2020 Detroit Lakes-Pelican Rapids Fishing Reports - Lake Conditions

[Chill62]

Monday I had off due to President's Day. Set up on a smaller lake and drilled holes from 21-32 fow.  Graphed huge globs between 20-25 and they kept swimming around.  I only caught one 6" gill in the glob of fish.  They'd be in your hole drop down they'd come investigate then swim off.  After dropping the camera down after spooking them a few times we found it was small crappies and blue gills out suspended.  Caught some very nice crappies from 25-35 fow but all were 10-16 feet down.  Caught my limit of crappies but we released a bunch of 12-13.5" slabs.  Was a blast.  Soft plastics with a tungsten jig.

[bbfenatic]

Great job Chill! Love the reports and just goes to show that if you put in the time good things happen...keep those reports coming!

[Chill62]

Thanks for the nice feedback.  Trying to share that they are biting but have to go deep without bragging or coming across as bragging. We had guys across the lake set up 25 fow and they weren't doing good but they also had snowmobile running for hours and weren't exactly hole hoping.  

This isn't from DL area but I went fishing up by Red Lake trout fishing this past weekend.  $96 for 3 guys guided and it was a blast.  4 fow catching trout on my blue gill set up!  I wish work wasn't getting busy and could take another day off with some friends and go back up! 

[Chill62]

Pulled our families fish house off of Big Pine on Saturday morning.  North access was fine and absolutely no snow on the lake we drove a car onto the lake for a reference of how nice access was.  The lake had anywhere from 0-4" of standing water.  No one had been in the fish house since Monday so the holes had been frozen over with about 2" of ice and when I drove over one of the holes it broke open and was helping drain all the water!  I'm so glad I put that house up 6" to prevent flooding because we had 4-5" around the house.  

After we got the fish house off we went to my honey hole and because the lake is so small there was a ton of snow on the north shore.  That was flooding hard core but when I got out to where I fish there wasn't any snow and there wasn't any water.  We drilled a ton of holes from 17-45 fow.  We had 6 people hole hoping with graphs and we caught two perch up shallow.  We didn't graph a lot of anything!  It was sad same spots we were on Monday catching crappies and we didn't catch anything this trip!

Second Hand Reports:  Take this with a grain of salt but some friends were having good luck running tip ups with BIG suckers up shallow 5-10 fow for big pike.  A group was near him and they claimed to have released 10- 30"+ pike.  my buddy caught a 39.5" pike and returned it after some pictures.  He also talked about getting some tuilibies up shallow 20ish feet.  I didn't hear any crappie reports but did hear some of our popular lakes around the area have been getting a bunch of small walleyes and if your lucky getting 1-3 to hit the frying pan.  Also hearing some accesses are getting really mangled up right now due to the heat we've had recently.

Since this upcoming weekend will be last weekend for game fish I'm thinking of trying one afternoon chasing flags and maybe a morning tuilibie fishing to change up the pace.  Getting up early might not be the girlfriends best idea of spending a Sunday morning but we will see.  I've never caught one so if anyone has suggestions I'd be interested in learning!!!!  This is all banking on my auger getting fixed and before the weekend.  I may have to start looking for a new auger in my near future.

[paceman]

Finally found a free afternoon, so I buzzed out to a local lake on Sunday. Drove out but man was it rough. Lots of frozen ruts from the previous days travel. Set up on a steep edge in about 22' near a mid lake point. Lots of folks out and about. Tried for crappies but caught a bunch of small northerns, a nice bass, oodles of sunnies... but no crappies. left just before dark as my lantern would not work Need to get a better light source. Talked to buddy who fished later and did very well on the crappies just after dark. caught most of them jigging...

