2020 Detroit Lakes-Pelican Rapids Fishing Reports - Lake Conditions

[Guest]

We found some big slabs N of DL Saturday, by end of the day it was a wet mess out there and with the sun so high in the sky this ice will go fast...gonna be close for eye opener in many places up here. Pic of a few we caught.

[pan man]

nice crappies

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Made it out the past couple of nights sneaking around the shorelines casting light jigs and plastics. I found a small dark bay with a short shallow creek coming in from a couple acre shallow beaver pond. Dark bottoms are typically surrounded by cat tails, they like the softer bottoms, which are what you should be keying in now in the afternoons. Stay stealthy and it will pay off. I caught a quite a few crappies the other night, and the biggest was this 14"er..

The next night I went out and the slabs were gone, I caught 2 smaller crappies and some smaller gills, and this big fat pig decided to take my gypsy jig! It was pretty darn fun though

[paceman]

Great pictures Jim!

[JacobG]

Was able to fish the past two days in the DL area for some crappies. THe fishing was fairly good! Spotty tho. we had periods of good fishing followed by the lulls. IF we went for a little while without a bite, we moved and usually didn't have to move far to get back on fish. Found fish in two shallow bays as also some fish staging in deeper water. Without a doubt the bigger fish were in the colder water 58 degrees staging on flats. Although yesterday the more active fish were in the shallow dark water, 61 degrees. Caught many fish over the past 2 days keeping 5 each trip for a meal. I think the fishing will really start to heat up by next week, even with all the rain we've received already. Too bad ill be back at work.....UGH!

[Cicada]

Finally found some time to put in a good effort fishing. High school classmate is up for the week and we hit several lakes over the weekend. In spite of the weather, we caught some fish. Not oodles of them, but some very nice. One lake is giving up walleyes in 14-20 feet of water on leeches, another was starting to give up some smallmouth, and one lake the crappie bite was awesome. He thinks we caught around a hundred on Saturday afternoon, but I think it was more like 80ish. We kept only 12 since we were too lazy to measure every one and make sure they were over 11 inches. Most impressive fish of the weekend was his 21+ inch smallmouth bass from Juggler.

[Cicada]

Oh, and that IS his smile. He is just ecstatic, out of his mind thrilled,...you get the picture.

[Scoot]

Oh, and that IS his smile. He is just ecstatic, out of his mind thrilled,...you get the picture.

LOL Cicada- you read my mind with your follow up post! Looks like he really is tickled pink.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

went out last night in the kayak and put the hurt to some pre spawn bluegills. close hand to hand battle it was a blast. the fish were scattered over 10 fow feeding near the surface.

[JacobG]

went out yesterday for some crappies. The action was unreal. The fish were everywhere they were supposed to be. I estimate that we caught around 60 crappies along with several nice size gills. Of all those fish we only kept 4 that were of "keeper" size the rest were 7-9' The lake is know to produce some big slabs but they seemed to elude us. All in all it was a nice day to be out and fish a new lake.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

smacked quite a few crappies and gills the other night im mahnomen county, they werent on the beds yet. water temp was at 60 degrees and the fish were pigging out. the OPS Flutter jig and pink Impulse tadpole were the ticket.

[Guest]

Went out this evening after the rain and wind quit.....lights out! Caught more than I could keep, not the biggest but kept limit between 10-12"....pic of a couple. Using jig with Yum 1.5" white shad plastic speckled black, tried bobber but could not hook them up and they seemed to want the moving target better...it was a blast, had a few times I'd get a hit and miss...kept jigging and another one would swoop in and smack it. Probably caught 20-25 in an hour and a half.

[paceman]

Good reports guys. Wish I had more time to get out. been super busy with work, kids activities... Hopefully next weekend I can add a report or 2.

[Guest]

Went out in the kayak to a lake S of DL early this AM, took me a short while but I found them off the first break from the shallows.

[paceman]

Went out yesterday morning for a few hours before work. found the crappie pretty easily. 10-12' along thick weeds. through back a few in the 12-13" range and kept a meal of 10-11". Casting and retrieving a simple paddle tailed jig. Also caught numerous bass and sunnies in the same area. then I went looking for eyes. Nothing for quite a while but eventually found a few again in the 10-12' depth on a mid lake hump. had to get into the weeds using a small weight and a gum drop float with half a crawler. also quite a few sunnies/bass. kept 3 good eaters and tossed back 2 in the mid twenties. I love getting up early and beating the crowds

[gp13581]

Heading up to DL next week for the 4th. Any advice for fishing Detroit Lake would be greatly appreciated. This is my first time on the lake. Targeting walleyes for a dinner or two and bass for fun. Any special techniques to try or focus on? I see two main bodies. Is one better than the other? I like to fish early morning before the kids get up. Any advice from anyone that fishes it regularly would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Guest]

Big D has more eyes, some good structure on the South End of the lake and then a good size hump about 400 yds out from the S. Shore that is good for eyes. Also a heavily fished area for eyes is on the East Shore just out from the Fireside restaurant that has some great structure. Seems to be best mostly early AM or later just before sunset. Best launch is the S. Shore Public Access.

Little D has more Bass, guys fish them on the South end where the river flows out, lot of reeds in that area that hold Bass. Make sure you use the marked channel between the lakes or you might take out your lower unit. Good Luck and post some pics of your catch!

