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.

Grindstone Lake Fishing Reports


Recommended Posts

Hey Waterbound...gonna have to cancel this week. The seal on one my car's shocks must have busted, because everytime I go over a bump at speed, the right tire just bounces down the road. Very startling when it happened the first time. I'm dropping it off tomorrow at the Jeep dealer in Burnsville. What a pain! Doesn't it know there's fishing to be done?! Hopefully it'll be done by Tuesday evening.

Last time I went up, I left first thing in the morning and got back sometime around 3 or 4. I guess I'll put this out there: I'll bum a ride off you if you want to go and I'll pitch in for gas and bait! smile

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It'd be great to head up there but I don't have a ton of confidence in my car and this snow could make traffic stand still and I really can't be late for my meeting. Sorry to hear about the car trouble, I know how that can be. Maybe sometime soon, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds good! Keep next Tuesday in mind. I may also be able to do a quick Monday afternoon trip. Let me know what you'd be interested in!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sweet! Got my car back this evening, so I'm planning on going. I have a Jeep that I put my shack (1-man Kenai) into with the seats down in back. Let me know what you have for a shelter. I bet we could stack another sled/shack on top of mine and still fit it all in the back. You have much experience out there?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a pop-up shelter that I just put in my sled along with the auger, rods, bait etc. It fit's in the backseat of my car (Volvo 850) pretty well, so it should fit in a Jeep. I've only been to Grindstone once and I spent half my time trying for lakers and half my time spearing. I didn't catch any fish, but I did have a rainbow swimming just outside the spear hole.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

can anyone tell me where grindstone is? For the life of me it doesn't come up on dnr page and can't finf it on mapquest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Grindstone Lake, located in Pine County 6 miles west of Sandstone, is one of the deepest lake basins in Minnesota.... --

I just Googled Grindstone Lake Minnesota - a whole bunch of information.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went out on Sunday to do a little scouting. Drilled a few holes and didn't mark anything. Anyone willing to mark up a map for me on where to fish on this lake in the winter? Would like to know the depths for lakers and rainbows also where the crappies usually can be found. Thanks Much!

[email protected]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went out on Sunday to do a little scouting. Drilled a few holes and didn't mark anything. Anyone willing to mark up a map for me on where to fish on this lake in the winter? Would like to know the depths for lakers and rainbows also where the crappies usually can be found. Thanks Much!

[email protected]

"mark up a map for me" you're kidding, right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went out on Sunday to do a little scouting. Drilled a few holes and didn't mark anything. Anyone willing to mark up a map for me on where to fish on this lake in the winter? Would like to know the depths for lakers and rainbows also where the crappies usually can be found. Thanks Much!

[email protected]

I hear a jig and bait work great!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the tip. If I get into them this week I will be sure to keep a tight lip. (I applogize for such a stupid post earlier) I should have known better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Thanks for the tip. If I get into them this week I will be sure to keep a tight lip. (I applogize for such a stupid post earlier) I should have known better.

Hey who cares, we're all fisherman. We lie, cheat, and smell bad! The Crappy bite on G/S can be hard to find. I have been there a few times each winter and have only ever found one when I was in about 80'feet of water and it was down about 40' deep, but I was jigging for Lakers not Crappies. As far as the Rainbows, fish the outside edges in about 6-12 feet, but I have heard others say they get them deeper about 6 feet under the ice? As far as Lakers go, it's anyones guess day to day where they will be. I've got them in 15'to 75' feet. So, yes you have to drill some holes and put in some elbow grease. Good luck! wink

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank You!! I have no problem drilling holes and puting in some elbow grease, just wanted to work smarter instead of harder. It's a long walk to the south end if it's not as productive as the north end.

Thanks Again!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Thank You!! I have no problem drilling holes and puting in some elbow grease, just wanted to work smarter instead of harder. It's a long walk to the south end if it's not as productive as the north end.

Thanks Again!

