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St Cloud Fishing Reports


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How has the fishing been on the Horeshoe Chain as of late? Is a 4X4 truck able to get around just fine?

I am thinking of heading down there from Sartell this weekend to try and target some panfish or well anything I can get to bite. The girlfriend is coming to town and well to be honest, I am thinking she is a bad luck charm, as I haven't been able to get on fish at all when she has been with this winter. She has not iced many fish in her life, as I just got her into it last winter for the first time. Any pointers or tips on where to try would be greatly appreciated, as I have not fished the chain before!!! Feel free to PM if you have any secrets you are willing to share so I can keep the girlfriend happy, as this is her valentines present HAHA

Also, I ended up getting the Navionics App for my Iphone and I am loving it so far. Ready to try it out in the St. Cloud area!

Fish On!

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FishBanker, Long, Browns or Becker would be safe bets for a mix of gills and crappies. All the lakes have roads/trails going to the most popular spots now. Horseshoe and Cedar Island are still giving up crappies, though not as fast as it was early in the season.

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Rick G, thanks for the information! Any sort of special lures been working out on either of the lakes? My usual staple lures that I use for big crappies in northern Minnesota haven't seen to work in this part of the state for some reason. I hope to get out and enjoy the heat wave both Saturday and Sunday.

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My usual staple lures that I use for big crappies in northern Minnesota haven't seen to work in this part of the state for some reason.

That's because our fish are much smarter down here and quite smaller. LOL! Downsize your gear, become more stealthy in your approach, and your season will turn around.

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I guess I am just too used to fishing the unpressured waters of Otter Tail County and Crow Wing for slabs. My go to is a mid-size lindy flyer in silver/purple for the up north crappies and it works everytime.

Thanks for the notes guys, I will be sure to downsize my lure selection when targeting these dang "smart fish" grin

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Got out to my target lake about 11:00 today, started popping holes in 11-15 feet of water. That was a no go, went from 16-20 foot and found a few nice gills. Unfortunately my auger had the bolt that holds the power head and shaft together break, leaving me with no ability to drill more holes. Have the auger fixed up and ready to go again, but won't be able to make it back to that lake until next Wednesday. Was quite angry with the auger situation that I never took any pictures of the nice gills. Fish were in roaming schools so it was tough to stay on top of them without the ability to drill new holes. Fish were quite agressive, suspended 6-10 feet off the bottom.

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my auger had the bolt that holds the power head and shaft together break, leaving me with no ability to drill more holes.

I had the same thing happen earlier this year! Ended up taking the bolt that goes on your vexilar that holds the transducer to make a quick fix to drill a hole. Just wanted to share that if it happens to anyone else out on the lake.

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Made it out again tonight to a lake under everyone's nose and we caught seven 12 inch crappies and a 8 inch gill. I think fishing is starting to finally pick up!

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Made it out yesterday to a smaller Avon area lake and started punching holes. Found some basin crappies suspended over 26' but size ran small and constant hole hopping was required to stay on them. Punched some holes on a shallow 6 foot weed flat and found some active sunfish hanging out amongst the weeds. Got off the lake around 3:30pm and decided to punch a few holes below the St. Cloud dam. I was surprised when I barely cleared the first hole without an extension. The next hole only had 12" of ice however, but that's river ice for ya. Catfish were everywhere, but they managed to elude my jig. Be careful down there.

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Besides the Horseshoe Chain, has there been any good active bites for crappies/sunfish in the surrounding area of St. Cloud? I am thinking with this warm up coming through, it should start to turn some fish on for the weekend.

Fish On!

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Made it out to the big lake South of town :)in search of some gills. The bite started off slow, had to work a bit to get the fish to bite. Found the best numbers just off the edge of a large weed flat in 10-14ft of water. Small Mooska jigs tipped with a Impulse mayfly seemed to get a few of the bigger fish interested, while my partners JC and Traderlee caught them with live bait or various other plastics.

Never found any true big boys today, biggest was 8.5in, but we did get on a good school of the 7-8in fish for a while at prime time grinfull-26589-42652-002.jpg

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Loving the gills Rick great report as well.

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Thanks everyone smile gills are my second favorite fish to catch through the ice grin

Tom, we weren't on the same spot... i sent u a pic of a lakemap with the spot marked cool that's where we were... JC has been sworn to secrecy laugh

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Pretty slow going today, finding the fish was the easy part, getting nice ones to bite was tough. Down sizing was the key to getting a few fish to bite, used the smallest Mooska Northland makes, I paired this with a Powerbait mini spike. Big ones were almost impossible, well atleast for me anyway smile we all have those days, just glad I got to share this slow bite with some friends grin

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Tried the chain for the first time on hard water. Not sure what lake we were even on. Went to the one across the road from Krons bay as there were only a couple houses.

Marked them all afternoon but they were finiky. Took 4 crappies and 3 sunfish home. Not Lunkers by any means.

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Really there is no lake across from Krons bay smile I know Krons is marked as the first bay off 22, it's actually the furthest Western bay on Horseshoe smile The map makers didn't do their homework grin

You were on Cedar Island.

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Interesting. Thanks for the tid bit.

Is the navionics map app correct? I'm checking it out right now and found where I was...didn't even think to use it since we were marking fish.

We did pull up one catfish in our group. Scared the guy who caught it. Not used to pulling them up.

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Quote:
We did pull up one catfish in our group. Scared the guy who caught it. Not used to pulling them up.

Ha. That'd be a sight.

--

I went to Koronis for the first time yesterday. I had one bite shortly after I arrived, maybe 6/6:30 p.m., but I lost it at the hole. (I was fiddling with my other line, changing jigs, when I "caught" my one for the night.) Felt like a walleye rather than a panfish, but then again, I never saw it. Stayed until 9/9:30 p.m., but didn't have a nibble in the last few hours. I didn't move to a new spot, so I wasn't too disappointed with nature/couldn't blame it too much. Heh.

I was on the north side, just south of the sunken island near the access point. Looks to be four shacks set up around the east and south side of that area. Tried tip-up with sucker minnow too, but nothing wanted to snack on that.

If you don't have four-wheel drive, you probably want to stick with north access. Southeast and south access points looked too tough for my Outback.

Now out to Sylvia to try that one out.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

Great photos Rick!! I enjoy seeing Big Beautiful Gills.

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Spent Saturday morning studying my lake maps before choosing a lake. Ended up heading over to the Horseshoe chain about 11 a.m., as I found a nice piece of structure on the map that caught my eye. Drilled a couple holes and started dropping the Marcum down. From my experience on northern MN lakes, I figured this spot would be golden this time of the year. There were some houses around, but not on the structure I was sitting on according to my Navionics App.

Ended up staying until 730 with the girlfriend before she got hungry. We were still marking fish when we folded up the shelter, so it wasn't my choice to leave. We ended up icing 23 crappies and keeping 10 for a meal, all 11-13, with one at 13.25 inches. The girl caught that one, so yes I am still hearing about it today.

The only thing that would catch them was full crappie minnows. Tried waxworms, plastics and spoons with minnow heads with no such luck.

Fish On!

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From my experience on northern MN lakes, I figured this spot would be golden this time of the year.

Fish On!

Please teach me smile

What kind of structure do you speak of?

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

A nice pinch point I like to call it whistle Deep water on two sides and shallower water on the other sides.

I love those pinch or saddle areas.

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