[Lotharski]

I meant to post this earlier but here it is.  I was able to take my 3 boys and the sleeper house out last Friday (12th) on an area lake as they didn't have school.  Was able to get the house set up by 3 pm and didn't get a think until 7 pm.  Caught 9 beautiful slabs from 7-9:30 with the biggest being the first at nearly 15".  Most were right around 13" and kept a few of the smaller ones for a fish fry with the kids.  Also caught a bonus 14" walleye.  The whole next day only caught one 13" crappie, another walleye, and a bunch of snakes.  Left Sunday right away in the morning because it was so windy and blowing.

[bbfenatic]

Lotharski...that is a real beauty...way to get the kids out and thanks for posting!

[Chill62]

Well game fish season has officially ended how did everyone do?  I took Friday off from work to try and enjoy the weather and last weekend.  Took a guy to a perch lake and did pretty dang good.  They weren't ND Perch by any means but they were 10" perch.  Fished them for a few hours then started getting hungry and realized it was lunch time.  In the afternoon I fished a popular lake around DL for walleyes and Pike.  Drilled a bunch of holes and it was a huge flat with a sharp break coming next to it.  Second hole I fished waiting for my buddy to get out there with tip up bait I hooked into a bigger fish.  He was pulling up so I signalled to him that I could use his help.  He came running with his camera to record get it out and it was an 18/19" walleye caught at 4:00. After we got done with unhooking the fish he realizes he accidentally hit pause on the camera   Kept fishing and I caught 4 walleyes in 30 minutes.  Kept fishing till dark and caught about 6 more between the two of us but we only kept 4 total.  

Saturday we thought since it was so warm we'd set back up on the same spot and get out there a little earlier.  Get out there and there was a group of 6-8 guys with 11 kids running around tip up fishing.  They were covering dang near a quarter mile it seemed like.  Talked to the group since everyone was up shallow about setting up next to where they were since I had fished there last night and the kids were 100-150 yards towards shore.  Get unpacked and all eleven kids are withing 25 yards of my vehicle screaming yelling.  After about 20 minutes we packed up and moved to a mid lake hump.  Set tip ups up in that 14-10 fow region covering the mid lake hump pretty good.  We hole hopped from 25-6 fow.  Around 5 the girlfriend was screaming and her rod was bent over.  She moved up to 8 fow and hooked into something huge.  She thought she lost it because as fast as she could reel in the fish was swimming towards her faster!  Lost it at the  base of the hole sadly so no clue what it was   Fished till dark and we had two flags go off one was a 16" walleye and seconds later on the same hole was a 24" northern.  Fishing was slow so we went shallow and was fishing in the cabbage catching gills 6-8".  

Sunday a buddy tried a different walleye lake in the area and tried for pike and got a few flags but didnt' get much action.  Went deeper fishing the break closer to dark and pulled up one decent pike and one decent walleye for the frying pan.  Was a tough weekend for us chasing flags!  Time to put tip ups away and focus on pan fish and maybe tullibees.  Anyone have any reports?

FYI Ice Conditions Friday morning perch lake had 14" of ice on it and when there were four or five pickups on the ice it was booming hard core and water level was up down in the hole.  Friday night we were in about 18-20" of ice.  When we moved to the midlake hump on Saturday afternoon we had 20-24" of ice.  Top was looking weird but solid still bellow.  Between friday and Saturday we did have about 3/4" of ice freeze over the old holes which I was shocked.  Accesses are starting to really get beaten up so pick and choose carefully.  There was a ton of water on the lake coming into the access Saturday but I was able to get on and off with a Rav 4.  Keep an eye on ice conditions it can change quickly!

[Chill62]

Well this page has died.  Either no one is out fishing or no one feels like giving inputs.  Here's my report.  We hit up a lake on Saturday morning and fished for Tuilibies.  I've never caught them before so the girlfriend and I set up in a deep hole and almost instantly there were fish swimming around.  I caught three all about 2.5-3# each and one huge crappie.  I was in 50' of water and the tuilibies that were active were 18 and shallower.  Crappie was caught at 35'  Girlfriend was a trooper we were on the ice fishing by 7 and she's not a morning person.  Wish we would have been out there by 6 am and I wish I had a wheeler to try it again.  

