minnewaska sunfish

[Guest]

The sunfish are biting out in front of woodlawn resort in 12 to 13 feet of water.
I went out yesterday and kept 15, all in the 1/2# range( nice ones) going back out today. Look for the portables

[Fishing Addiction]

Fisherman,
It is great to hear that some sunfish are finally coming off this lake. I have fished Minnewaska several times earlier this season for gills and have came home empty handed. Planning on coming out there Sunday to try it again. How was the bite, was it agressive or very light? Did you do a lot of moving around to get you 15 fish? What kind of weed were you set up on? Any info you can provide is appreciated. Thanks.
Fishingaddiction

[Guest]

yeah we went up there last weekend and brang home 260 sunfish it was unbeleivable

[Roop-Dogg]

just wondering how much snow on the ice?? can i get around with a 2 wd pickup?? thanks in advance for any advice!!

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Roop

[32 degrees]

260 sunfish? Sounds like selective harvest is not in your vocabulary. How many five gallon pails did you fill during your excursion? 3-4-5? Nice work.

[Guest]

on waska- im sure you can get on at any time- theres hunt's resort- which im sure has a road plowed to all the hotspots and also other people with snowplows, so im sure there is a superhighway blazed out to the honey hole..

[Guest]

260 sunfish??? Good Lord! Well, now that you have enough fish to eat till opener, what are you going to do?

[Guest]

We filled up 4 pals up it didnt take very long to catch them that saturday after noon either we couldnt keep our lines in the water. So now that we have enough fish to eat im sure we will just catch and release. Good luck out there guys

[ghotierman]

iceman...just curious...how many were in your party?....260 is a lot of fish....

[Guest]

how big were they?you had to catch alot of small ones.

[Guest]

They were all very nice size we probably threw 10 small ones back it was great fun. And there were nine of us in three different houses.

[First Ice-Mike]

Yeah - unless he had about 9 people on the ice (which is unlikely) he was illegal. Maybe we should get the DNR to do a freezer check..............

FI

[Guest]

iceman
I am going up on monday and was wondering what part of the lake you were fishing. also does anyone else have any up to date reports
thanks

[Guest]

Go on the private access right before you hit the turn to get on 29. Its pretty much strait out fron that access with about 20 house packed really really tight. Good luck

[mnfishman]

You sure can tell that Ice Man 05 is not from around the Pope county area. 260 sunfish is a lot of fish to be pulled out of one lake all at once. I guess when I take my kids out fishing this weekend and they ask me why the fish aren't biting I can tell them that someone caught them all already.

I don't believe you either when you say you are going to do cpr the next time. I have seen your kind all the time leaving the DNR access or Hunts access. Pails full on Saturday and low and behold your back on Sunday filling them up again.

[Guest]

Hey your right im not from around pope county. And another thing that was the best ice fishing I've ever did. And just because you have seen other ppl not catch and releasing fish that automatically makes me one of those ppl?? Hey pal why dont you get to know the ppl that you talk about before you go and judge them!!

[Skeets]

That's enough bashing, guys.

Lets just get back to some fishing reports.

If there is someone out there breaking the laws, lets use the DNR TIP line to turn them in.

[ghotierman]

Thanks for the reminder, Skeets!
let's keep this civil...

Remember, Iceman had about nine people in his party...made a memorable trip for all of them.

Congrats, Iceman...those kinds of outings keep us all coming back.

NOW...
how was the fishing down there this past weekend?

will the ice hold through the end of march? or will the black hole bust up the bite?

discuss.....

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Northeast Outfitters
915 Hwy 29 N NE
Alexandria, MN 56308
(320) 763-9598

[Guest]

i dont know what you guys are talkin about this hot fishing on minnewaska.. i sat out there for about 4 hours on saturday- plenty of fish on the vexi- no takers. didnt even get a BITE.. same story everyone i talked to..

not good by my standards i guess. i usually expect to at least catch a fish..

