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St Cloud Fishing Reports


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Thanks rick g and aanderud, I set the hook for the kids and let them reel them in. It was a great weekend for fishing.

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Yeah, nice one! Puttin the kids on some fish! That's what it's all about.

Shorts on opener weekend! Doesn't happen too much, does it!

Shorts? Heck, there were guys on Mille Lacs who weren't wearing shirts. Why is it that the people NOT wearing shirts are the people who SHOULD be wearing them?!?!?

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Made it out on the chain on Saturday fished 2am-9 then back out again 5pm-11:30. Boated quite a few fish mixed bag walleyes, northern, bass. Only kept 5 walleyes on the day though. First one on a husky jerk, couple on jig and leach, couple on a rig with shiner. Overall very nice day on the lake, hoping to get back out in the next few days.

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Good report Buckmaster. Pretty crazy out there, at least trying to get from one lake to the next anyway. 22,71 and 49 bridges were all hard to navigate through with all the boat's. At least the fish bit wink

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  • Official Fishing Report Team - MN

Fished the chain opening weekend and limited. The boat traffic was crazy but it doesnt amaze me as the chain usally has a decent opener bite. I fish the chain alot so the craziness is nothing new to me. I will admit it was the most boats i have seen on the chain for opener in all the years i have fished it!

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Glad people were able to get out and have some success...it was a great opener weather for a change! I spent most of the Saturday doing house/yard work and did the family shuffle on Mothers Day; but did get to get out and chase some trout on Sunday evening. As usual, the dumb ones hit early and hard, then turned into a game of figuring out the right combo for the rest. Was able to land fish on poppers, mepps type spinners,and crappie type hair jigs. The only thing that seemed to be consistent was the color yellow. Got many follows on other presentations and colors, but yellow was the only taker. As mentioned most of the dumb ones are gone now, but should be a decent bite for another week or so, and certain quarries are better than others wink If you have ever wanted to try this...now is the time!

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

I made it out last night for a 2 hour crank trolling trip after dark on Koronis. Man was there a bug hatch last night. Could hardly see at times and got to the point of landing and unhooking fish without any light as it was just to icky and hard to breathe with any additional lights on. Ended up catching 4 eyes, 1 nice pike, 3 smallmouth and 6-8 rockies. Had no trouble seeing bottom in the dark in 7 fow so it must be fairly clear yet. Water temps ranged from 60-66 degrees. Most fish caught in 4-7 fow.

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I made it out last night for a 2 hour crank trolling trip after dark on Koronis. Man was there a bug hatch last night. Could hardly see at times and got to the point of landing and unhooking fish without any light as it was just to icky and hard to breathe with any additional lights on. Ended up catching 4 eyes, 1 nice pike, 3 smallmouth and 6-8 rockies. Had no trouble seeing bottom in the dark in 7 fow so it must be fairly clear yet. Water temps ranged from 60-66 degrees. Most fish caught in 4-7 fow.

Borch are you tolling with your electric motor? When I was out on opener using my 75 4stroke to troll shallow you could see the fish and they would spook, how do you get around this?

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

I use the big motor, (115 optimax) when trolling cranks. My personal opinion is that it's the boat that spooks them more than the outboard itself. Spooking seems to be a bigger issue in shallow water during daylight and when water is clear and calm. When it's calm at night I run longer lines. So the other night when it was calm I was running between 100-140 feet back. This gives fish a chance o filter back by the time the lure gets there. If it choppy I can get by with as short as 40 feet back. One could run longer rods or inline planer boards. I use 10' rods at times but usually run 6-7' rods on my trolling set ups and do fine. I rarely bother with the boards but know there are times where they are very effective especially during daylight hours.

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Great reports guys! IceHawk sounds like you had a heck of a fun day! Thought i'd post a couple pics of what we kept for a meal. Can't wait to get back out, planning on going tomorrow night. Been too busy the past few days. Any details on the action and traffic so far this week?

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20" Saturday Morning (sorry about all the blue sky in the pic)

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Saturday evenings catch

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Good job Buckmaster! Were you running crank's? Some of the nicer ones we got were on crank's. Good bite right now on the weedline's and over the top of the weed's that are in the 8-10f depth range.

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I use the big motor, (115 optimax) when trolling cranks. My personal opinion is that it's the boat that spooks them more than the outboard itself. Spooking seems to be a bigger issue in shallow water during daylight and when water is clear and calm. When it's calm at night I run longer lines. So the other night when it was calm I was running between 100-140 feet back. This gives fish a chance o filter back by the time the lure gets there. If it choppy I can get by with as short as 40 feet back. One could run longer rods or inline planer boards. I use 10' rods at times but usually run 6-7' rods on my trolling set ups and do fine. I rarely bother with the boards but know there are times where they are very effective especially during daylight hours.

Thanks for the reply, I think I might have been a little early and running to short of lines.

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Good job Buckmaster! Were you running crank's? Some of the nicer ones we got were on crank's. Good bite right now on the weedline's and over the top of the weed's that are in the 8-10f depth range.

Thanks guys! Rick, the 20" was caught fan casting a jerk bait, we caught a couple pulling cranks but the ones in the bottom picture were all jig or rig. The word has been cranks or bobber fishing some current has produced some fish, I didn't spend much time on either. Seems like you just gotta find whats working in your spot and work em hard, be it- live bait, plastics or cranks. I'll be heading out tonight after work hopefully box a couple more for a tasty meal.

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Took jr. with to pick on some more trout this weekend. Not quite the action as last week and it took a lot longer to limit out, but the fish were still there. This time we had to use a lot more live bait as the trout are becoming conditioned to the artificials. A couple waxies on a #12, half a crawler on a #8...even brought out some ice jigs tipped with a chunk of powerbait to switch it up. And switching it up will be the key from here on out. Frustrating but fun to see the holdover veterans just blow you off. About the only way to get them is flys....going to try some scent on them next time out.