Don't walk, drive around the road. If you want to try the south end park on the side of the road by the church camp, if you want to fish the north end drive the road over to the Red barn or boat access and walk out from there. Good luck, and yes please post back on how you did, just don't tell us where your new hot spots are! smile

Link to comment
Share on other sites

luap,

Er, uh, welcome to HSO! grin

So, now you have 'question asking' 101 down. wink

It sounds like you did the right thing and went back to read the information that has already been posted. Good start!

The guys that fish this lake are willing to help out on the forums so just blend in and start sharing your experiences and read around some. You'll find what you need. smile

Glad to see you joined.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I usually have Tuesdays off, hopefully next week can work!

Hey Waterbound...and anyone else interested:

I'm heading up to GS from the twin cities tomorrow, and if you want to come along, shoot me an email: sethclayton "AT" me "DOT com.

I have a one man Kenai shack and a 4-door Jeep Wrangler that I put it in the back of with the seats down. So unfortunately I only have room for one other person and their shack. It would be sweet if you had a larger shack than mine so I could leave mine home. I'll be stopping at the bait shop in Harris on the way up. Planning on leaving sometime early in the morning and staying all day. It's about a 2 hour drive to the lake from the cities, so we'd be home around 7ish unless we needed to leave earlier for some reason. I can pick you up where ever it's convenient for you! Let me know! I'm looking forward to chasing some more lakers!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So "Waterbound" and I headed up to GS yesterday and gave it a pretty good effort!

We made it up to the lake by about 9 o'clock (after we stopped at McD's, bait shop, and o'Reilly's), and started fishing the two humps just southwest of the red barn. Put out two tip-ups, one with a rainbow chub and one with some preserved smelt, and then jigged around the humps with basically everything in the tackle box: jigging raps, lindy darters, tube jigs, you name it. Finally caught a couple SMALL perch on a little silver diamond jig with a waxie. We eased our way west from there into deeper water with the same procedure and didn't mark/catch a thing!

From there we hiked to the point just south of the Audubon Center, where there is a little saddle just off the point that drops into some pretty deep water. We set one tip-up right in the middle of the saddle with a rainbow chub on, and the other one on the break into the deeper water, and were jigging in the area in between. Again, we threw the whole tackle box at them and weren't able to produce anything! There were a couple marks on the flashers, but they were all slow movers, so we don't think that they were lakers. Kind of an interesting observation at this part of the lake though...someone had cut a HUGE (hockey rink size) rectangle out of the ice with a small "pathway" leading to it from the shore cut out of the ice as well. It was marked with stakes, and was beginning to freeze up again. We had seen some people around it earlier in the day, and another friendly gentleman had said that he was closer to them and they were all dressed identically. I'm assuming they were from the Audubon Center doing some sort of study, or from the DNR. My only other guess could be some sort of SCUBA training. In hindsight, we should have taken a picture of it, but were too interested in hunting for some trout. Anyone have any info on this? Another interesting note was that the water was quite stained in this area of the lake. It kind of surprised us, since it's so clear in the areas further north. There is a stream that comes into the lake just north of the Audubon buildings where we headed to next, that looked to be pretty brown. We're assuming that this was the cause of the stained water.

So we moved up to the mouth of the stream to see if we could get any more action, and noticed the water coming from the stream was very rusty looking. We drilled some holes anyway, and set one tipup directly out from the mouth of the stream, and set to jig some holes on the south side of it. I finally marked a bunch of smelt and was pulling them up one after another on the silver diamond jig with a waxie. Waterbound switched to a whole dead smelt on his tip-up by the mouth of the stream, and didn't even get it to the bottom before "something" grabbed ahold! He pulled it up, and it was a mudpuppy firmly latched on to the bait's belly. It let go once he got it out of the hole, but talk about strange! Only it got stranger from there! We jigged for the smelt for a while longer to pass the time and feel like we caught SOMETHING out there, and then decided to pack it up as the sun was getting ready to dip behind the trees. Waterbound is reeling up his tipup and, lo and behold, there's ANOTHER mud puppy, this time with the dead smelt's head firmly in its mouth!

