brainerd Brainerd Fishing Reports

[BigDogRob]

Went out on Gull yesterday, sure wish the ones we caught were better sized...We would've done great then...lots of little guys on the camera. In a whole we had a few laughs had a nice lunch and caught a few (small) fish so it could have been worse. Now just need to learn to find the bigger ones...lol

[Traxxx]

Be careful around the Holman Point area out from Hole-in-the-Day access on Gull! There is a big heave that formed today. Anybody else hear that thing crack up this afternoon?

[little chief]

Was out there this afternoon and it was popping and making a ton of noise so we moved to a different area. We did get into the eyes on gull yesterday evening. Caught 10-12 and kept 2. Chased panfish today and did well, kept a handful of big gills and a few nice crappies mixed in.

[BigDogRob]

Thanks for the heads up Traxx! I'm thinking I may need to throw in the portable for next time... with no snow she could've been a little cold though. Planning on making it out a few more times. Definately will make sure it after the sun is up this time if I have the big house though! May have to throw the family in the truck and head there for the weekend since they are saying a nicer saturday and sunday again.

[BigDogRob]

Thinking I may need a chainsaw to get back off the 371 landing... Special thanks to the guy who helped when I got stuck getting on the lake!!! Never got your name, but I really appreciated the help

[Traxxx]

Koobs Access was still in decent shape the other day.

[BigDogRob]

Yeah, figured I'd have to check it out tommorrow. I know one thing, this lake creaks and cracks and pops more than any other I have been on... a good 23" of ice though!

[BigDogRob]

Well, made it off the lake better than I expected... Was planning on shoveling for a bit. or getting a tug. It may have drug the fram a bit, but I was able to keep the momentum enough to pull off. If it gets much steeper it is gonna be hard to get on and off there with a bigger house.

Fished untill about 1pm today and decided to head home never caught a fish all night, but did catch a few this morning with quite a few misses. biggest fish was under 14"

[handsonguy]

Need some help picking some lakes for this weekend. I really like fishing small lakes and it sounds like some of the bigger lakes are having slush issues right now. I have a couple sleds to use for the weekend. Any suggestions? I am willing to drive a bit, but home base will be Breezy Point for the weekend. Thanks

[Meat-Run]

Gladstone, Hubert, Bass lake, and Jones Bay on Pelican all come to mind, but if you want decent perch you might have to travel to a larger lake like Mille Lacs, Winni, or Leech.

Good luck,

MR

[handsonguy]

ok I'll check these out. Thanks

[theiceman]

Sibley in Pequot all the crappies and sunnies you want. I d start straight out from the park. 15-30 ftow.

[handsonguy]

We ended up trying Sibley in the evening. Fished around the 40ft hole, but we actually fished between 28-34. Plenty of fish marked, caught a decent amount of crappies but they were all fairly small 9 inches max for the ones we caught. Thanks for the tips on lakes. Will try a new one tomorrow am!

[Ice camper]

My son and I did Sibley last Thursday and pulled all our gear in the one man houses around the point in front of the park and caught quite a few, but like handsonguy said, the crappies were all around the 9" mark and under. We pretty much collapsed when we got back to the access. Snow was pretty deep for that pull.

[theinsideoutlaw]

Sibley is the best for numbers but they are rather small. If you are going for size, don't overlook pelican. Hubert probably has the biggest crappies around if you are willing to spend a day and drill a bunch of holes to find them.

[walleye18]

the lakes you mentioned are good. Hubert use to be really good but has been really over fished in the last 5 years for crappies and as such the population has suffered....yes, you can still catch some, but like you mentioned, you gotta drill a bunch of holes.

Point being, there are a lot of better lakes for crappies....like Ossie, horseshoe. horse shoe can be a real sleeper - just saying.

[BoxMN]

Crosslake area small lake (not on chain) - the LMB were biting okay, most on plastic and bass jig, some on weighted hook and some on Senkos wacky rigged. The live shiner/sucker/fathead on jigs didn't do much, other than some small to small/medium pike. Most of the bass were on the inside weedline (when weeds starts growing). I did some schools of small bass starting to use the very shallows, but no noticeable nests yet.

Have yet to see a crappie, but noticed the lilacs just started to bloom, so maybe this weekend..?...

Water temp on this lake was ~60-62 degrees. Bro-in-law said that Rush and Whitefish temps were only 48 degrees, yikes! He is on a shallow bay and the crappies were not moving in there yet either, but the bass were biting off the dock.

[ozzie]

the weekend before memorial we found the crappies in a bay thick on the WFC and most were females...this weekend went back and caught about 20 or so and most were small males but we did catch 8 between 11.5 and 13.25 and only the 11.5 was a female. The bay our boat is in has had limited amount of crappie action as the smaller fish invaded the shallows right away and the bigger fish are few between...I will be back up this next weekend to give it a go and see what is biting

[centralmnguy]

Was going to fish Northlong last night but there must have been a tourny or league going on so we fished Lake Edward. Never fished it before but we hammered the pike. 1 small eye & well over 20 pike caught...lost count after awhile. Slow trolling around 1mph with a lindy rig & shiner dragging on bottom 8-12 fow. Most were small ones but if that is your thing...edwards is the lake to try.