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full-27018-20775-2012_05_20_19_25_04_422

full-27018-20776-2012_05_20_19_31_36_480

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Picked this 20" up on a local lake. Had another nice fish on (20"+) but my net man was needs some practice smirk Had 3 others 10"-15" with a have dozen pike mixed in too...

IMG_20120513_165248.jpg

Going to give it another go tomorrow, hope I can share some more photos!

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ASMOLY, nice local eye! Pb, those trout are some tasty littl critter's grin. Quarries or Mud?

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Sounds and looks like a great outing Asmoley!!!

Rick, hit up the quarries for the first time this year....always have fished Mud, but really fun not fight the billion of tiny gills and really nice not having to drive or trailer up the boat; not near the numbers though. Just made trout poppers tonight....butterflied and stuffed with cream cheese, jalapeno jelly, sliced up hot pepper rings, wrapped in foil and grilled......

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Sounds and looks like a great outing Asmoley!!!

Rick, hit up the quarries for the first time this year....always have fished Mud, but really fun not fight the billion of tiny gills and really nice not having to drive or trailer up the boat; not near the numbers though. Just made trout poppers tonight....butterflied and stuffed with cream cheese, jalapeno jelly, sliced up hot pepper rings, wrapped in foil and grilled......

Sounds good, any leftovers?

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Was out yesterday and the eyes were tight lipped. Maybe it had something to do with bass and catfish just going crazy! Should be a great opener (weather permitting) for all the smallmouth enthusiasts. Even well after sunset we were still catching smallmouth.

The channels sure seem to have but some weight on since last summer. We had 4 over 20" biggest was 26". Managed a few crappies mixed in, but not a single eye.

Gotta love the river always a mystery when you set the hook!

Trout poppers, now i have to got trout fishing, those sound delicious!

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Went out on a local lake for a quick bass outing tonight, and they were biting heavy before the storm rolled in. Didn't catch any big ones, but senkos and topwaters were the ticket in anywhere from 1' to 3' of water, give or take six inches. smile

And I got off the lake without getting struck by lightning or rained on, so it was a success!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Made it out to the HS chain today. Got a report from Baitshopboy at the access that the walleyes were going crazy in 2-3 ft of water. Well we looked for theese super shallow fish for a few hours, all we could find were smallies and crappies crazy We opted to try for some cat's till evening. They were pretty slugish today, most of the bites we had were real light. Had the best luck with float's and leeches over a slow breaking mud bottom area. Couldn't get anything on cut bait or crawler's today. We ended up getting 7-8 but nothing bigger than 24in. Around 7 we decided to go back to where we had found the crappie's . They were set up pretty thick on a couple shallow pocketts of weeds that had hard bottom all around. By 8;30 we were also getting a few walleye's mixed in with the crappie's. We caught a few on tubes and a few on gulp but got most on a 2in Northland slurpie with a 1/16oz head. Good thing for hungry crappie's, they sure saved the day for us.

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Just got back from Big Birch, fished from 7:30 till almost midnight. The bite isn't near as good as it was in the begining of June, oh well it's normal for thing's to start to slow down around July. Did manage to locate a few walleye's along with some bass and bait theiving sunfish frown. Found them in 14-16ft of water on one of the rock/sand rock bars. The fish were scattered all accross the top of the bar so a live bait rig tiped with a leech worked well till it got dark then we threw out the anchor and switched over to The Splash Bright's and leech's to finish off the evening.

Bug's were horible, got bit about a million times mad even with bug spray. Water temp was 77-80 in the spots we checked out. Weed bed's are starting to get real thick and they are loaded with young of the year fish. Let the dog day's begin.

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Was talked into goin out in this mad heat to try out the chain for a couple hours crazy. We must have been crazy to even be out there. The water temp went up 4 degrees in the short time we were there but the fish didn't seem to mind. The presintation for the day casting jigs tiped with a half a crawler or a crappie minnow to the weed pockets. The only jig that we could get fish to bite and stay clear of vegitation was the Northland Weed Weasel. We did try a few different styles of jigs but they either didn't catch fish or they got fouled up in the weeds too often. We caught walleyes, crappies, bass and a few catfish on The Weed Weasels , best colors were firetiger and sunrise, we caught fish on both the 1/8 oz Weasel and the 1/16oz Weasel but the 1/16 seemed to work just a bit better especialy for the crappies.

With this high water and warm temps the lake sure is starting to turn a nice shade of green wink Even saw some blue/green alge starting to pop up in some of the shallow bays frown Going to be an intresting year thars for sure.

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I have also caught multi species using the same approach. I use 4lb mono but do have a break off at times along with line twist. Any other line suggestions for throwing jigs?

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Just the nature of 4lb test to break off a few times. I have been throwing the Northland Bionic Series line in 5lb on my jiging rods. It's a little thinner than most 6lb and even some of the 4lb out there. As far as the line twists, you could try a small swivel a couple ft above the jig or do what I do, cuss alot grin

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When fishing in weeds, do you guys notice a significant increase in bites with those lower lb test lines? In the weeds, i've never really had any problem throwing 8 or 10 lb, figuring the fish aren't taking the time to look at it (especially in dirty water like on the Chain). Isn't 4 (or 5) lb test unnecessarily skinny?

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I just find it too hard to fish light jigs with heavy line, takes away quite a bit of the feel. Also the action of the jig seems to deaden with heavier line.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Braid is a nice compromise with thin diameter yet more strength. Cuts through the weeds pretty well when you hook up too.

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