Albert Lea-Austin-Faribault-Mankato-Northfield-Waseca, Fishing Reports

[crappiekid]

Nate will you be out tomorrow am?

[no bait nate]

yes but not in this area, i'm heading north to do a little pike fishing.

just got back from fishing the after-dark bite and it was not nearly as active as during the daytime. really had to work for the fish to commit. all fish caught and released tonight were crappies

[Matt C]

must be the sure bite. cause diamond jigs n [PoorWordUsage] minnows aint workin today.

[no bait nate]

nice, was pike fishing today by stillwater, about 15 flags for 3 fish. lets just say the bottle bass were hitting us harder than we were hitting the pike....

[K_Josh87]

The Croix?

[no bait nate]

nope, Big Carnelian Lake, just north of town

[K_Josh87]

Ok, Just wondering, I fished the croix while i was going to school in River Falls, its an interesting place to fish and figure out...

[luckycrank]

shoulda went to clear 29 flags 11 fish landed but biggest was a 7 lb pike, they bite every half hour or so!

[luckycrank]

Also I witnessed some real nice perch in they area get iced that where 10.5-12 inchers. had to do some sorting though!

the use of a camera was best , allowing for elimination of un wanted little 6-7 inchers.

[no bait nate]

now that sounds like a good time

[Jaspernuts]

Looking on expanding my lakes I tip up fish for pike on. Steele lake has a good count on lakefinder, but no one is ever on it. Have any of you guys ever had any sucess on it?

[ClasheMan]

I used to catch crappies over the hole in the winter. Haven't been out there in a couple years, but in the boat I've caught some nice pike in the spring.

[love2fish4ever]

Never ice fished it, but have fished it open water. A few small pike, it didn't make me want top rush back, fish that size aren't too hard to come by in most lakes. Survey was 9 years ago, hard to say what is really in there though. There are a couple other ones that come to mind that may be worth a look.

L2f

[email protected]

[crappiekid]

No Bate Nate you out there? How is travel on the lake. Thinking of pulling wheel house out?

THANKS

[Matt C]

Lakes fine. (assuming your talking bout mazaska?)

4wd is a must if you pop off the plowed roads.

[no bait nate]

going to head out tomorrow and see how it is out there. hopefully i can get out to the shack without getting stuck. haven't been out there since we've got all the snow.

[sleepless dad]

Hey Nate thanks for the heads up on plastics, I took my 10 yr old sons out this morning and did great! We went to a spot I've fished often on a small lake around Faribault and the gills were cooperative. I'm a plastics convert, the fish hit well and fishing with my son worked great since the plastics didn't need re-baiting after every fish. He caught 10 and we brought home his 3 biggest. He's already asking to go out again! We fished in 12-14 fow with #12 green glow Genx worms and plastics. Bring it to the bottom make some noise then pound it up and they'd strike on the rise. It was really fun watching my son learn how to read the flasher. Hopefully, the late ice bite will begin when the pannies put the feed bag on.

[riverrat56]

I've finally snapped out of (hopefully) my winter long streak of poor fishing the past two days.

We found some very active panfish the past two days, holding adjactent to shoreline points in about 11-13'. What was key was finding the steepest break on the point and fishing off of that into the basin of the lake. Where the point sloped more gradually there weren't many fish, however in one area it dropped from 6' to 11' very quickly, just off of this there were fish stacked up from the bottom up to 6'. I think they were making runs into the shallower water to feed and then holding at about that depth once they returned.

Diamond jigs tipped with waxies took the majority of the crappies and bluegills, however jigging spoons and dropper rigs also ice there fair share. Lots of average sized fish were iced along with some little guys. Over the two days I would guess we put upwards of 200+ crappies and gills on the ice as well as a few walleyes, a handful of perch and a northern. Put most of them back for next time but I'll be having a nice meal of crappies tonight!

Hopefully this is the start of the "late" ice bite!

[Cuzzy Lou]

I'm heading out to the Faribault area tomorrow with my 7 and 9 year old boys. I grew up in the area so am familiar with the lakes, I just don't fish as much now. This winter we tried Hunts and Cedar with limited results. The boys would love to catch a few pannies and have yet to see a pike caught on a tip up. any ideas would be great.

I appreciate any help, If you have a suggestion, e-mail me at [email protected]

In case you recognize the cuzzy lou...I'm the one and only!

[riverrat56]

I'd give Mazaska a try for pannies, otherwise Francis will usually kick out a pike or two on a tip up, but the size is somewhat lacking. Also some good panfishing to be had out there but they can be tough to locate.

[no bait nate]

sleepless dad, glad to hear you got out with your boy and had some fun, thats what it's all about and i know ya won't forget about these times you enjoy now! glad to hear you had some success and built up some confidence in the plastics, there is no turning back now...

spent the night in the shack last night with a buddy and iced quite a few crappies. couldn't buy a bluegill surprisingly because this spot had been producing so many compared to the crappies. but catching many crappies was nothing to complain about. most were taken on the deadstick and minnow but a few were going for the plastics, but only with very short bites.

[luckycrank]

do you have a flasher ?

[luckycrank]

no bait nate,

Ran into the same problem today mostly crappies, gills where pretty tight lipped , yesterday it was the other way around the crappies where reluctant to bite sunfish commited suicide exept size was a bit of an issue what gives?? they also seemed repressed by bright colors.

[luckycrank]

where you catching gills at night also?

[riverrat56]

It's odd that you guys mention that, today we hardly caught any gills when compared to yesterday, the majority were crappies today when yesterday it was probably 50/50. And we were a long ways from each other!

Maybe the gills were/are more sensitive to weather fronts?

[no bait nate]

yes i do think the gills are more affected by something than the crappies were. the last few weeks it's been more gills than crappies (maybe 80-20). I do think that the crappies were maybe out a few feet deeper and the gills were holding close under the shack, and now the nicer gills may be a tad shallower and the crappies moved in under our house. either way i'm not complaining when there's always something pulling on the other end of the line.

as far as colors go the fish have been hammering the chartreuse for a few weeks now. the last couple day i've been getting alot more on pink varieties and glow/red spikes. Last night the fish would come in schools about 10' off bottom and all lines would get hit at the same time. we'd get 3-4 fish in about 30 seconds and then it'd be dead for about 10 minutes and then it would happen again.

only got one gill last night after dark but a week ago or so we had been catching some really dandy ones in the darkness, which came to a surprise to me

[luckycrank]

did u fish out of a portable last night ?

[no bait nate]

no i'm not that tough to last all night in a portable. there weren't many guys out there last night, at least nobody within a few hundred yards of us.

[luckycrank]

just curious I see there was a portable that set up over the same area as I was in on saturday after 4:30 pm

sounded like the same school of fish I was fishing

[no bait nate]

nope, i was glassing the lake looking for your truck the other day but didn't see where you must have been at. i did see alot of trucks out though so ya could have been in the mix.