Tried a spoon with a leeder down to a jig and a plain swedish pimple.  All fish were on the swedish pimple.  Another group came up to say hi when out there and they didn't get anything.

In the mid morning we hit a different lake and caught perch 8-10" 50-75 of them and threw all of them back. 

Both lakes had 14" of clear ice

[paceman]

With the Kids BB schedules and dance.. I just have not had any time for ice fishing. Of course now that those activities are done, I have time but the ice won't last long.. That is OK. More time to play in the woods. This a great time to scout, shed hunt, move stands around... No bugs, all the sign form last fall is still there. No worries about jumping deer... I may get out 1 more time on the ice this weekend, but no way am I driving...

[Chill62]

What's the lakes looking like?

[Chill62]

Good Morning everyone!  I hope you guys had a great weekend and stayed dry unlike I did.  I tried a new to me lake for Tuilibies this weekend and I must have taken a wrong way onto the lake and fell in about 5'-10' off from shore walking back to the shoreline to get my fishing stuff.  Thankfully I had a friend there in case something happened and also that I had dry clothes to change in to when I got back to my vehicle.

Went out after drying off and walked out to a deep hole and marked a ton of fish.  I was catching all of my fish 25-35 deep and my buddy 20-30 feet away was getting his 10-20 feet down.  He never caught one deeper then 20 and I never got one shallower then 20.  We had best results with Swedish Pimples and KastMasters (Silver) and no drop down jig.  We ended up getting 15 and a guy near us donated one since that was the only one he caught.  Size this weekend were a lot smaller then the previous weekend but that was a different lake.  They were all one to two maybe two and a half pounds which I couldn't complain about.  We had 11" of clear ice with streaks of white through it, we don't know if it was cracks that were refreezing or what was causing the white streaks.  Spots on the lake were looking very sketchy and we got back to shore without any issues.  I sadly came home and took everything out of the vehicle so this will be my final fishing report until conditions change.

[paceman]

Glad you were able to get off safely. I chickened out and did not venture onto the lake. Had a good weekend horn hunting and working on spring cleaning projects. I put all my ice fishing stuff away as well.

[Chill62]

I got a facebook message from a guy down in the Ashby area saying his little lake was open today.  It wont be long I hope.  I'd love for the ice to come off ASAP so fish can spawn and recover prior to walleye opener.

[bbfenatic]

Crappies in the area are starting to turn on.  Best places are very shallow bays, smaller ponds where temps are 55 degrees or higher and they are hitting plastics, pink/white tubes on a small jig head under a bobber....no live bait needed....very aggressive right now. Some of the main lakes like Melissa and Sallie were too cold as of Saturday but should turn on very soon.

Anyone know if the main access on Lida is back open yet?  Last I checked it was a mess and taped off for no use by the DNR.

Thx.

 

 

[paceman]

Great, I just got my boat out of storage...

[slick2526]

On 4/18/2016 at 10:27 AM, bbfenatic said:

Crappies in the area are starting to turn on.  Best places are very shallow bays, smaller ponds where temps are 55 degrees or higher and they are hitting plastics, pink/white tubes on a small jig head under a bobber....no live bait needed....very aggressive right now. Some of the main lakes like Melissa and Sallie were too cold as of Saturday but should turn on very soon.

Anyone know if the main access on Lida is back open yet?  Last I checked it was a mess and taped off for no use by the DNR.

Dont even think i will be able to fish the spawn this year unless from the road. Boat and motor is headed in for a carb rebuild....

[bbfenatic]

I was out Friday N of DL,,,,got into a nice bunch of crappies in 16'...all jigging with a minnow head on a small red rattlin flyer...caught a few nice gills too....ice was 12"...I drove my small SUV out.

[Mitch K]

I came up to the area to visit family for the weekend. The fishing was slow Sat and Sun but we got a few. 

