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2020 - Upper Red Lake Fishing Reports (URL)


Rick

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We fished 4and a half miles out north west and didnt get a crappie but got a limit of walleye 12 inches to 15 inches catching a fish about every 1hr and a half was fun were u guys in the yellow ice castle ?

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It was good to meet you. I wish I had moved a house to where you fished and you had tried shallow like I did. grin The houses we moved in shallower Thursday moved back out deeper again Sunday. grin

I talked to the guy with the white house right at that road junction yesterday and he had some crappies also. This morning it looked like a friend with another wheel house pulled up and after talking to him set up fairly close so something good must be happening there.

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I fished from sunset Wed. to 9:30AM Sat. and kept one sheepshead, two 14" 'eyes,put back five 'eyes 11" or less, put back two 6" perch. I tried deep and shallow - the fish were slightly bigger deep. Was bitten off by a pike once. The fishing was slow but the weather was nice, got a little color in the face too.

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Fished Friday afternoon until Sunday morning out of Hillman's about five miles. Three crappies, one keeper walleye, two 19's, and 5-6 small walleyes on Friday night/Sat morning. Sat night/Sunday morning no crappies, two keeper walleyes, two over slot, and a few small walleyes. No action at all on the rattle reels either night. Sunday morning did have a big fish that I set the hook on, could tell it was big right away, but it came unhooked. frown Less than 20 seconds later one of the rattle reels went down, got a big walleye right up ready to come up the hole - and the hook broke off the line!!! Sure would have liked to ice that fish just to see how big it was!!! Overall was a good trip, nice weather, good roads, good company, heard a couple new stories from Kelly, had a small fish fry, can't wait to get up to the Red again!!!

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4 of us were up from 2pm friday until 9am Sunday and only managed 6 walleyes and 1 30" pike......very slow. We fished on the SE side in about 9 feet of water. Great weather though!!!

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Went out of Hillman's, the wife and I, about 3and1/2 miles and off main road. Monday noon till Tuesday 9am.

One 4 1/2 inch northern. Cut the trip short and went home.

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went out of Rogers on Saturday, managed 3 keeper walleyes and threw back 4 or 5 that were too small and one that was 17 1/4 inches. Some guys set up about 40 yards from us came flying over to our shack and asked if we had a tape measure, I said yeah, why? Anyone on URL should have something to measure with I thought, well they did, but they didn't have anything big enough to measure the northern they caught. Just a tad under 41 inches, caught on a bubble gum rattle spoon with minnow head on 8lb test. It's going on his wall, would have been nice if he'd taken a bunch of pics and sent it back down the hole, but his choice I guess. It was a beautiful fish, awesome markings and color.

Buck

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

LOL That was me who came over to use yer tape. I woulda let her go but I here there are millions of them in Red eating all the eyes and crappies. And it is legal to keep one over 40 inches. grin She wieghed in at 17 pounds. Biggest northern ever for me. We endeed up with 15 eyes. One 18 back down the hole and took a few 12's home. All I had was my 17 1/2 inch MSRD board along. I posted a thread with the report. Headed out Sunday after crappies and gills here at home and did great but nothing compared to the fight up there. I was down the hole up to my naked shoulda to turn that head up the hole. lol

8ydmie.jpg

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That is a purdy one, congrats. It'll look nice on the wall.

Awesome looking bump board too.

Regards... fiskyknut

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"I woulda let her go but I here there are millions of them in Red eating all the eyes and crappies."

I'm afraid that you heard wrong. The numbers of big pike in URL are dropping fast. They do not change the numbers of walleyes or crappies much at all. But it is legal to keep so it was your choice.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Now I'm curious. Why are numbers dropping? Too many being kept? Old age?

I was joking when I said millions.

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Johnny, Question for you about the numbers of Big Pike, Does the DNR have data on the decline? if so can you share the data?

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Thats to bad about the numbers. I remember as kid when we use to camp and fish at Rogers I use to catch some monssters up in the river lots of fish.

I have a northern on my wall that is about that same size caught down in SD on 6 lb test what a fight!

Nice fish Congrats.

Not critising (SP) anyone who keeps a big fish for a mount but what I have seen of mounts they are getting to look a little more real. If I ever have another big one to mount I may try a replica.

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Johnny, Question for you about the numbers of Big Pike, Does the DNR have data on the decline? if so can you share the data?

The DNR has just begun to perform pike specific testing/trapping on Upper Red Lake in the last two years to get a good handle on the pike numbers. It has become very apparent that the number of pike taken out is great enough to be recognized and analyzed. No doubt about it a HUGE number of large pike have been removed from Upper Red Lake as a byproduct of the crappie boom and increase of walleye anglers on the water; concern enough it has been a hot topic at any meeting concerning the fishery as a whole.

Those of us that understand the ridiculous myths "pike eat all the walleye" or "pike eat all the crappie" and see the decline first hand are heading up any efforts we can to help prevent yet another Upper Red Lake mistake even if we have been taking a ton of flack for protecting the all destructive pike.

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"No action at all on the rattle reels either night."

The couple that is in that house now had a pretty good but not great first 24 hours. 7, 15+ inch keepers in the bucket a 14 1/2 inch crappie and a 38 inch pike. None of them on the rattle reels. They say that the fish are biting so light that they will not spin a rattle reel so they are holding their rods and just watching the tip or have the rods in rigs that tip with a little pressure. After talking to the people this morning it looks like the people waiting for rattle reels to spin had very poor fishing last night but the people holding their rods in their hands and watching the tip had pretty good fishing.

