Lake Mary

[Ackerman6]

Hello all! This is my first official post. It has been fun reading others so I decided it was time to join in the fun. I am heading to Lake Mary this coming week with the fam and am curious if anyone has any info on how the fishing has been. We're not species specific. We all love to fish for whatever we can catch (except dogfish... ). In the past we have fished primarily in Sunset Bay and the north side since that is where the resort is. I have often considered fishing Little Mary, but have never done so.

Last year at this time my son and I had a blast trolling for pike. Nothing big, but a lot of action. We also did pretty well with Largemouth and caught a few big Crappie. Any chance of a repeat this year?

How is the water level?

[alex1]

Akerman, was out there last week and the landing off of hwy 29 is very shallow, if you know where the landing is on the little lake I would recommend using it. Evening fishing seemed to be the best, trolling twister tails jsut fast enough to make the tail move pretty good in 12-18 fow. experiment with color, changes from day to day seems like, with 1/16th oz head usually pink or white.

Walleyes were deep during the day (20-30 fow), and shallow at night with shad raps, in 15-18 fow.

I would say your chances for a repeat this year is quit good.

Let us know how you did when you get home, and welcome to the forum, you can learn alot form the guys that post on here.

[Ackerman6]

I am aware of the landing you are talking about. I have always put in there. It would be nicer to put in on the north side because it is a few hundred yards from the resort, but I borrow a boat and don't want to risk running a rock through a boat that isn't mine and I am too lazy to walk the boat to the landing.

Where do you find 30' of water on Mary?... I tend to run out of patience trying to find Walleye. Fished Mary for a week the past two years and have managed to see one and it (9" or so) was caught by my daughter while we were pan fishing.

alex1, is it worth a trip across the lake to fish Little Mary or is Sunset Bay an as good or better option?

[alex1]

You can find 30' off the end of the sunset bay point, at the end of it is a sunken island. Off the edge of it you can hit 30' easily. The little lake has some good panfish action this time of year, if you're interested. Have a goood time

[Ackerman6]

Thanks! Like I said before, we'll fish for what is biting. Getting into some good pan fishing with the kids would be a hoot. Hopefully we'll get a few pics worthy of posting. From what I'm seeing, the weather could be a bit unsettled so we'll see I guess.

[fishing4fun]

Heading to Mary for the first time over Labor day weekend with the kids. How's the fishing going? Any walleyes? I'm assuming the panfish will be very plentiful for the kids. Where should a guy start to look for walleyes? This is our first time on the lake and have NO CLUE.

Thanks

[Central Bassman]

Was out on mary a few weeks ago and did really well for walleyes. They were hard to find but ones we find them we work the aread really good and ended up with some good eaters. Lindy Rigs really slow and spinners worked bested for us.

[Ackerman6]

Well, I don't want to burst bubbles, but the fishing wasn't very good last week. A few walleyes were caught (none by me) by the guys at the resort, but they were very few and far between.

If you are looking for panfish, I'm told to try Little Mary. I never ventured that far myself, but from what I've heard, that would have been the better bet. The panfish were nearly non-existent on the north side and in Sunset Bay. One of the guys at the resort found a hole where he pulled out a decent amount of crappie, but we fished the weedline in the same area and only found a couple.

Don't know how all of you feel about pike, but if you have ANY tolerance for them, PLEASE pull as may of the 20"ers out of the lake as you can! The lake is full of them, too full. I have a hunch that they are why the pan fishing was bad. The fishing was bad and I still caught about 15 of them for the week and that isn't counting all the fish that broke my line while jigging for bass/crappie... I told myself that I wasn't going to keep any this year because I still have some in the freezer from last year, but by mid week I started keeping them anyway to thin the herd a bit. If you have any desire to help improve the fishing in Mary, PLEASE harvest some of these, you WILL catch some no matter what presentation you are using.

That all being said, the weather was screwy for most of the week. It rained/drizzled the first three days and there was a moderate breeze from the east. Things straightened out a little for a couple of days and then it rained again on Thurs. So, the weather may have played a role in the poor fishing.

I marked a LOT of fish, just couldn't get the bite. Here is a friendly tip though, the bite picked up a bit at the end of the week when we started using white twisters.

Hope you enjoy a bit more luck than we did. It was still WAY better than work though!