[Chill62]

Made it out to a few local lakes around the DL/Frazee/Perham area the last week.

Started around Frazee, found the deep holes (28 & 45) in the shallower hole we caught blue gills and a few crappies mixed in the group.  Probably kept 6-12 blue gills 9" plus and 4-6 Crappies 11-13".  When we hit the deeper hole we caught a few 6-8" crappies and a ton of perch about the same size.  It was really slow out deep so we went shallow and caught a bunch of gills no crappies the second day because two portables and a perm fish house was moving up near us.  We had about 9-11" of ice out there and when the perm house moved hundred yards towards us they checked the ice under them and it was 2", the house had only been there 4-6 days.

Fished east of DL on 34 a ways, ton of snow on top of the ice and made walking difficult.  There was a pressure ridge next to shore near the access and the first hundred yards was flooding pretty good.  We walked out but there was a ton of wheelers and snowmobiles out there and we had 12-14" of ice.  When we were out there a pickup with a plow was pushing snow for a road but we saw when he got near shore he got stuck but when we came closer he dropped his right front tire through the ice in a few inches of water.  He was waiitng on another pickup to pull him out.  Fishing kinda sucked since we couldn't hop around due to wind and cold.  Did see Dave Genz out on the ice and he chit chatted a few minutes as we were tearing down asking out our Clam fish house.  Caught about 6-12" northerns and 3-5" gills.

Fished Big Pine for two days.  I have the worse luck out there I swear.  Fished our good spot last summer and we had tip ups from 7.5-24' had one flag and a 3 pound pike.  Set my house up on the break 18' on shallow side of the house 22' on the deep side fyi my house is 8.5' wide. Set my buddy up 13.5-15 in his Evo 2.  We caught a few perch had a few good bites but no connections.  Also had a snowmobile run over one of our tip ups.  Ran it over dead center and broke it.  Majorly sucked and don't know how someone missed a 10" round tip up. After that each tip up had a 5 gallon bucket next to it and we still had people come within 10' of the holes.  Kinda sucked.  Second day we took off to the Crappie Hole as we've heard it called.  Had 13" of ice ton of cars and SUV's driving around.  Almost no snow on the lake which sucked for packing fish house for wind blocking.  We fished from about 10:30-5:30 caught a ton of 5" crappies and 3 over 10".  They were active chasing stuff around but no size.  Pretty much all activity shut off at 1 pm. 

[Lotharski]

On 3/7/2016 at 3:41 PM, Chill62 said:

 

 

I fished Franklin on Friday afternoon in 17 fow.  Had the camera down and saw several walleye and pike lookers, but no takers no matter what I did.  At about 5 pm saw a group of walleyes come in and ended up catching a 16.5" and a 15".  Stayed out till about 6 pm but nothing else.  Buddy was fishing about 50 yards away in 27 fow looking for crappies and he ended up catching 8 walleyes all about 8-10".  So fairly slow for us.  FYI: we had 12" of ice, but didn't see any cars out there.

Edited January 3, 2017 by Lotharski

[slammer]

Was on Lida Sunday.  13 in ice.  Fishing was slow.  4 Crappie & 2 eyes about 5pm

[lawnbuilder]

Went out north of DL on Floyd with about 14" of ice people driving around. The bite was slow we only got a couple eyes and some small northerns. 

Edited January 9, 2017 by lawnbuilder

[Chill62]

Fished honey hole on Saturday morning.  Graphed a few fish but nothing would bite though.  Fished from about 9-2:30. Just before I reeled my line up I got a mark and it actually bite my line! First bite all day! 3" perch! threw him back and tore down the fish house.  Hopped over to Melissa fishing the Scar, ice varied big time and if your hauling heavy going across drill a bunch of holes to verify ice.  12-17" and it was very all over the board so be careful.  We did drive out there but we had lighter vehicles.  Put big minnows up shallow for pike on tip ups and fished in 17.5' for walleyes.  We hole hopped for a little bit and I caught a 4" blue gill and when in the house we would get a bunch of marks come into the spoons but no takers.  Dropped a tungesten down and got a 12" large mouth.  Had 3 bites all day caught 3 small fish.  Fishing was tough for us.