By the end of the day, we had hiked close to two miles, and had two perch, a bunch of smelt, and two mud puppies to show for our efforts. Unfortunately there were no lakers to bring home, but maybe next time! There was lots of ice everywhere we drilled, including just out from the small creek by the Audubon place. Everywhere we drilled it was 18' - 24". In the end, we were treated with this sunset as we were hauling our gear off the lake. The weather was very nice, albeit a little windy, with temperatures in the upper 20s. The thermometer in my car when we hit the road read 32 degrees.

60.jpg

Let me know if we were on the right track for this lake, or if there was something we should have been doing differently. It was only the second time for each of us up to Grindstone, and neither of us has much experience laker fishing. Good luck to everyone out there!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Swimbait summed it up better than I could. I just wish we could have found some of them trout but at least we caught some smelt! 100_1155.jpg

And here's the second mudpuppy...pulled out of 40 feet of water and he wasn't even hooked! 100_1156.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • Wanderer
      On waterfowling pages that Stoeger M3000 gets mentioned a lot.  The Cerakote finish is sweet too.
    • monstermoose78
      I really like it. I do like the gas operated semis as they reduce recoil 
    • leech~~
      Thanks, never had an Auto.  Kind of looking.  👍
    • monstermoose78
    • leech~~
      Always a good day out of the house.  Hey moose, what kind of gun do you have a few grouse pictures back?  
    • monstermoose78
      Flushed 3 pheasants today with Hazel but they were flushing 50 yards a head of her. Then we went by some little berries that looked black and hazels tail started going a brown bird gets up I thought hen then the bird banked and it was a grouse. It was good to get her out in the woods. I seen a few pheasants in picked corn fields. 
    • Kettle
      Walked today and yesterday, flushed 9, shot at two and got two. Hopefully next year I'll have a dog to hunt with. Still warm up here, skim of ice on ponds. Weather has been nice. Hopefully walk a bit more the next few weeks. Been pretty cautious walking for birds to not interfere with deer hunters. There sure are not the deer hunters there used to be 
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the South Shore...  The focus for many this week is the ongoing deer hunting season which is a big tradition in these parts, even for avid walleye anglers.  There were some that either already harvested their deer or are more into catching fall walleyes than hunting.     Those that are fishing are taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and excellent walleye and sauger bite that is happening across the lake.  Cold weather is in the forecast in the upcoming days and weeks so that is also getting many excited. The best depths on the south end of LOW are 22-28 feet of water.     Vertical jigging with frozen emerald shiners is catching most of the walleyes, saugers and jumbo perch.  Depending upon where on the lake you are fishing, some slots and big trophies are in the mix as well, but most reports are talking about good numbers of eaters.    Jumbo perch are coming in good numbers this fall which will serve ice anglers well.  Watch out for an occasional pike or even lake sturgeon mixed in with the walleyes.      There are good numbers of walleyes and saugers across the south shore which is setting up nicely for early ice.   On the Rainy River...  There continues to be good numbers of shiners in the river, and consequently, there are good walleyes in the river as well.     Walleyes along with saugers, pike and some sturgeon are coming in up and down the river.  Most walleyes are being caught in 10-25 feet of water in various stretches of the river.   Jigging with live or frozen emerald shiners is the key. Some anglers are also still slow trolling crankbaits upstream to cover more ground and find fish. Both methods are producing solid results. Sturgeon fishing remains strong.  The catch-and-release sturgeon fishing is open into the spring when it changes to the "keep season" on April 24th. Up at the NW Angle...  As temps are getting colder, most are in the woods hunting and not fall fishing, however, for those who bundle up, fishing continues to be excellent.     A nice mixed bag with walleyes, saugers, perch, pike and crappies being caught. Very good muskie fishing with the colder water temps and shorter days.  Some big fish and some good numbers are being caught amongst the islands.  Both casting and trolling is getting it done.  
    • gimruis
      I hunt in the rifle zone so I don't have a need to use a shotgun to hunt deer, but I would be looking at this if there was ever a need to.   There could be state legislation introduced next summer that eliminates the shotgun zone completely.  It has bipartisan support.  Wisconsin removed theirs years ago and MN is usually later to follow.  They've tried to pass it more than once and it came up just short both times.  Probably just a matter of time.
    • Wanderer
      Oh, h e l l no! 
×
×
  • 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.