Jump to content
  • GUESTS

    If You  want access  to member only forums on FM, You will need to Sign-in or  Sign-Up now .

    This box will disappear once you are signed in as a member.

Otter Tail Reports *****UPDATED*****


Recommended Posts

Hey guys,

Time for the annual family trip to your beautiful neck of the woods (27 years I think), specifically Otter Tail. Any recent reports on the fishing there? It looks like it has been a little slow the past few weeks. We always fish the 18' to 35' mid-lake humps in the mornings and during the days with lindy rigs tipped with leeches. For the night fishing we usually troll on the deep side of the shallow weed lines with shallow running Rapalas.

Any other presentation / bait working better? As always, any assistance is greatly appreciated and I will provide a full report upon my return! grin.gifgrin.gifgrin.gifgrin.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No one fishing Otter Tail? confused.gifconfused.gif Not looking for specific spots just a fishing report. grin.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't hit OT in a long time as I've found a consistent bite elsewhere. grin.gif

I heard OT has a tough bite going, but that's all hearsay. Hopefully someone will chime in.

Good luck and enjoy the vacation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the reply Chuck. Hopefully it'll pick up a bit and I'll have a good report for ya when I get home. grin.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

aint heard of any one catching fish over there but if you bowfish we have been hammerin the carp and bullheads west battle has to good of a walleye bite going on right now for me to think about tryin ottertail any time soon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

As promised, here is my very unprofessional fishing report from my vacation at Otter Tail last week.

We had some luck trolling Rapala's in the 8'-10' range early in the morning and in the late evening / night. Seemed the bite was pretty sporadic and you picked up a few, but had to wade through a lot of rock bass. The largest was a nice 19 1/2" that was CPR'd.

The best luck we had was the bottom bouncer / spinner / crawler set-up over the mid-lake humps. It seemed like we would pick up 1-3 fish on each hump, and then it would kind of shut-off. We jumped around a lot from hump to hump, and always seemed to get a few at each spot.

Fishing both methods produced a LOT of small walleye's in the 9" to 12" range.

All in all, we were very happy with how the fish were biting, and kept just enough to have a nice family fish fry.

On an unrelated matter, are the Water Patrol guys Deputy Sheriff's with the Otter Tail County Sheriff's Department, or are they specifically just Water Patrol agents supervised by the Sheriff's Department?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Otter Tail County Water Patrol is contacted through the Sheriffs office for Water Patrol during spring and summer months. They patrol over 1,000 lakes within Otter Tail County.

Some of their responsibilities include:

Assisting with permit requests

Taking care of complaints and questions related to jet skiers and boaters

Taking care of water related injury accidents

Working with the Public Safety Dive Team in rescue and recovery of near drowning and drowning victims

Checking for the proper number of flotation devices in a boat

Checking for current registrations on boats and other water craft

Teaching water safety

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.


  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
    • leech~~
      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.