[leech~~]

Was going to fish Northlong last night but there must have been a tourny or league going on so we fished Lake Edward. Never fished it before but we hammered the pike. 1 small eye & well over 20 pike caught...lost count after awhile. Slow trolling around 1mph with a lindy rig & shiner dragging on bottom 8-12 fow. Most were small ones but if that is your thing...edwards is the lake to try.

Yes, lots of Pike in Edwards! Please take all that you can!

[BoxMN]

The fishing just started picking up quite a bit on my small lake. The crappies have just turned on on Sunday morning, at long last, and moved into the brush and shore areas and started spawning. Catching them pretty good now, and seeing lots of them, but not in the "holy cow" huge numbers yet. I bet today (Monday) they are gangbusters, and should still be next weekend.

Lots of small bass biting on gulp minnows and 1/8 oz jig, and bigger bass were biting on bass jig and plastics. Senko got a few, but for whatever reason the hook and leech and bobber did not (friends wife).

I saw a few BIG bass, with one monster that didn't really seem too interested, but was fun seeing them again come swim through the crappies and scare them off. Had a smallie come take a swipe at a decent sized crappie I had hooked, but we din't catch any smallies last weekend.

Water surface temp 63.5 degrees. Sunnies finally back at the dock eating stale hot dog buns

Bro-in-law started getting nice sunnies off his dock on Rush Lake bay, with plenty of bass mixed in, but he hasn't seen the crappies. Either he missed them, or they are still waiting to come in. Being weekenders we sometimes can't tell... Wish I was there today! Next weekend looks good weatherwise so far...

[Hoogie25]

That's awesome, because we have 12 of us cousins and uncles coming up in two days and hope to find the crappie on their beds and hungry!

[ThunderLund78]

Ditto,

My two boys (2-1/2 and 5) are chompin' at the bit. Memorial day was a bust--bad weather to have kids out on a boat and the panfish were not concentrated to areas where kids with very little patience could get them. Hopefully this weekend will be a fun experience. My 5-year-old say his goal this year is to catch his first Walleye. I just wish his Dad was a good enough fisherman to give him some probable odds

[ozzie]

I made it out on the WFC and searched some main lake bays and others nearby and found the smaller crappies have invaded the shallows along with the rock bass. Saw alot of Bass beds and caught alot of pesky bass. Tough weekend though with the winds Friday/Saturday and then the high blue skys on Sunday. Good Luck

[jjz]

Today 63 surface temp on Ossie. Craps spawning all over the lake, lost count of fish caught. Size varied but nothing to excited about. Bass bedded up too. Saw a couple of muskies shallow and caught some big pike. Anyway, spawning craps fishing should be good on big lakes this weekend.

Good Luck

[walleye18]

Muskies on Ossie????? Have never heard of muskies caught on the lake in 25 plus years.

Anybody try for them out there in the last 10 years?

Hope those pesky muskies don't eat all the walleyes...seriously, there are remnants of the muskies stocked in there along time ago. Had a "pig" blow up on me about 10 years ago. Not a numbers lake, but I think there is still some in there...tough lake for me to be consistant on. Can catch the snot out of the walleyes one day and blank the next. Great bass lake.

Havent really fished in the last 5 years due to the boating pressure in the summer. It gets real crazy.

[jjz]

Well last spring I encounterd at least six different skis fishing for bass and crappies. My guess is a small but reproducing population is present, based on the variety of sizes I have seen/ had follow, or a real avid illegal stocker. Regardless my goal is to boat a couple skis out there this year. Boating activity is usually tied to nice weather and weekends, It gets pretty quite on the weekdays and bad weather.

[BoxMN]

Regarding boating pressure - on any lake, I don't care if here in the metro or Brainerd or wherever, if you go early, it won't be busy, or at least not overly so. We always fish early (5 to 6 am start) and done by 9:30ish. Most skiers and jetskis and hungover folks don't come out before that and the majority of your decent fishing is over by then anyways.

Then again the hour around dusk. Most activity has died down. Between morn and evening, that gives about 8 hours per weekend of pretty undisturbed fishing. Of course if a person has to trailer their boat any distance, they might want more than a few hours per trip, but the few hours of good fishing in the mornings is fine with me

[walleye18]

Agree BoxMN...but it seems that of all the lakes in the Brainerd Area, Ossie gets unreal pressure - for the size of the lake, etc....

First hand experience as I live right there. Use to have Jet Skies driving on the lake up to 11:00 PM in the summer. That has since gone away.

Issue I have from time to time is that there are so many good lakes in the area that it is hard to pick which one to go to. http://www.hotspotoutdoors.com/forum/images/icons/default/cry.gif

[BoxMN]

Bass were going gangbusters Sat morn. Plastics but also topwater. The bass lost their aim over the winter, as they missed more than than they hit to floating mouse Shallow, but they were all small. And most I caught were around submerged wood/logs. Saw lots of school of young bass, saw no big ones at all. The crappies were staging, in relatively low numbers, on the shallow sandy shores in the sun. I didn't try for any crapps, but am sure they would be biting. Didn't fish Sat afternoon as it was more helping neighbors with lift/dock and giving a 96 yo and friends a pontoon ride, etc. Beauttiful day Sat, and glad I covered up the pontoon Sat night