[gp13581]

Thanks BB. Very helpful to get me started. I looked at the DNR lake map and can see the spots you are pointing out. We are staying over on the west side of little Detroit so it'll be a bit of a boat ride in the morning but should be fun. Can't wait to get up there. Nothing better than being out fishing early morning and listening to the traffic jams in the cities! I'll have to figure out how to post some pictures. Thanks again.

[Double A]

The Rock bass made it through the winter nicely on Big C!

15 red eyes. Zero Walleye.

Anyway - a beautiful night to be out on the water.

[Fred_Bear]

Took a VERY LONG OVERDUE fishing trip with my wife on Saturday, this is sadly the first time my boat was in the water this year. We got married last Saturday so it has been very busy spring and early summer and I never got time to get the boat ready until this weekend.

We found the crappies on the deep cabbage edge on Saturday. Lots of eater sized fish in 8-10 fow over the top of the deepest visible cabbage and the big fish were off the edge in 10-12 fow. Biggest schools of crappies were on the windblown weedlines and when we found them it was non-stop action whereas other weedlines were more sporadic but still held fish. After a couple hours, my wife was complaining of catching "too many 12 inch crappies" haha she caught some very nice fish.

[Guest]

Thanks BB. Very helpful to get me started. I looked at the DNR lake map and can see the spots you are pointing out. We are staying over on the west side of little Detroit so it'll be a bit of a boat ride in the morning but should be fun. Can't wait to get up there. Nothing better than being out fishing early morning and listening to the traffic jams in the cities! I'll have to figure out how to post some pictures. Thanks again.

I grew up spending summers on west side of little D! Back then it was a 10 hp johnson and it did take a while but really should be able to be over to the S Shore of Big D in 5-10 minutes. Use to hammer the crappies during spawn in front of and just to N of what is now Breezy Shore Time share units right off our dock but they don't move in there any more for whatever reason, the bass are in and around that reed bed in front of and to the S of Breezy Shores...Good Luck!

[gp13581]

I know where to fish, now I need to figure out where to eat. Besides Zorbaz, which I am not a fan of, are there any places either on Detroit Lake or nearby that you would recommend? Not looking for a fancy place just a place for three teenagers and parents to go and eat lots of good food. Thanks.

[Tony Mariotti]

Fishing has been pretty good as of late, you guys should have a great time. For places to eat, Bleachers has excellent burgers, and there is a newer BBQ place out on Hwy 59, called BJ's BBQ Shack, that I've heard is pretty decent. Zorbaz is the usual DL staple :

[Guest]

Tony pointed out some good ones and "The Bridge" right at Long Bridge not far from where you will be has great Burgers and kids would like it...if it is hot lots of kids jumping off the bridge into the water there.

[bak2MN]

Bleachers has better burgers than Long Bridge. There is also Lakeside, they have ok burgers and decent pizza.

[JeffB]

Great day fishing took three kids fishing every one caught at least two nice walleyes including myself, 3 nice crappie, a couple bass, a few sunfish, a northern and some great weather. Fishing a midlake bar 13-20 feet using crawler rigs. Went through three dozen crawlers in about 3.5 hours. Biggest eyes were about 24-25". My wife lost one dandy eye that took a dive and her drag was a little tight. Great day to be on the lake. Finished the day off with a swim to lose a couple layers of sweat and crawler dirt. Congrats Fred Bear on the wedding and the great fishing with the new bride.

[Cicada]

China Buffet if you want something different to fill the gullet with. I would second Bleachers burgers.

[Guest]

Early morning today....2 small lakes with the yak. First lake no public access...does not have numbers but I was in search of a monster crappie I know the lake holds...came up empty handed. On to the second lake and I clobbered the specs. Today they seemed to favor pink so I threw on the Bobby Garland 2" Slab Slay'R black body/pink tail.....no "live" bait needed....and it was one after the other! Pic of the jig and a couple of the fish.

[Cicada]

Took the folks to Big Cormorant last night. Got some walleyes, some smallmouth bass, some big bluegills, and a ton of rock bass. I think they will have enough for a couple of meals.

Today, went to Bad Medicine for the first time in a couple of years. Had six trout on, but only got one in the boat.

Nice crappies there BB!

[gp13581]

Thanks for the advice guys. Just got back from a week on Detroit Lake. My son and I stopped at Sallie before we put into Detroit. Completely struck out. Put into Detroit Friday night for the week. Wednesday night, we brought in 10 walleyes. The smallest was 15 and the largest 18. Awesome night. My son is not much into fishing but now I think he is hooked. Simple presentation, slip bobber with an ice jig and a leach. 22' of water right on a drop off from 10'. We must have been on "the spot". Had a boat with 5 in it, come and start fishing literally 10'from us. I said this must be the hot spot since he was fishing so close. He said it was and if I wanted to leave I could. What a jerk.

Mornings were spent casting for bass and northerns in the 8-11' weeds in front of the lodge. We could not keep the northerns off. Largest was 5 lbs. The bass were all 2.5 - 3 lbs. We caught something about every 10 casts which made it super fun. Primarily throwing crankbaits. Had two muskies come up to the boat. Wife had never seen one before. Had one come after a snake northern I had on but I could get him to take it. Weather was awesome. Had a bearing go out on my boat trailer. Huge compliments and kudos to the folks over at NRG who took care of me. Super nice folks and they did an awesome job fixing up my trailer. Borrowed my a gas can so I could get some gas in my boat without my trailer. Fireworks on Thursday was excellent. Overall, a super great week in DL. Hope to do it again.