[Guest]

I was out on the glenwood end sunday. Three of us ended up with 12 sunfish. Lots of fish on the vex but very few takers

[angler903]

I was out on Saturday. Three of use looked around and finaly set up infront of Hunts resort. We only caught 5 sunfish (2 keepers), 4perch, 8 crappie, and an 18 inch walleye. Lot of fish on vex, same on all lakes lots of marks and follows but few bites.

[mnfishman]

I see that my comments may have upset a few people on this forum. I am not sorry for what I said. I am not labeling anyone as a poor conservationist you can do that yourselves. Catch and release is at this time voluntary but down the road it could become manditory or the limits could get cut in half or more. The perch limit used to be 100 a day now it is what 20. Why??

I grew up in Glenwood and I have always fished Minnewaska. I have seen it go from an awesome fishery to a poor one. Sure you can catch fish but they aren't as big as they used to be. 10 years ago you could go out and catch perch that were 1 lb or bigger all day long. Now all you get is shiner size and those will never get bigger because people throw them on the ice instead of back in the lake.

The next time you are out fishing look around on the lake and count how many people you can see are out there fishing. If you are having a successful day you can pretty much figure others are as well. If everyone kept their full limit just think what it would do to the amount of quality fish.

[Guest]

There are many people on the forum, including most of the prostaff and fieldstaff that feel the same way about keeping large numbers of fish. Everyone's opinions are welcome, just remember the context of a message can be taken the wrong way easily and no personal attacks are allowed. Educating people on catch and release is needed in order to sustain healthy fish populations in our lakes and streams.

On to a report......Scott Steil and myself have been getting gills out of pockets in the weeds. You'll get a few active fish out of one hole then you'll have to move to another one. You can come back to that hole a little while later and get a few more to bite. Find pockets in the weeds and move around. The bite is better than it has been and should be getting better......

[This message has been edited by flyingfish (edited 02-22-2003).]

[Guest]

iceman i'm sure one of those people that will complain next year saying i don't know what happened to all the nice sunnies i use to catch.

[Guest]

i also remember a time where i went to 'waska with grandpa and we could go out and get all the nice perch we wanted.. never could find em anymore after he died. his story was that when the DNR was seigning rough fish, they took out perch too, because one year we had all the 10" plus fish we wanted, and the year after there was nothing.. we even used to pull out a couple over a pound per day..
also the walleye fishing seems to be going down hill real fast too. i remember about 3 years ago, i took my other grandpa out in my fall walleye hotspot and we caught all the walleyes we wanted, about 17-23". one night in particular, we were the only people out there because it was raining AND snowing, but we decided that we must have caught over 100 walleyes that night. both of us were frozen solid, soaking wet and frozen, but we couldnt talk each other into leaving, because it was the best fishing that grandpa had ever had, and right up there on my scale also.. this fall, seemed like there was alot of 12" fish, but nothing that we could put in the livewell..

minnewaska seems to have gone downhill fast after they quit pumping raw sewage into the lake, it cleared up alot after that, and i think that this had a bad effect on the panfish, making it easier for predators to get em. anyone notice the fast decline after sewage and then the slow incline after that?? my theory is as stated above, the predators killed off alot of fish the summer and winter after they quit puttin sewage into the lake, and now the fish seem to have adapted to that and slowly came back.

minnewaska is a great fishery, but it gets waaaay too much pressure. winter and summer, its hard to find a day where there isnt a boat out in the hotspots. hopefully it will benefit from the new regulations concerning sunnies and crappies here when they change!

[PROCHRIS]

WE went to minne this last weekend and we did really bad maybe it was the cold front the sunfish were just not found we tried many diffrent areas and all we caught was 4 perch and one small walleye all day long between 3 people GOOD LUCK

CHRIS

[CRITTER]

Take the fishing report of 260 sunfish with a grain of salt. I think he was just poken the nest or tryen to see how many people would be out the next day. Thats to many to even clean. Kids!