Has anyone fished the Long Lake just west of Mound, how about Dutch Lake?

[fishinlarry]

Any info. on these lakes?

[Jameson]

If you want dirty water go to Dutch. If you want clear water go to Little Long Lake.

Oh, and there's a shooting range next to Little Long. So don't go expecting a nice peaceful fishing day on that lake. Well, unless you like the sound of bullets rifling.

Sorry, I don't have any fishing info. on these two small metro lakes. I haven't fished either of these lakes for a few years. The mighty Minnetonka is just too close to stay away from.

[Cyberfish]

Lots of mediocre crappies in dutch, there are some respectable sunfish, but they are hard to find. also largemouth bass, a few pike and some nice bullheads.

[Pikeman_Doug]

Little Long is deep, very clear, cold, quiet and small. It is primarily a pike lake and not too bad for bass. Very few crappies. Zillions of tiny sunfish and every once in a while a very large pumpkinseed. Also dogfish and a couple beaver family's. Also they stock rainbows every two years. If anybody knows how to catch'em, lemme know. This is my primary lake. It has a 10hp limit, is very peaceful. Totally surrounded by woods, so you can almost pretend you're up in the north country. Please catch and release the larger bass and pike.

[Pikeman_Doug]

A little more.....Like Jameson says, there is a shooting range over the hill on the west side, so on certain days you'll hear a lot of shotguns. Even on these days the lake feels very meditative to me. I've spent hundreds of hours out there over the last five years. I fish from a canoe. Even on a weekend, there are rarely more than four boats on the lake. On weekdays there are rarely more than one. They've got beavers the size of horses, so don't be surprised to see a massive black head swimming a few hundred yards away.

It is not unusual to see a lone deer, or a raccoon. Sometimes there is a pair of Loons. Not many ducks. If you like watching stuff in the water, it's a good lake for that. You can see a lot of interesting things, all the way from watching little bugs, minnows, etc all the way up to seeing a big dogfish swim up to the boat to check you out. Man are they ugly!

Because of the clear water, the weedline can go to 20'. Lots of milfoil in the south end. Be careful, with an electric motor only you can get stuck pretty easy. The deepest part of the lake is about 70'. I've only caught one trout, and that was by accident by accidentally letting my crappie minnow fall to the bottom of the lake in deep water when I forgot to close the bail on the spinning reel. 10 minutes later I reel it in and there's a 15 inch trout on the hook! Talk about weird! I'd love to learn how to catch the trout (summer), so if anybody has any recommendations, I'd love to hear about it. I suppose the pike eat most of them.

There is a very small bay at the south end on the other side of the thick swamp (you'll need a map to find it) that you could only get to with a very shallow draft boat, but as of a year or two the beavers had built a big dam across the channel. Don't know if it's still there. There was no dam for years, then one year I showed up and all of a sudden there is this 18" mud dam blocking the way! Dynamite, anyone? (just kidding).

Ocassionally there will be a group of skindivers. And the locals use the landing/dock as a swimming hole, which is fine. They're always nice people. There is a YMCA camp on the lake, so sometimes there will be a bunch of noisy kids on the west side of the lake swimming off the swim raft.

This is a small specialty lake, so please throw back all the better bass and northerns you get.

Be very careful in the winter, as I've heard the lake is spring fed and can be treacherous. I've tried to do some water temp studies (in the summer) but I can't believe the results I got, as it seemed that the water was in the mid to upper 30's when you get down to 40 or 50 feet or so. That seems unlikely. I was using an electronic Fluke thermometer with a 50 foot thermocouple. But I can definitely say that the water is VERY cold at the low depths.

-Doug

[iFishMN.YT]

Great little lake, fishing isnt always the best but very peacefull. The mud dam blocking the lower lake looks to be put there by man, I think someone is trying to keep boats out of the lower lake, I busted through when the water was higher, but right now is nearly impossible with a boat. I would think it would be illegal to intentionally block access to public water, would be nice if the DNR came and cleared it, or a crazed fisherman with dynamite(or a shovel would work too I guess).

[Pikeman_Doug]

Chad,

I agree, I thought it looked like something manmade (as of a year or two ago). But I've never seen a beaver dam before, so what do I know. I told a friend of mine about it(he knows all about this kind of stuff), and he was sure it was a beaver dam. I said, no you don't understand this thing was 4 feet wide and 18" above the water. And he said that's not that big a for a beaver (Contact Us Please), so who knows. It's weird if somebody made it, because I think there are only like two houses on the lower bay. That's a lot of work to go to just to keep an occassional quiet boat out of the bay. Also illegal as heck, I would think. I talked to the CO for that area about it but she didn't know anything about it.

-Doug

[fishinlarry]

Thanks for the great info guys.

[B-fishin]

Hey Pikeman, was that you in the portable last night close to shore by the access? How is the ice?

[Carp-fisher]

One thing about driving on Little Long (If the ice gets thick enough this year…): If you don’t have four wheel drive and the boat ramp is icy, do not drive down onto the lake. Seems like common sense, right? Well I did that a couple of years ago and it was quite the experience. I had to hit that boat ramp going about 50 MPH to get up enough momentum to make it up the boat ramp and out of the relatively steep parking lot. That must’ve been quite the sight for the few people that were out there that day….