[bbfenatic]

Fished a couple lakes in Ottertail Co this weekend.  In the hard house we did OK but for the time we put in nothing great, I did get one hog....can you tell which one is the 12" and which one is the 15.5"? haha, 15.5" released.

Then I went to the portable and went to a lake South of where I was and it was not great...I caught more nice crappies but it was just one here one there.....can't find them stacked in the basins yet...wondering with the late freeze if they are still shallower off the first break and not in the deep basins yet....I hope that is the case.  I do know that every lake I have fished that is shallow and is 20' deep at the deepest I have done much better as far as numbers.

 

 

 

[Chill62]

Fished around DL on Saturday for MN Trout Opener.  TON of snow on the lake and sadly we didn't catch a single trout in our house!  Too much snow around and ended up helping get some people out that were burried driving down the road we came in on and we got burried also.  Please don't forget your tow straps in your vehciles people!  We are going to Mac's today to buy one for our truck.  Fishing sucked ton of 5" crappies, heard mixed reports of getting some up shallow 5-10' but they were 5-8".  Was worth a shot but I'd suggest if you were heading to trout fish around DL bring a snowmobile to get back on the road.  We had about 12" of ice on the lake but it's a walk out access only.

 

Sunday we set the perm house out for the nephew on Big Pine by perham 16" of ice nice plowed path leaving the access but if you don't have a pickup please pick your path off of the main roads carefully or you will get stuck.  We didn't fish since we were going to try a day bite lake afterwards.  Fished by Frazee for panfish from around 11:30-3:30 lots of snow on the lake.  Plenty of ice and guys were driving wheelers out there and safe enough ice to drive but when they plowed the access the pushed the snow square onto the ice so there's a hill to climb on the ice from the access snow.  Kinda bummed about it because I'd love to drive out there but it isn't happening without a plow and I don't have one on the truck.  We fished a deep hole 28' below the ducer and the panfish were down there instantly, camera verified it!  Caught about 30-40 blue gills ranging from 5-8" but very THICK.  Did get two jump perch about 10" and two crappies 11-12.5".  Everything preffered SMALL jigs (3mm) tipped with a wax worm.  Crappies were chasing 7-8' off of bottom and i probably missed more fish from them coming up to attack and missing my jig.  Was pretty funny to watch the graph of the fish flying up 3-4' to attack and over shooting my jig 2-3 feet.  In the afternoon fishing died and we took off so the nephew could watch his packers play.  Kept 4 fish all weekend.

 

I've had bad luck all year so maybe people shouldn't listen to my reports and just follow the opposite of what I do?? lol  Stay safe out there!
":

[bbfenatic]

Don't feel bad Chill...we normally eat crappies 3 days per week and this year it's been more like once per week. My slowest year in quite a while that's for sure....maybe things will improve near term and long term the best crappie days are yet to come....when that melt starts and water starts running down cracks and old holes the crappies really turn on.

[Lotharski]

I fished Ottertail this last Friday and Saturday in a rented house from a guide.  For two days with 5 guys a total of 8 walleye, a ton of small perch and a pout.  Was fun, but very slow......  Seems like this has been the theme for most of us.

[Chill62]

22 hours ago, bbfenatic said:

Don't feel bad Chill...we normally eat crappies 3 days per week and this year it's been more like once per week. My slowest year in quite a while that's for sure....maybe things will improve near term and long term the best crappie days are yet to come....when that melt starts and water starts running down cracks and old holes the crappies really turn on.

