2020 Detroit Lakes-Pelican Rapids Fishing Reports - Lake Conditions

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Regardless of the rain coming in I went out last night anyways, I messed around and found the crappies out on South on a different spot and fished them for a while with good results. I decided to switch it up to walleyes so I found a decent break and fished the top edge of it near the weeds and alternated between a slip bobber and a leech, and tossing around a jig/leech. Both produced a walleye each so I dropped down to the bottom of the break and started rigging a lindy and a leech and caught 3 more, all were between 16-18". Good times!!!!

[fisherdog19]

probably never spawned and will absorb thier eggs, they have been done spawning for a while now.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Anyone else on a hot bite? I've been doing really well on the crappies every time I've been out. Slip bobberin near the cabbage, transition from soft to hard bottom. Set your bait half way up the water column!

You don't need to be specific of course, just general patterns would be great to hear.

[ibfishen1962]

Leech - Good to see that as this is what I will mainly be after when I come Saturday to Lida. Lots of good area's on Lida, especially on south lida with cabbage. I've been successful with both minnows and vertical jigging once located. How far is White Earth from Pelican or Lida as well?

[dairyman]

most of the crappies that I've gotten this summer so far ---and its not a whole lot----have been on fat head minnows

[Jim Panfish Uran]

White Earth lake is a 30 minute drive from Detroit Lakes.

NO secret on the presentation Ibfishen, Just a simple slip bobber and #6 hook with chub or crappie minnow. Generally set it so it presents the bait in the upper half of the water column. Don't be afraid to cast it right into the cabbage too, they are roaming around putting the feed bag on!! I've been fishing the 8-12 foot range with best results, definitely the deeper weeds have been best.

If you don't get bit after a couple minutes reel in and cast somewhere else, simple simple presentation with good results. Also don't be afraid to toss a beetle spin or a jig and plastic or minnow around the weeds as a search lure. The agressive ones will show themselves first and if it slows use the slip bobber again!!

Good luck, the weather looks great for the weekend!!!

[ibfishen1962]

Thanks Leech - I can close my eyes and picture the results if the fish are there. Really appreciate the post.

[Paul]

Was out on Big Cormorant from about 4 till 11pm. Found some really fatso eye's in 10-23 feet. I was anchored with lots of rope, and each time a pontoon or ski boat went by it would move my boat for me up and down the hill. I had 10 feet on one side and 30 on the other side. The eyes were super FAT. Not sure what they were eating but I have a good idea. They sure loved my leeches, but so did the darn rock bass. Ran out of 2 dozen large leeches and alternated gulp leeches. I did not keep any to clean and take home but I coudl have had a limit twice over tonight. Some of the best walleye action I have seen in about 2 years. largest fish about 19 inches. average was 16" but super fat. Using Blue knuckleball jigs and a leech. DId ok trolling a jointed shad rap on lead core back to the dock, picked up 2 eyes and a slimer. Good times.

[JbuZZo]

Was out on Big Cormorant from about 4 till 11pm. Found some really fatso eye's in 10-23 feet. I was anchored with lots of rope, and each time a pontoon or ski boat went by it would move my boat for me up and down the hill. I had 10 feet on one side and 30 on the other side. The eyes were super FAT. Not sure what they were eating but I have a good idea. They sure loved my leeches, but so did the darn rock bass. Ran out of 2 dozen large leeches and alternated gulp leeches. I did not keep any to clean and take home but I coudl have had a limit twice over tonight. Some of the best walleye action I have seen in about 2 years. largest fish about 19 inches. average was 16" but super fat. Using Blue knuckleball jigs and a leech. DId ok trolling a jointed shad rap on lead core back to the dock, picked up 2 eyes and a slimer. Good times.

nice post Paul...did you get just as much action on the gulp leaches as the real ones? Same type of hit? I'd be interested to hear your feedback on this.

[Cicada]

Been out on Lida for the last couple of days hoping to run into ibfishen1962. Sunday, took the folks out. We got six walleyes, only two keepers and a few smallmouth bass. Few mayfly bodies around. Today, took my brother and a brother of one of his employees. Still no ibfishen1962. Got five walleyes (one legal), six of smallmouth (biggest 18.5" by my brother), five largemouth up to 18", one northern, rock bass, and one little bluegill usually not worth mentioning except it was one of the few fish I caught. Lot more mayfly bodies today. Leeches and nightcrawlers in anywhere from 16 to 25 feet of water.

[Paul]

Jbuzzo,

I have in the past had good luck with all kinds of gulp. I was using a 5" jumbo gulp leech but in half. the main thing is that you have to provide the action for the leech, you cant just let it sit off the bottom like a regular leech which moves around all ticked off like when you hook his sucker with a jig head. I usually use gulp for panfish in place of maggots, use minnow gulp on jig heads, when doing a lot of casting, because they dont fall off like a minnow will. Have even gone so far as pulling gulp crawlers on a crawler rig. That worked too.

(Now Gulp company... Were is my adverting spiff. LOL)

[SJMyers32]

Paul I was convincend you caught pictures of ducks and not fish.

[Paul]

SJmeyers, I take lots of fish pics:

my brother:

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Nice spread of fish Paul.

Slow weekend of fishing for me, I made it out one time Friday night and busted loose on some more crappies. I need to mix it up and go for some walters real soon. Hopefully this week I can make it out and troll some spinners/crawlers and get on some fish. Maybe do some crankin up against the weeds!

