st cloud St Cloud Fishing Reports

[eyeguy 54]

 Got out and grabbed a couple more for the smoker.

[leech~~]

16 hours ago, eyeguy 54 said:

 Got out and grabbed a couple more for the smoker.

You out on that lake where the bait store is closed for the season?

[Rick G]

Tore up A whole bunch of spots on one of the larger lakes in the area with mr.eyeguy today. The couple days of warm weather we have had has taken a toll on some of the access points.  The main lake ice in terrific shape yet and likley will be for some time .

Like I said, we tore up a bunch of spots today...found fish from 8-20+ ft of water, had to work the bigger sunfish to get them to bite, crappies on the other hand bit pretty hard when we found them.

  The key to success today was to keep moving and working fresh holes. I found if I sat in one hole for more than a few minutes the fish would quit biting. Moving just a few ft sometimes was all that was needed to keep fresh fish looking at my bait.

[Rick G]

Got to the lake before sunrise today, quick solo trip.....or so I thought

I stopped at the access to check things out and it was fairly dry and solid.  

 Hit my go to spot for this lake and action was very good for the first couple hours. Caught plenty of quality fish but nothing too special so I decided to  head home to do some chores. Well, on the way off the lake I decided to drill a few holes on a main lake saddle between two points that I really never caught anything except for bass and tiny sunfish in the past.  Well, my shot in the dark hunch turned out to provide me with maybe the best day of fishing I have had this year. I'm still not real sure why I stopped at that spot Ended up staying twelve and a half hours today  let's just say catching was that good. 

By about two pm I got pretty hungry, so I walked back to my vehicle to get some snacks and low and behold at truck is sitting in about 6 inches of water...... The ice had sagged a bit, . I hopped in moved it to the access rather quickly.  Lucky for me I was only fishing maybe a couple hundred yards from the access, and that btw was a complete mess.  

Conditions changed pretty rapidly this afternoon. We definitely lost a little ice and a good chunk of the snow on the area lakes in the last few days. I'm pretty sure there is still enough to drive out on some but not all our  lakes.  Please use caution and check your access before venturing out.

Btw, no fish were harmed or kept today.... except one smaller sunfish that for some reason just didn't wanna swim away.

 

[smurfy]

i ran into icehawk at the Alex decoy show yesterday!!!!! was good to see him again. we chatted a bit......he's doing good and had a good year on the ice. said he never made it to the north country because of  the conditions. he says HI!!!!!!

 

oh and he also coughed up a few of Rick and eyeguys secret spots!!!!!!!!

[monstermoose78]

5 hours ago, smurfy said:

i ran into icehawk at the Alex decoy show yesterday!!!!! was good to see him again. we chatted a bit......he's doing good and had a good year on the ice. said he never made it to the north country because of  the conditions. he says HI!!!!!!

 

oh and he also coughed up a few of Rick and eyeguys secret spots!!!!!!!!

So smurfy spill the beans 

[smurfy]

53 minutes ago, monstermoose78 said:

So smurfy spill the beans 

 i'm not having eyeguy and Rick hunt me down and torture me!!!!!!!!!!

[monstermoose78]

1 hour ago, smurfy said:

 i'm not having eyeguy and Rick hunt me down and torture me!!!!!!!!!!

They will just feed you to death! 

[Rick G]

9 hours ago, smurfy said:

 

 

oh and he also coughed up a few of Rick and eyeguys secret spots!!!!!!!!

They ain't very secret  most of my big sunfish come from Beaver lake and the crappies from Hardrives pond

[Rick G]

Made it out to a few different lakes this weekend. Ice conditions have been different of each.... The Horseshoe Chain has real good ice yet and even saw a couple trucks out....I opted to walk out from here on out though.   

Clearwater has a lot of ice yet, but it's waterlogged and the auger made ice cubes instead of shavings.  

The fish are definitely reacting  positively to the added oxygen the melting snow and ice is adding to the lakes.  They were super aggressive on the lakes I hit Friday and Saturday... I found some of my biggest gills almost right under the ice.  Also starting to see and hear of some of the area lakes giving up fish sight fishing the pencil reeds.

I'm guessing with temps we have coming this next week our Ice season is gonna come to an end fairly quick this year

[smurfy]

37 minutes ago, Rick G said:

They ain't very secret  most of my big sunfish come from Beaver lake and the crappies from Hardrives pond

Yea ok!!  I've seen fish from beaver 

[Wanderer]

On 3/20/2022 at 7:38 PM, Rick G said:

 Hardrives pond

Like the paving company Hardrives?

[Rick G]

On 3/23/2022 at 4:30 PM, Wanderer said:

Like the paving company Hardrives?

That's the one.... They own a small pond that connects to the sippi when the water is high.... 

[Rick G]

Walked out on one of the lakes on the Chain this morning. Ice conditions have deteriorated quite a bit since I was last there just 4 days ago.  The rain has got the lake level up a bit, shorelines busted loose from the bottom and are starting to pull away in places. The top few inches of ice is slush, the bottom 6 was waterlogged and broke up in cubes. I would say I was standing on 10 solid inches and 10 crappy inches today.  

