2020 Detroit Lakes-Pelican Rapids Fishing Reports - Lake Conditions

[Guest]

Glad to hear it was an overall success!

[paceman]

Made it out for a few hours Saturday afternoon in the intermediate rain showers. The awesome bite continues. A simple rig of spinners/leeches or crawlers in about 12 feet and we had a 2 man limit of good eater walleyes in about 3 hours of fishing. Just wish I had more time to get out

[Cicada]

Finally got out again yesterday afternoon. Tried Lida. Mayflies are hatching and I hate that. Got a few northerns and a bunch of bass, large, small, and rock. Tried leeches, spinnerbaits, and cranks.

[Tadpoletodd]

Friday morning on Big C was good - 15-19" walleyes and a bunch of 1-4 lb smallmouth with non-stop 8-10" slab bluegills to boot.

Saturday morning was different - couldn't get walleyes or smallies to go but, again, lots of big bluegills to keep it exciting. We stuck to riggin' with leeches and did end up with a great sunfish fish fry.

[Guest]

Crappies are holding in the mid depth cabbage, we got lots of big fish yesterday.....pic of a few.

[RK]

Bite was sure good this weekend. Summer peak going on on most of the lakes in the area I think.

Did well on walleyes up on the weeds on a couple different lakes both pulling spinners and pitching plastics, crappies were up in the cabbage, bass bite was good too. My 7 year old kept track and by his count we caught 11 different species this past weekend. He even got his butt handed to him by a great big dogfish, which was pure hilarity, and he had a blast catching it...

[paceman]

Went out yesterday afternoon to the same lake we killed em last weekend. Really slow yesterday. Only 1 eye. I suspect the stormy weather put them in a negative mood. I marked fish like crazy they were just not hungry on this lake. We did catch quite a few nice sunnies, crappies, bass, norskies so we still had decent action. Beautiful afternoon to be fishing.

[dwacker8]

Hey bbfenatic

I sent you a pm

[paceman]

Tok my son out for a few hours yesterday evening. The panfish were hungry! Probably caught close to 75 in about 2 hours. Lots of sunnies, crappies and a few northerns. A simple 1/16 oz jig with a small twister tail in 12-13' along a weedline. Tossed everything back.

[paceman]

Tried 2 new area lakes Saturday just for fun. It gets a little boring fishing the same lakes all the time. I didn't expect much action in the morning after the cold front/storms Friday night but I really enjoyed the cooler morning. Caught 1 17" eye and a few sunnies. Quite a few boats out but not many fish being caught. I left after 4 hours. I expected a better bite Sat. evening. My partners and I launched the boat about 4:30. By 5:00 we had 5 eyes in the boat. A spinner/minnow or leeches along the weedline was the ticket. The wind died down and so did the fishing. We fished until 8:00. Picked up 4 more eyes, tossed another 5 small ones back. A pretty successful maiden voyage. I will go back to this lake again!

[paceman]

My Father in Law and I went to another new to us lake Saturday afternoon. It was a bit windy for him so we chose a small lake. Trying lindy rigs with minnows for eys he caught a crappie right away, so I switched to a minnow as well and for the next 3 hours we had a blast lindy rigging crappies, we caught about 40, pretty much all 11-12". kept enough for a family fish fry that night. I had never caught crappies like that before so it was kind of fun. No doubt we could have anchored and pounded them pretty good, But it was pretty relaxing simply drifting along catching fish. A neat small lake, and we had the entire lake to ourselves!

[Cicada]

Tried rainbow trout fishing yesterday. Took a downrigger and headed to Bad Medicine. Made myself a homemade cowbell with smaller spinners and pulled a mico crankbait behind that. picked up three and had another chase my rig up to the boat, but didn't hit it. Did see quite a few caught bobber fishing by other boats, but when I get it in my head that I want to fish a certain way, I'll ignore what I see. Still, three rainbows are enough to brine and find out when my brother is firing up his smoker at his restaurant.

Also, recently tried Many Point. Marked a bunch of fish in 28 top 30 feet of water, but it was so windy that I couldn't stay close to them very long. Did try pulling cranks and had one vicious hit that kept the crankbait. Only caught a couple of largemouth bass on live bait rigs. Last week I found an unmnamed lake up north that was rumored to have a good crappie bite. I found this to be true although the size wasn't huge, a person could find enough larger ones for a meal or two.

[paceman]

Took my son out last night to a walleye lake we did very well on the weekend before last. It started out very good as we caught 2 nice 17" the first 10 minutes. We then fished for 3 more hours with nothing to show. A few northerns and panfish. Very odd. I think this lake may be a day bite type as it is shallow and stained? Perfect weather last night. I was expecting more action but it is always fun sharing a PBJ in a boat with my little guy. Now tonight my daughter wants to go out someplace

[paceman]

Made it out yesterday afternoon with my sister who is visiting from Alaska. First time I have been out in a few weeks. Finding a good spot out of the wind was challenging but we did and suprisingly caught quite a few fish, sunnies (1 being 10"), crappies (most small), bass, and a few bonus walleyes (biggest 20"). Tossed them all back. Caught the eyes on a lindy rig with plain hook and crawler in about 14 feet..

[Guest]

Great job Paceman....awesome multi-species day....keep up the good work and thanks for posting.

[eyehunter]

No fishing report here, just wondering what ever happened to Leechbait? Haven't seen anything from him in a long time on here...

