch a few northern early in the week with this technique. Drifting and trolling spinners as well as drifting or anchoring with 1/4 oz. jigs seemed to be the best bet.

The problems Rush is having right now is not just because of the weather, but also because of the high fishing pressure it has been receiving. They are currently holding a raffle to stock the lake this year.

[eelpout#1]

Hadn't heard about the raffle, but you're right about the fishing pressure. A friend of mine has a cabin on the lake and he says he has never seen so many boats on the lake as this year. Part of the problem is that Big & Little Pine have Walleye slots and Ottertail has a slot on northerns. Alot of people don't want to fish a lake where they can't keep fish. Rush is one of the better fishing lakes in the area with no special regs. It always seems like you can find a place to fish on Rush Lake no matter which way the wind is blowing, which you can't say about some of the other area lakes.

[EYEFINDER]

Is Rush Lake fished out? What does the DNR have to say about this? Is it ever stocked? We are vacationing on there next week. Should we fish other lakes. We only keep enough fish for one or two meals and most of those are panfish. I don't mind catching walleyes though and we have a 14"-18" self-imposed slot limit on them, everything else goes back.

[HuskerTornado]

I don't think it is fished out...yet. We ran into some poor weather conditions a week ago so that attributed to the slow fishing. I cruised the entire lake and only found a few fish scattered here and there with very few big pods of fish in an area.

We practice selective harvest. We take only what we need, and we leave the big guys out there to spawn for another season. Even though it says you can keep one "trophy" size, it's best to put them back. Every trophy removed from a lake can slow down the fishing for years to come.