[ibfishen1962]

Sorry Cicada that we didn't meet up. I did look for you when we were on the main lake. We found good fishing on South Lida for crappie, bass and gills. Caught a few "slot" eyes fishing for bass but could not get them while trolling cranks, crawlers or leeches. Worked above and outside of weed lines (cabbage grass) in 15-25 ft. Even night fished for them with lighted bobbers and leeches right in the middle of the grass and only caught gills and bullheads. The mosquito's had their fun with us while out there till midnight.

Didn't get you phone number from Jeff "B" till the last full day there or I would have called. "Lot more mayfly bodies today" We did see the mayfly bodies as well on North Lida, especially when the wind shifted around on Wednesday night-Thursday morning as a front came through. We found the smallies on the last day on top and adjacent to the big rocks near Kansas Point (6-10 ft of water was most productive w/ swim baits and tandom spinner baits.

Hope to make a fall trip and try one more time for the eyes and crappie.

[Cicada]

Fished Lida on Sunday. Caught six walleyes, all on crankbaits. At first, they were suspended about six or seven feet off the bottom. As the sun came out, you could see them move farther down the water. Also caught a few northerns, a bass, a perch as big as the crankbait and a bluegill (on a nightcrawler). With all the boat traffic, I didn't want to use a slow presentation. The fourth weekend is a little earlier in the year for me to start pulling cranks.

[Tadpoletodd]

Did bad, did good...

Big C - Saturday morning

Fished 5:30am to 11:00am trying everything I could think of - riggin' redtails/leeches, crawlers on spinners, crankbaits, etc. Depths from 8'-30' - NOTHING!!! Ughhh! And I thought I knew the lake. Huh!

Pelican - Monday morning

Fished 7:00am to 10:00am. Woke up late...had to leave early. But it didn't matter. After horrible luck on Big C I thought I'd try somewhere completely new on Pelican. Lights out!!! 5 walleyes in the boat by 8:00 and ended up with 11 total before leaving - all 14-19". Did take a limit of 15-17" fish for a fish fry - can't wait as I usually C&R everything.

Days like that I sure nice once in a while. No pesky northerns made it even better.

[shooter_mcgavin]

Hey Tadpoletodd,

Glad to hear you had some success out there. Any tips on bait/depth/structure? Thanks

[Tadpoletodd]

Nothing too special really. Just riggin' w/ leeches in 18-22 FOW. I'm always changing up hook and bead color to find the right combo but Monday it didn't seem to matter. It was dead calm and the fish seemed to like the presentation moving along at a good clip - 0.6-0.8mph. The fish only needed about 5-10 seconds with the bait.

[paceman]

Went out last night to an area pond. Trolling a 1/16 once jig with a little twister tail produced 15 crappies in a about 2 hours. It wasn't fast and ferocious but would pick one up here and there. 10-12' along a shoreline weed edge. Kept 6 good eating 10-11". Also caught bass, northern and crappies. The lake was like glass. Had a loon and two chicks about 15 yards from the boat one time and even saw a rainbow after a quick sprinkle moved through. It was so peaceful I had a hard time leaving to go home but good gravy were the mosquitos bad at the landing.....

[Cicada]

Fished Little McDonald yesterday morning. Kind of slow. Only two walleyes and a perch. Had a tough time finding the cabbage patches. They were there, but they were deeper than in the past and couldn't see the tops of them. Leeches in 17-19 ft. One of the walleyes was 25" and there was another walleye about the same size that followed it to the boat. Can't remember ever seeing that before.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Caught a few walters out on South Twin the other night, really couldn't peg them down they were just in random spots from a 17' flat to 14' against the weeds. Also a ton of bass on the deep weedlines which made the night fun.

[paceman]

Saturday evening I put the boat in and went to a favorite Crappie spot. They were hungry! Casting a small jig with plastics is the way to go now. I had my limit of nice 10-11" in about 15 minutes. I then fished for walleyes for a bit but with the glass like conditions and pleasure boaters/jet skis buzzing around I didn't have the fishy feeling so I went home cleaned the crappies and watched a movie....

[Jim Panfish Uran]

We didn't get the scary weather like people did south of here so we went out on Snyder lake last night and had fun terrorizing the bass and northerns along the deep weeds. Anywhere we found midlake structure and fished the deep weeds with a jig and a leech we hammered the ol bucketmouths and slimers.

12 to 16 feet seemed to be the best areas.

[ugly stick]

Hey guys!! Coming up to the Vergas/Dent area last week of July. Last year did real good on crappies on Franklin pulling shallow raps of all things. Just wondering if anything is biting (besides bass!!!) in the area or any good lakes to try. Also wondering about a good bait shop to get a fishing report while we are up there. Any info would be great.

[alum]

Was out on Lida saturday morning from 5:30 to about 9am, Got 9 kepper eyes all aabout 16 inches in 24ft using crawlers on the humps. Got 2 nice smallies too. Was a good morning.

[Cicada]

Welcome to the site alum. Thanks for signing up and thanks for the report.

[bassnbucks]

We didn't get the scary weather like people did south of here so we went out on Snyder lake last night and had fun terrorizing the bass and northerns along the deep weeds. Anywhere we found midlake structure and fished the deep weeds with a jig and a leech we hammered the ol bucketmouths and slimers.

12 to 16 feet seemed to be the best areas.

Where is this lake at? I went under lake finder on MN DNR. The only Snyder that came up was in Hennepin, with no info.

We fished Pearl yesterday, It was a little slow. We managed 8 bass and 1 slimer. spinnerbaits were the ticket.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Sorry can't spell, it's actually spelled Snider I believe.

[bassnbucks]

Thanks Leechbait, I will put that one on my lakes to hit in the near future. I am going to give Munson a shot tomorrow. I fish for Bass 95% of the time and been having a great time trying out a bunch of new lakes close to Fargo. Thanks again for the info.