2020 Detroit Lakes-Pelican Rapids Fishing Reports - Lake Conditions

[Teebones1977]

Nice work boys! Looking forward getting out with guys soon!

[pan man]

was out yesterday finally found some sunnies in 10 to 12' still the crappies are being a ghost i have tried my usual 25' hump and get a couple one night than nothing for weeks tried a 40' hole yesterday and nothing don't know if the cold has the fish confused or what. Going to take advantage of 47 deg temps.

will give post after tday

[Guest]

Fished one of my favorite Mid-March crappie lakes N of DL yesterday and did not even mark a fish, not one. First time ever and they should be stacked in there on their way to spawning area this time of year. Gonna have to go back out to the basin I guess....what a strange year for ice fishing.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Fished a local lake yesterday evening... I don't know why we did, the wind was blowing 350 mph lol. But we stuck it out and ended up with about 10 of these bad boys. Nothing kept, we also caught a few bluegills up in 8 feet of water. The crappies were caught in 14-18 fow.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Been fishing here and there when I can, the fish are still out over the basin mostly, fishing up at the edge of the basin has been productive for crappies, and fishing up on the weedline has been productive for sunfish.

[pan man]

Well i drug the house all over the lake yesterday all i could find is a few perch. The water has gotten really dirty ice is getting pretty mushy shore was deep water on top of the ice

[slick2526]

made it out saturday on smaller lake. still pretty cold in the bays. Friend ended up with a crappie and I ended up with bass. Figured I would post a pic of the first fish in my open water season!

[Cicada]

Finally got out in a boat yesterday. Hit Lida and caught only three crappies and a walleye. Missed a couple others. Water temps were in the upper 40's. Checked by the conservation officer. He asked if we made sure the two that we kept were 11". We said yes and that one was close , but the guy that owns the boat had just bought one of those crappie measuring things. He asked to see it and said those things were really bad. Hard to get the crappie all the way in to get a proper measurement. Put it on his board and it was almost a quarter inch short. He then asked us to show him how we came up with 11.25" We showed him that we did push the crappie in as far as we could and it showed the same. I think he felt we really did make a proper effort and just had us release it. Kind of grateful that he can use his judgment on that one. I can't remember the brand for sure, but it was clear plastic and the 11 inch mark was just above the hole to hang it on a clip or nail.

[Guest]

Finding some crappies moving into the shallows.....finally! 2 of us ended up with a limit of nice fish.

[Crappie Rage]

Holy cow, that does look shallow

[Crappie Rage]

We found some but they were in 10 feet or so.

[Guest]

Very nice! And love to see the smiles on the younguns, way to go!

[Cicada]

Rough start to the weekend. I was making final preparations for my holy day of obligation. Batteries charged, rods assembled, gassed the boat, and tackle boxes stored.

Didn't plan ahead for falling down five of my stairs going into the basement. That hurts. I thought I'd better check myself for a concussion. President of the United States...Ronald Reagan.

Two plus two times two...ten.

Held up three or four fingers...and saw six or eight...I can't remember what the question was.

I think I'm ok. I know Reagan isn't President, but most of my friends are Republicans and I thought I'd get more sympathy from them by throwing them a bone. I think Clinton is going a fine job. The math question, I cheated off one of my brother, Sumo's old test papers. What does that red mark mean? And, finally, I know I held up only two fingers because I lost my glasses on the way down and had to get real close to my hand to count and poked myself in both eyes.

Opening weekend and not one walleye. Tried Franklin Saturday. Talked to my high school baseball coach, who was also on Franklin. He said they got 4368 notherns. I told him they beat us by four. Tried the shallow bays for crappies and didn't see any caught by any of the dozen or so boats. Sunday I hit Lida. Had several bites I thought would be walleyes, but missed all six or seven of those bites. Hit one of the shallow bays and caught about 30 largemouth bass and only two crappies.

[Reno]

Ouch!! We went to Pelican on Sat, did not arrive till around 8am..were not able to find any shiners...tried it for about a half hour in Little pelican with some rainbows..Zero...so headed for some crappies, nice limit in about 1 hour..

Steve

[slick2526]

targeted some panfish this weekend. Had to get it out of my system to fully focus on walleye fishing now. They were snapping pretty good Friday on Big Corm. Didnt seem as good of a bite on Saturday but a lot more boat traffic also. Did great on sunnies and a got a few nice crappie to boot.

[Stringerless!]

Coming up that way to work Wed and Thursday in Hawley. Any shore action for a guy with an evening to kill ? Staying in DL.