 

Thanks for your words of encouragement! lol

[Chill62]

Pre fished a lake Friday before taking the girlfriend out on Saturday.  We were 15ish miles NNE of DL.  Friday morning we had a little bit of slush and water on the lake but we had plenty of ice 18-19".  Fished our first hole and caught a few small crappies and very small perch.  Gave it about an hour and nothing.  We were hole hoping constantly and the fish would come into your hole and if you were lucky you landed one then they were gone.  IT SUCKED  Moved to a different part of the lake, steep break from shore to a HUGE flat that went across the lake where there was a sharp break going back up the other side.  Depth was 16-19' and we drilled a ton of holes covering a huge area.  Since we had two guys out there we each put a tip up out and caught around a dozen pike on tip ups biggest was a 29.5" that we kept using medium suckers.  We hole hopped chasing crappies and it was a great day for them.  They wanted a 4 or 5 mm tungstun jig tipped with a soft plastic 3-5 feet above bottom. Crappies were very aggressive and sometimes they would fly up 7' to attack your jig as you dropped and they would miss your jig!  Was a blast.  We ended up keeping 12 or 13 crappies but we probably caught 200-250 easily during the day.  Blue gills weren't really active but we caught maybe 100 blue gills through the whole day all went back.  Highlight of the day was catching a 30" pike on 4# test on a tungstun jig.  Took almost 15 minutes to get him, my buddy was able to capture him on video as I was trying to land him.  When I was fighting him is when we got the 29.5" on tip up about 20 yards away.

 

We came back to the same spot on Saturday with my girlfriend and my buddies young daughter.  Water was very deep on the ice but the lake wasn't "Flooding" it just had standing water if that makes sense.  Our slush didn't even melt over night in our holes.  Crappies were a little harder to catch but the blue gills were on fire!  Dropped camera down right away and could see schools of crappies and blue gills swimming around.  We were hole hoping getting a few fish here and there but they would fill your graph up and instantly gone, we found out why later.  We weren't fishing for 10 minutes and I hear the girlfriend say "I GOT A BIG ONE" I looked over and yes she did.  Came to help her out and she landed a 19" Largemouth on a tungsten tipped with soft plastic.  She was soo excited.  I went back to fishing and a FEW minutes later I hear "I GOT A BIG ONE" yes she did!  She landed a 17 and 19" bass in 11 minutes!  A little later fishing slowed down big time and she went into the fish house to play with her new camera.  WOW is that clear!  Well we decided to eat in the fish house and we would see schools of dozens of blue gills come through and then they would fly out of the area, well here comes MR. Pike swimming through.  I always thought they didn't school up but at one time we had 6 pike under our portable fish house.  They didn't want anything to do with spoons or tip ups all day but would come into the area and all the panfish would be gone.  Then once the pike would leave the blue gills arrived within seconds.  Was very cool to see.  We maybe landed 150 crappies on Saturday keeping like 3 but we probably landed over 200 blue gills and it would have been more but we cheated and used the camera in the fish house to be picky with our catches.  Needless to say the girlfriend had a blast.

 

Best part was that the first day there wasn't a person within a mile of us.  On the second day a guy on a ranger came flying across the lake (2 miles plus) at 40 mph right at us with his head out the door like Ace Ventura stops puts his beer on the tailgate and drills a hole grabs his beer back into the cab and drives ahead 40 feet and repeats this about four times.  Each time he was within 5 feet of a hole we had drilled already.  Fished for about 20 minutes then took off at 40 mph and leaves.  Didn't say a word to us the whole time. Had to chuckle as he took off across the lake heading back to shore he hit a hard spot along the way and got the ranger up onto two wheels and it didn't slow him down the rest of the way back to shore.

 

Take away from what we found out

Crappies preferred soft plastics Glow Pink was hot color but Glow Green worked also on a 4 or 5 mm horizontal jig.

Bluegills preferred 3 and 4 mm horizontal jigs tipped with wax worms.

Pike were hitting on Medium Suckers on tip ups 2-3 feet off of bottom but we also had them hit half way down the water column. 

 

Tight lines and be safe at the accesses everyone!