Today very well might have been my last day on the ice locally for this winter.....

 

[Wanderer]

19 hours ago, Rick G said:

That's the one.... They own a small pond that connects to the sippi when the water is high.... 

When I relocated north and lived on Mille Lacs for 9 months it was next door to their place.  Since then, that place became theirs too.  It was a relative’s place and they had a pretty good relationship with the Hardrives folks.

[smurfy]

when o drove past the chain yesterday NOONE was out.....ice looked bad and away from the shoreline. the river was wide open!!!!

[Rick G]

I made it out for one last adventure today. Ice has pulled away from shore to the point your gonna need a ladder or a long plank to get out on most of the area lakes. Once out, the ice is actually in fairly good shape yet. I still found 16-18 inches, and about half of that was rock hard. 

Fish have pushed super shallow now to take advantage of all the insect life that's hatching. 

Hopefully by next week we will start to see some of the smaller rivers putting out some suckers and soon after that the back bays loosing ice.....bring on spring!!!!

[Rick G]

Made it down to the creek  for a couple hours Monday afternoon. Water is still very cold and running pretty high. Picked up a few white suckers on a nightcrawler rig. Bite was pretty light for the most part, had to keep a close eye on that rod tip for just a little pressure.  

Felt good to dust off the long rod.....something pulling on the line was an added bonus

[leech~~]

12 hours ago, Rick G said:

Made it down to the creek  for a couple hours Monday afternoon. Water is still very cold and running pretty high. Picked up a few white suckers on a nightcrawler rig. Bite was pretty light for the most part, had to keep a close eye on that rod tip for just a little pressure.  

Felt good to dust off the long rod.....something pulling on the line was an added bonus

 

Rick, here's some tips from a Pro river fisherman you might try out! 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by leech~~

[Wanderer]

9 hours ago, leech~~ said:

 

Rick, here's some tips from a Pro river fisherman you might try out! 

 

 

Little guy has his chore down pat!

[leech~~]

2 hours ago, Wanderer said:

Little guy has his chore down pat!

Yeah, things are probably different if you don't have any video games, and your hungry!

[Rick G]

It's finally time

Time to hit your favorite spring pannies locations that is... I fished 4 different lakes in the last two days with various degrees of success. One particular lake has crappies stacked up pretty good in less than 4 ft, while another they were coming from 7-10 ft of water. 

[Rick G]

Made it out for a couple hours after work today. The bright sunshine and relatively light winds are felt good...almost like spring  

Found some very nice quality crappies and a few bonus fish in a small but deep (20+) ft back bay. The crappies we're holding just outside dead pencil reeds in 5-8 ft of water. Small tube style baits under a float worked slowly got the active biters. Water temp is in the mid 40s, male crappies just starting to show a little darker color

[leech~~]

9 hours ago, Rick G said:

Made it out for a couple hours after work today. The bright sunshine and relatively light winds are felt good...almost like spring  

Found some very nice quality crappies and a few bonus fish in a small but deep (20+) ft back bay. The crappies we're holding just outside dead pencil reeds in 5-8 ft of water. Small tube style baits under a float worked slowly got the active biters. Water temp is in the mid 40s, male crappies just starting to show a little darker color

You work?  I thought you just fished?

[Rick G]

Finding plenty of fish around the area lately. Water on most of our area lakes and rivers is very high. Most of the panfish have moved from those back bay areas and are staging for the spawn. You can find the pannies tucked in the weeds right now close to those spawning beds. Casting small jigs without a float to pockets of vegetation or to outside the pencil reeds has been working well. 

[Rick G]

The creek is still very high and dirty. Prespawn smallies don't seem to mind Morning bite has been very consistent this last week.

[Rick G]

Work has pretty much kept me from fishing since late May Did have the chance to hit the water for a few hours yesterday. I opted to hit the river for some smallie action with my limited time. The Sippi didn't disappoint, the brown bass had the feed bag on big time!. I hooked over 30 fish in 3 hrs, most being 15-17inchers with a few bigger and a few smaller mixed in.  

Weightless stick baits rigged on a 1/0  is all I needed to throw.  

[Rick G]

In town and a little free time today.... Decided to do a little shore fishing being the wind wasn't playing too nice.  I goofed about two miles of rocky shoreline hitting the same old spots I fished when I was a youngun brought back some good memories and also reminded me I'm not 14 anymore (my poor back).  Kept it pretty simple, hand full of jigs and 3 inch grubs , working the eddy's and current breaks.  Lots of action for a short stretch of river.  Smallies on fire Hopefully I can get a couple more outings before work calls again

[Rick G]

The Mississippi continues to be very good, and should only get better from here till freeze up. Keeping it very simple, small jigs and 3-4 inch stick bait plastics or good old twister tails has gotten the job done.  

[Wanderer]

Nice smallie but the crappie is even more impressive. 

 

I picked up a decent one myself last night.  Just a smidge under 20.