2020 Forest Lake-Hinckley-Lindstrom-Pine City-Rush City Fishing Reports

[reinhard1]

you have to have a anoka county park sticker to get in. or if you dont there is a small fee for a daily permit. there is no extra fee to launch your boat. the boat landing is excelent with plenty of parking. there is also a great beach on the same location with restrooms, grills, shelter, beverage mashines, along with ice cream mashines, in case you bring the family and they want a break from fishing. i do not know the current information on the fishing but there is good panfish, bass, and walley poppulations in the lake. keep in mind this time of year on weekends it does have recreational use. there is also a campground on site. good luck.

[OnAFly]

Tuesday-Thursday I know they have a lot of water skiing going on. Other days I'm not so sure about. Panfish population is good, but on the smaller side. Don't know much about walleye on the lake. Plenty of bass in there.

There is an access at the waterworks building right off of centerville road. Those tues-thurs there is water ski practice going on so you might not be able to get to it.

[zzz]

hope. to see you out on the water thur . deitz whats fishing been like. are they bitting. ill be out tomarrow . in persuit of old bucketmouth .

[reinhard1]

you might want to try peltier. this lake is right accross the street from centerville. it has a good landing and decent parking. a portable toilet is also located at the landing. a fee is not required here. peltier is known for above average size sunnies. crappies are average size. there are walleys here also. the dnr stocks them every two years. i have caught them on hard water but not this time of the year. i go to peltier mainly for panfish. peltier is also known for northerns and some decent ones are present. there is good bass fishing too. i have had my best luck on the north end around the milfoil and the shallows around and behind the island. good luck.

[MidCoast]

Centerville Lake is not a good lake anymore in my opinion. It gets pounded too hard for the past 6 years. Especially during the winters..

[Slob_Samurai]

yep horrible lake

[BlueBillStacker]

i live walking distance from the lake and have pulled a 20lb pike out of their a few years ago also walleyes nice crappies etc... but reality is the lake is junk put a bobber and some bait in your bath tub and you may catch more it use to be good before their was hundreds of ice shacks out their all winter fertile lake but got fished out i wouldent waste my time

[jwmiller33]

i went out the other night and holy milfoil! i dont think i have ever seen a lake with as bad of a milfoil problem as centerville. didnt even want to drive the big motor around in those weeds because they were so thick, i didnt want to suck some up and clog my "pee hole"... didnt know what i was getting into when going out there... i was surprised at how little structure that lake has and how it only gets up to like 16 feet or so (according to my lakemaster chip).

anyways, i trolled a 3 way around with a husky jerk for a while until i got it snagged up and lost it. then i sat and threw out a bobber in the deeper part of the lake, suspended 3 feet off bottom and was getting tons and tons of bites... some bites, my bobber would completely disappear and shoot under about 5 feet, and by the time i could put my beer down and grab my rod, it was back at the surface with bait gone. happened about 10 times. also got a bunch of smaller bites that seemed like crappie or perch bites. all of this was on a leech and a red hook. i even had a pike come and try to eat my bobber while it was on the surface twice shortly after i casted it out.

i then trolled around with a spinner behind a bottom bouncer with a crawler and was getting bit off left and right. finally got a good hook set in one and it was a 10 inch crappie. caught about 3 more crappies before i decided to head in.

came into the landing at dusk and there was a group people bobber fishing off the dock and had TWO five gallon buckets full of 3-5 inch sunnies. i knew 100% that they had over their limit. i would guess they had close to 100 fish in those two buckets. i tried saying something to them but they didnt understand me. they didnt even get out of the way of the dock or stop fishing when i was coming in, and they were fishing RIGHT where i needed to park the boat to go get the truck. since when do people think its ok to fish off launching docks?

i did see one of the woman reel in about a 6 lb catfish as i was putting the straps on the boat. they didnt want to "touch it" and were yelling and screaming and didnt know what to do. i just shook my head and walked away

gotta love fishing in the metro.

[reinhard1]

i'm sorry you had a bad experience at centervile. i had a simmilar experience on lindstrom lake. this was before walleye and bass season. i went there to fish offshore for some crappie by the park and there were hmong people there. i walked by them and they had a few crappies wich was ok but also had some bass. i also tried to talk to them and tell them the bass were not in season. same thing. they said they did not understand. i did not believe them. you have to know some english to get a drivers licence. i lifted up a bass out of their bucket and said ,cant keep bass, no keep,. they shook their head and i threw the bass back in the water-all 4 of them. they yelled at me, and some swore in english, and i told them to call the police if they had a problem. i walked about 50 feet and fished for about two hours, got a few crappies which i threw back and went home. no call to police as far as i know. good luck.

[jwmiller33]

ive had similar experiences on other lakes in the metro with those people who have no regards for limits, regulations, etc. especially down on pool 2 in saint paul. you just have to do you best to try to educate them and if they are against it, call TIP. i did call TIP and reported it but i doubt anything ever happened. i just wish these people would understand that if instead of keeping EVERY fish they catch, they could just toss some back and let them grow up. I'd rather catch 10 huge sunnies then 100 potato chip sunnies any day of the week. if you keep them when they are 4 inches long, they will never grow up and get big. i probably wont be going back to this lake again. the launch was very nice was, but, if i have to pay 5 bucks to launch, i want a dock that doesnt have 5 people fishing off the end of it when it comes time for me to load my boat. the question i would like to ask them is if it is really worth it for them to clean a 4 inch fish? getting 2 inch filets (if that) isnt worth the killing of a fish like that IMHO

[reinhard1]

in some cultures in most cases they dont fillet fish they scale them gut them out and make their meal that way. i have had fish overseas in the service and they prepared them frying and cooking them in soups whole and they were tasty. i have also had the sunnies and crappies here from people from korea prepared scaled and gutted prepared in tasty ways. but getting back to the point, all of this is no excuse for breaking the law. i dont think enforcement is taking place at all. i think this EXCUSE of, i dont understand, is used often because it seems to work. maby officers dont think its worth the court time. i do. i think a few tickets issued would get the word around. good luck.