[eyehunter]

  Stringerless! said:

Coming up that way to work Wed and Thursday in Hawley. Any shore action for a guy with an evening to kill ? Staying in DL.

Long Bridge on the southwest side of Big Detroit.

[Stringerless!]

Thanks . If I get any free time I will give it a shot.

[paceman]

Onother good shore area is at Dunton Locks/Lake sallie. It is right by the DNR Hatchery. Fish where the river flows into Sallie. Lots of folks doing that and quite a few fish caught as well.

[DrJuice1980]

Whats the water temp looking like around the area there?

[Cicada]

High school classmate came up for the weekend. We hit Lida for smallmouth and did pretty good. Spinnerbaits took more fish than buzzbaits. We each caught 12 bass, the biggest being 18.5 inches. Pretty good average size, maybe like close to 17 inch average. Went into Bass Harbor for an hour or so and caught 6 crappies, none of which were legal. Ysterday we went up north and fished mostly bass again. Got a 19.25 inch smallmouth almost right away. Scot schooled me the rest of the day catching 24 out of the 37 bass. Did get one 19" walleye (crankbait)and a bunch of northerns. Most on spinnerbaits again some bobber fishing with a gulp alive leech.

The 19.25 incher with almost as big a gut as the fisherman.

[Guest]

Hit a small shallow lake yesterday and found the crappies and big gills, water temp was 65 in this muddy pond and the fish were in 2-6'. We caught all males and the females had no interest even if you dropped your jig right on their nose.

Has anyone else experienced clearer water than normal? Every lake I have been on this spring has been twice as clear than in the past..which is pretty cool.

[slick2526]

Had a bunch going on this last weekend. Only made it out for a few hours Friday afternoon. Couldn't believe the amount of boats coming onto the water two hours before dark on Rush lake near ottertail. I went that far out of town to try to miss some of the weekend traffic and my plan was a total fail lol

I was with a friends dad that had health issues and I felt the dock would of been hard for him to deal with right at dark when everyone wanted to leave so as hard as it was for me to do I got us out of there a lot earlier then I wanted too. Only good thing was as soon as I had my boat loaded and stuff put away it started raining. Made me feel better leaving early.

I am pretty sure every single boat that was on the lake was anchored in front of the mouth of the river flowing in on the north side of the lake. Think I counted 20 boats as I was leaving. Did see a few boat pull in some fish.

[Fred_Bear]

I got out for a few hours on the evenings of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this past weekend and also Monday afternoon. Mostly fishing warm bays for panfish and witnessed water surface temps rise a few degrees each day. The warmest water was 64-65 on Friday and by Monday I found 72. Weeds went from almost none on Friday to finding some good green cabbage coming up in 6-8 feet on Monday; this years pencil reeds were not up yet.

Numbers of large bluegills were not hard to come by and the crappies I caught in bays were almost all males. Caught more 15"-18" lmb than I care to in an entire summer.

On Monday I stumbled upon a school of BIG walleyes that I could see cruising the edges of the cabbage. My first time sight fishing walleyes in open water and it was a blast. Caught a few but didn't get any of the big fish to eat, a couple of them I saw had to be pushing the 30" mark. I repeatedly saw 2 muskies cruising the same small cabbage bed.

[paceman]

In between graduations/yardwork/rain showers my favorite fishing partner and I buzzed out for an afternoon of fishing this past Saturday. We did not find the walleye very cooperative so after an hour we switched to Crappies. They were very receptive to the simple approach of casting jigs/plastics along the weedlines in 8-12 feet. After 2 hours we caught about 60. We kept 10 good eaters right around 10 inches. Most fish caught were smaller in the 8-9 inch range and a few were bigger in the 12-13" range. We left just before the evening line of rainstorms hit.

[Guest]

Starting to find Crappies in normal spots now, took my brother-in-law from out East fishing and we clobbered them. Pic of him with a couple.

[pikerliker]

Fred bear those pics of the cruising musky are awesome! It must have been fun seeing that big school of walleye too. I would say the one your holding looks like a nice one to me. Sounds like a blast!

[paceman]

A limit of 10"-12" from last night. Caught on a simple jig/twister tail in 10-12' right along the weed edge.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

went out today for some bass from the kayak and caught some pigs out off the first weed edge. 6-8 fow.. Haven't been out too much this spring but when I have been out, it's been fun.

The crappies are from a couple of weekends ago on a back country lake, they were biting insanely well off the first weedline also.

[paceman]

Made it out last Friday afternoon to an area lake that usually turns on this time of year. Pulling spinners with meat produced 10 nice eyes for my son and I. Still fairly shallow, 11-14' on this lake.