elysian/waterville lake area

[ole matty]

hello. i will be coming to sakatah state park with my father and nephew this sunday, they are from ohio as they want to fish and have a good time around ol south minnesota area.. was wonderin hows the fishin at lake francis, lura lake, elysian lake, tetonka lake, sakatah lake, and can u guys give me a direction to good access on tetonka lake from sakatah state park?? THANKS! have a good weekend!

[french_lake_kid]

Lura was miserable earlier this month! Things could have changed weed wise though. Lots and lots of veggies!

[fishinlarry]

The state park has an access, you can get to Tetonka with a short ride up the river.

[ole matty]

i know sakatah have acces to tetonka but is river to low at time of this year??

[Team Otter]

You can still get through.

[Dag_1979]

Fished Frances on saturday, caught 13 northern,1-3 lbs., a few small bass, and 2 nice crappies. Used mepps 4 & 5 spinner-chartreuse blade/white bucktail, orange mepps 4 & 5. When they quit hitting the mepps shallow, we switched to cranks (thunderstick jr/shad rap in fire tiger).

[harvey lee]

Sounds like you caught some very good pickled fish. I love those smaller pike for pickling.

[KMR85]

fished tetonka sunday from 4-8pm and casted raps at the weeds, parallel with weeds, away from weeds with no eyes to show for it. we were on the south side of the lake and casted nearly the whole shoreline, with the exception of the bay with the public access. Only picked up one striper, a couple nice largemouths, and a couple smaller northerns. We actually didnt get decent action until we were closer to waterville and out of the green stuff. Its kind of a pain to reel up slop on every cast. that crap sits on top of the water and it is all over that lake, except by town. Anyone got any pointers for getting eyes out of here, because I havent got one out of tetonka yet. I have only fished it a few times so if anyone has pointers on what has worked lately, I would appreciate it.

[KMR85]

or would francis be a better choice? i prefer that lake more. seems to have more depth change vs. staying 20 ft everwhere on tetonka. and yes i know of the humps on tetonka and didnt get any fish off them.

[Team Otter]

My report titled "Just a bit outside" covers most of the bases. There are still areas of the lake that are not slop-ridden and the water clarity is decent. If I were choosing between Tetonka or Frances, I would go with Tetonka. I have been on both within the last 10 days.

[love2fish4ever]

Don't feel bad KMR5, in the past 4 weeks I've fished Tetonka 5 times 4 of which there were 2 of us in the boat & only once did I feel like I did fairly well, 4 pike ( one was 6 lbs.) about as many hits & misses, this was trolling spoons when there were still a fair amount of weeds (not the sloppy ones)since then it's gottn tougher, & couple of nice bass, Other than that it's been very unproductive & only 1 walleye to show for it (8"). I think it's a case of fishing the right areas with the confidence you're in the right area & presentation is key. So far I feel I've been 'running & gunning" waiting for the fish to slow me down telling me I've hit on it. I've tried alot of areas & alot of presentations from 3'-25'. Tetonka is a good lake & I've had my good days there, but not lately, but obvoiusly by the posts that are on here there are people in the know, cause they do very well. Spent the morning on Shields pitching the shallows & working suckers on spinners on the weed flats & deep weed edges 3'-14'..absolutely nothing! didn't even see much on the dethfinder either. Was very overcast & a good south wind, can't blame the weather. Maybe I'll go back to Mille Lacs! L2f

[ole matty]

Fished tetonka yesterday, fishing for eyes by shore for an hour with nothing to show as my nephew r whining with no fish being caught so we went to baar by river channel in waterville arepa we were slip bobberin caught some nice perch one being 11 inches and a lot of sheephead and some crappies. N went out on francis this morning caught some good eater bluegills n released rest of otherfish asbass, bullhead and one huge 23 n half inches sheepies.. I m wonderin which is betterbass lake between francis n tetonka as I might have time by myself tmw evening.. Thanks.

[KMR85]

I dont know for sure which is a better bass lake, but I am gonna guess francis. I figured with all the casting we did for walleyes on tetonka, that we would pick up a lot of bass too. I was wrong, we only had a few and some misses. Seems like the ones you get there are pretty nice. Francis seems like it would be a better bass lake, but I dont get out to these lakes enough to know. Good to know that you're pounding the walleyes on tetonka again this year otter. You've got that lake down!

[love2fish4ever]

I've fished Frances & Tetonka (Francis much more often) but from my experiences, Tetonka has size, Frances has numbers.

People like the guys on the So. Mn. bass tour would be the best judges of that.

L2f

[Team Otter]

"Pounding 'em" would be a stretch but the bite has been pretty darn good for ~2 weeks now. My concern is that with the cover dying off, the pattern will turn to a trolling bite and that is a tougher pattern to nail down and stay on top of.