[Guest]

Jim Uran (leechbait) now posts under his name. He posts in the Bemidji section once in a while since he now lives closer to that area; but mostly posts in the Crappie section....in fact just posted there yesterday...we hook up often in winter to ice fish and a little in the fall to chase crappies up his way.

[paceman]

My son and I went out Saturday afternoon. We tried a few of our usually good spots on a local lake. Not sure if the hot temps and wind had them in a nuetral mood or perhaps we were not on our game as we struggled. We caught sunnies, bass, crappies, but not as many as I would have thought. One spot we started doing better on nice crappies and a boat of intoxicated guys came roaring up and dropped anchor about 20 yards away. Not a big deal usually but we quickly left to quieter grounds when the f-bombs started flowing. Still had fun on the water and looking forward to getting out again soon....

[lawnbuilder]

Fished DL and Sallie spinner and jig with a crawler worked well for me. Fished 10-15 fow. Nobody wanted to join me so I had all the fun to myself.

[MI Friend]

Here from MI for our 9th year. Tried Tulaby, yesterday for the first time. Water warm, lot bait fish and small perch. One 6 lb largemouth, many perch and perhaps 3 walleye that were on for a bit and gone. Hope it was the cold front, not me. Today did Little Pine, late morning. Got 4 keeper walleyes (put back) in 15-18 ft on weed line. Fish very scattered no pattern. Last year, same time we got the big guys in 40 ft. This time could not find them, perhaps deeper bottom or on the bait deep and suspended. Gave up early as the wife and I got baked, 0 wind and 80 degrees. Doing DL or Franklin tomorrow. Best to all! Off to Breezy Point on Friday for the rest of Sept., hope the weather holds. A few years ago I had frost on the boat cover in DL on Sept.10th.

[paceman]

MI Friend. Guys are doing very well for eyes on Big D. lindy rigging crawlers, plain hook, 18-22 feet. Best times of day have been low light periods, sunrise/sunset..

[Cicada]

Finally got a weekend with some free time. Fished Beers Saturday morning and had no known follows, but did get a 35" northern. Kind of fun. Fished Lida this afternoon and boated six walleyes, five of them in the second and third quarters of the Vikings game. All but one too big to keep and the sixth was only about 12" long. Couple of bass in between. Big spinner in prop-wash on Beers. Nightcrawler on lindy rig for the walleyes.

[Cicada]

High school classmate came up for the weekend. We fished Lizzie on Saturday looking for walleyes. Didn't find any, but the bass were all over the place. Scot got the biggest a 19+" smallmouth, but I caught the most 19 to 13.

Sunday we had to go to plan B with the high winds. We hit Beers in Maplewood State Park and caught ten largemouth, the biggest a little over 3lbs and saw ten muskies. We each caught one of those bad boys. Mine was 40" and his was 38".

Taking a couple of days of towards the end of the week, hoping to get some nice weather.

[paceman]

Yesterday was so nice I had to go see if my boat still floats. First time out in about 6 weeks. Buddy and I fished the afternoon on Big D. Lindy rigging and jigging minnows. Had a great time but went home with an empty livewell. We caught 7 small eyes and a zillion northens. Fished multiple spots from 8 to 40 feet. Just could not find the keepers. Not many boats out on a gorgeous 74 degree october day. Hopefully I can find time to get out again, but it is hunting season

[paceman]

With the vikes sucking yesterday I just could not sit inside. Took my son out for a quick trip to a local pond. Gorgeous afternoon pulling spinners with minnows produced very good action of northerns and bass. Very fun time on the water!

[Cicada]

Got out yesterday afternoon to a good fall lake. Pretty much had the community hole all to myself...until the Vikings flopped. Caught seven walleyes, should have had at least a dozen. Started biting on nightcrawlers, then after the Vikings game was over, they switched to minnows. Nothing big, but been a long time since I've cleaned a limit of fish.

[dairyman]

boy my walleye "catching" has been pretty poor as of late. Been using crawlers and leeches. Pulling a lindy rig or bottom bouncers.

Any where from the weed line to 20 plus feet with not much success

Any ideas----change lakes right

[paceman]

Guys that have been well on the eyes have been doing the jig/minnow presentation. I couldn't find any keepers the other day either but a buddy was out there the evening before me and did very well. I fished the mid-day, he did the evening bite and he was in 20-25'. I spent most of the time shallower than I should have apparently....

[Cicada]

Dairyman,

I've had two pretty good walleye trips lately on different lakes with completely different depths. The first one was on a shoreline structure, a big point, and the fish were deep, like 29-35 feet. I used 'crawlers and lindy rigs. When that deep, I have used a bottom bouncer and spinner/'crawler rig when it's windy. Sunday, the lake I was on has a large shallow bay. Every fall, as the water cools, the small fish vacate the shallows and the bigger game fish will be along the first break waiting for them. These fish were in 16 to 18 feet. As the water cools a little more, they will start to move up to 10-12 feet before this migration ends. On this particular lake, the walleyes can be fickle. Some days they want the crawlers, some days minnows, some days lindy rigs, some days jigs. I need to experiment more to find out what the presentation of the day is.

[Cicada]

Day one of vacation. Scot Kerbaugh and I hit Juggler for four hours. They are working on the road going to the public access and it was terrible. We each caught nine bass, but he won the tiebreaker by catching the only smallmouth bass. We then hit Elk in Itasca and saw only one muskie and caught six or so northerns, two big bluegills, and four rockbass. Funnest part of the day was seeing two porcupine.