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Grindstone Lake Fishing Reports


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Toying with the idea of heading up there Saturday morning. Only been there a couple times, never on the opener.

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The opener was a zoo as usual.  There is 15" of ice in some spots, less as you get closer to the center.  It looked like there was quite a few folks out over the weekend when I drove past the south end.

I fished mid afternoon on the opener and had one miss in 5-8' of water.  I had planned to go out last weekend as well but went west to fish with my son in law over by Melrose.  The reports I heard about opener was that it was slow all around but some fish were caught.

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I didn't get there either.  Planned on it, but found a good crappie bite in Wisconsin that I couldn't pass up.

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checking to see if anyone may have found a otter sled fish house combo, my son was fishing Grindstone lake today heading to Pine City and lost it off the back of his trailer.  his name is Derek and can be reached at 218-393-1486, thanks if anyone has found it

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I haven't heard of anyone finding it but I'll keep my ears open.  Does he know about where he lost it?  Freeway or back road?

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Fished grindstone today. Someone was already set up at my go to spot, so I fished farther down the shoreline than I’ve ever been. Looked for rainbows in 5 to 17 ft, nothing but a few dink perch. Tried for lakers in 45 to 68 ft. Marked a couple smelt, but that’s all. Ice was a consistent 18 to 20 inches.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders
4 minutes ago, JBMasterAngler said:

Fished grindstone today. Someone was already set up at my go to spot, so I fished farther down the shoreline than I’ve ever been. Looked for rainbows in 5 to 17 ft, nothing but a few dink perch. Tried for lakers in 45 to 68 ft. Marked a couple smelt, but that’s all. Ice was a consistent 18 to 20 inches.

Grindstone and can be a tough bite lake. Thanks for the ice report. I usually try it once after Walleye closes.

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My brother and I are headed up to grindstone this weekend for some lakers. Is there any tips that you can give me? I've never been trout fishing. Not looking for anyones spot, just some helpful advice to start me off in the right direction

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Look for schools of smelt. They are typically 40 to 60ft down in over 80ft of water. Lakers should be nearby.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Old Grindstone can be tough.  I've caught them in 70' and 12' but the biggest ever was only about 3-4lbs. Good Luck.

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I went up there for the opener and didn't catch any. Had one following my lure around in 60' but couldn't get it to commit. I'm thinking of going this weekend. Is the ice good to drive on to get to the 60' humps in the middle and south ends of the lake? Is there an access on the south end? I have a Chevy Colorado. On opener I was in 16-18" of ice but I know the lake can be sketchy.
 

My Eskimo Quickflip 3 is too difficult to pull by myself when there is snow on the ice. Flat bottom, tons of drag so I need to be able to drive out there.

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  • 11 months later...

As of last weekend ice was 13 inches in most places. Sure to be thicker now with the cold temps. Just be careful, even during the coldest winters, there can be some thin spots out there.

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I went out on sunday and monday.  I set up on 15+ inches but found quite a few spots that were closer to 13"   as for fishing all I could manage was perch.  seen a few smelt on the buddys camera but they didnt cooperate. lost a small rainbow at the hole in the morning but that was the only trout action for me. 

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  • 11 months later...
  • 11 months later...

Went out for the opener today. Waited for the morning rush to be over, got there about noon. Probably more than half the people had left already. Lake was a slushy sloppy mess! Ice was probably about 7, maybe 8 inches out in the middle. But along east shoreline was only about 4.5 inches. Fished 4 to 20 feet and nothing! Had planned to target lakers as well, but my feet were cold and wet, so I called it a day fairly quickly. Nobody else I talked to or saw, caught anything either.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders
2 hours ago, JBMasterAngler said:

Went out for the opener today. Waited for the morning rush to be over, got there about noon. Probably more than half the people had left already. Lake was a slushy sloppy mess! Ice was probably about 7, maybe 8 inches out in the middle. But along east shoreline was only about 4.5 inches. Fished 4 to 20 feet and nothing! Had planned to target lakers as well, but my feet were cold and wet, so I called it a day fairly quickly. Nobody else I talked to or saw, caught anything either.

Thought about it but know Grind takes a lot of cold weather to get safer ice being so deep. May be in a week or two as it's suppose to start getting colder by the end of next week.

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Went there around 5am and got in to the row on the south side in about 10 ft. I got a couple smelt, my buddy got a 13" rainbow and a couple smelt. As usual, seemed to die down around 9am, so we moved out between 27-55' and got some more smelt, but couldn't locate a laker to target. Nice size smelt tho. 

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  • 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!  
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