I hate to give fishing reports because usually everything changes but things appear to be finally starting to happen way out west in the area that the 7 mile angle road went to last year. I saw Buddy plowing out there so I went out there to see if he needed any help and he was plowing some new roads with places for wheel houses to back off from because everybody that came in from out there this morning reported real good walleye action and quite a few crappies. Time will tell if this is the start of something good or just a flash in the pan.

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Kelly, Thanks for the report I'll be up friday morning (hopefully) with wheelhouse in tow. Will be heading out of Hillmans in your area of the lake. It's always nice to know will have a chance to get a plowed spot a ways off the main road to back the wheelhouse into.

I'm not familiar with the 7 mile angle road from last year. When we stop in at hillmans to get bait and pay our road fees will someone there be able to point us in the general direction you mention above?

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Yes they will give you directions at the store when you get your road pass. Mainly go about 7 miles straight west on the main where the road will have a curve to the NW. About a mile past the curve a road goes to the north that goes about a mile and then circles around and back to the main road. I would guess that we made 50 to 60 places for a wheel house to back into. There is a lot of snow out there so the banks are big but there isn't any snowing or drifting forecasted for this weekend. I scouted that area time and time again over the past 6 weeks coming in from the north and came out with my tail tucked between my legs every time so these fish must have moved in from the across the Line recently.

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Fishing here on the south shore has been pretty good, the walleye bite is slower than it was in December but it is still better here than just about any other place in Minnesota.

The big northern pike have been “HOT” in the past two weeks I have given out more hat pins than all of last summer.

We also have seen a few crappies and keeper size perch, still not enough to warrant chasing for.

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Mainly go about 7 miles straight west on the main where the road will have a curve to the NW. About a mile past the curve a road goes to the north that goes about a mile and then circles around and back to the main road.

Will head out and test our luck that way Friday morning, were leaving the mankato area around 3am so we should be at the bait shop around 9am. Will be driving a new Red F-150 with a black v-front ice castle. I'm sure you'll be plenty busy most of the weekend but if you see us feel free to stop bye and see how were doing.

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2 of us went out of rogers for the first time, fished from 10am on 2-21 until monday morning at 8:00am. 6 walleyes under 12" or smaller down the hole, 1 16 3/4 inch walleye, 1 25 1/2 " northern and 1 10 1/2 " perch. never let go of my pole or stopped looking at my vex. 2nd worse trip to the URL in the last 7 years. We actually had a sled and portable, so it may have been our fault. the problem was the house we stayed in had 7 people for friday and saturday, they left the morning we got there kept 25 walleye 1 crappie. we saw the guts, some were a little smaller than what i would have kept, but still some nice ones also. We didn't think leaving that area was a good idea, we even drilled holes outside the house didn't catch anything in them either. Talked to one of the other houses near us the next morning they actually did worse. Guess thats why they call it fishing and not catching.

We did catch our limits of nice slabs (12"- 13 3/4")on a small lake on the way home on monday night so the trip was not a total bust.

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I remember reading an article a number of years ago, about the 100 largest northern pike ever caught. Many of the largest pike ever caught in the world, were caught out of the same lake somewhere in Europe, during a small 2 week window.

It's been a few years so my memory is a little sketchy so bare with me. Apparently this lake was managed for trout, and there was no season for Northern Pike. The pike grew enormous eating the oil rich trout and having no fishing pressure. There was an outcry to reduce the number of big northern pike, because they were "eating all the trout".

So they opened a 2 week season and let fisherman take these enormous 60 and 70lb pike. It's been a while, but as I recall 2 or 3 dozen of the largest pike ever caught in the world, were taken out of that lake.

The result was catastrophic for the trout. Apparently these enormous pike, kept the little pike population in check. Big pike eat little pike, and with no big fish around to keep the population of little pike in check. They exploded. 10's of thousands of smaller pike, quickly took their toll on the trout population. Bye bye trout. Or at least that's what the article said.

So, if the article was true, be careful eliminating all of those 40 inchers from Red. You might get a plethora of 20 inchers in exchange.

There's a lake by me, you can't hardly keep the 15 inch hammer handles off your line, and the pan fish are stunted. I think I'd rather have a few 40 inchers instead.

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Fished 2/26 & 2/27 three of us caught 19 WaLLeyEs. Two under 13" we put back, 11 we kept were 13"-16", we also had 6 in the 17"-19" range we put back. ALSO caught four 14"-15" crappies!! all after 11pm on rattle reels.

Thanks Kelly for giving me an idea of where to fish. If I'm ever up again and don't have access to a friend with a nice ice house (which i did this time)I will be calling you for a rental.

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"Thanks Kelly for giving me an idea of where to fish.'

I cann't take the credit for that, Buddy found the action there. I just passed the word on. Another area put out some pretty good crappie action. I know that one person limited on crappies and I heard of quite a few people with 6 to 8 crappies. I pulled our rentals to shore today and am done for the year but Buddy was leaving some of his rentals where they found the crappies.

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Sounds like you'll just have to thank Buddy for me, as I didn't get a chance to meet him the couple times I was in the bait shop.

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