[jwmiller33]

still, regardless of how they prepare a fish, the amount of meat on a 4 or 5 inch fish isnt worth the life of the fish. let them grow another year or two and then maybe the amount of meat on the fish would be worth killing it. i think the number of people breaking the law is overwhelming compared to the number of people out there enforcing the laws... most of the DNR officers are on busy lakes like tonka, and giving out tickets for people not having enough life jackets, etc. IMHO, while lifejackes and fish limits are both LAWS, i wish there was more enforcement going on to protect our fisheries.

[reinhard1]

i agree 100 percent!

[jwmiller33]

reinhard-do you have any guess as to what that was that i kept getting bit off on the bobber? like i said, was fishing the deepest part of the lake using a leech with a red hook, suspended about 2-3 feet off bottom... kept getting bit off, or when i went to set the hook, the fish chomped off about 1/2 of the leech. a few times, i set the hook and ripped the leech out of the mouth of the fish and it had a few pieces missing out of the leech, and the leech was dead. you know how that happens when a leech gets chomped at or is over used and it kind of wrinkles up and is lifeless and dead? well that was happening a bunch with me in this one spot while bobber fishing. never did boat one of them. but with the leech getting bit off several times, made me think the fish had some teeth (so ruled out panfish and bass). i was using huge jumbos i got from thorne bros. part of me wants to go back and find out what it was and fish it some more, rigging, jigging and more bobber fishing, but i dont want to deal with the weeds and the boat launch again. is there anywhere thats free to launch out of there? i remember once i went to centerville last winter and we drove out from that place right off of cr 14/main st thats on the north end of the lake in the middle

[reinhard1]

my guess those bite offs were sunfish. that's typicaly what they do with leaches that are too big to swallow. whithout an underwater camera its all a guessing game but this time of year it gets pretty fertile. i wrote on this strip on centerville before to suggest you go to peltier. peltier also has milfoil but i manage . i go there for crappie and sunfish. there are walleys there but i have only caught them on hard water. fishing the edge of the milfoil would be a good start. if your not familiar with peltier do not zoom straight out from the boat landing to get to the main part of the lake. there is a shallow area from the point you will see on your left side that goes out for a ways. go to the right from the landing and go around it watching your depth finder. as your going into the main part of the lake on the right side there is a hump topping of at 5ft. with milfoil on it. thats a good spot for sunfish and crappie this time of year. there is no charge at this landing. there is a portable toilet. most shore fishermen fish below the spillover dam located there. i hope you have better luck and a good day.

[MN BassFisher]

Agreed. I wish the DNR enforced the laws a bit more. I've been on lakes and rivers in the metro and had a lot of people fishing, and I'm sure some had licenses, but they were breaking the limit laws. And I've also witnessed before when a DNR truck pulled up and the whole crowd runs into the woods, that really irritates me. I don't how so many people can get away with breaking the laws set forth. And that is a very good point about the officers on the big lakes, the only time I've been on Minnetonka it was this summer, and we got pulled over because there was 7 of us younger kids in the boats. There was no alcohol, yet we were all 23 years and older, and we had 7 life jackets and proper registration and everything. Just made me wish they were out catching the people who didn't have licenses or had a livewell full of illegal fish or something.

[JBMasterAngler]

JW, go to the st. croix river! Your wasting your time on these lakes! Sure it's a few minutes farther, but it's worth it. Anywhere upstream of stillwater, the only recreational traffic you'll have to deal with is the "aluminum hatch"...and that's only bad on weekends. My 2 favorite access points are franconia and somerset (WI side) landings. You'll get some quality walleye/sauger fishing in, and alot of other "bonus" fish.

[jwmiller33]

JB-ive never gone on the croix before but have heard great things. id love to get out there and try it out. are the eyes/sauger biting good in this part of the summer still? i havent got into any good walleye fishing in the metro since the early spring. would you recommend jigging? trolling? thanks for the suggestion! ive fished pool 2 enough to have some basic river knowledge so hopefully i can boat some fish. are those launches free? how is the current at the launch? is there a dock? sorry forall the questions

[BlueBillStacker]

Ide give a hundred bucks to anyone who could pull a walleye out of that lake. St. Croix has endiless potential compared to some tiny lil lake like that. not that i care about the lake anymore as it is full of tiny panfish but i would suggest spending you time in a place that you may have a chance at a decent fish of any species!

[BlueBillStacker]

Even Ron Zych quit wasteing time talkin bout it long ago! Local maby

[JBMasterAngler]

Yep, the launches are free. No docks, but there is little current to deal with, and it's good enough depth where you don't have to back up that far. I don't actually target walleye, but I catch enough accidentally to know there are alot in there. But from what I see, most people drift with the current and jig. Slow trolling has it's place of course. I would post some questions in the st. croix forum, there's alot of guys that know alot of stuff about catching walleyes out of the croix.

[reinhard1]

my wife and i took the grandkids to linstrom lake by the park for swimming and a little fishing off shore. of course the kids had fun and the kid in me still had fun with the sunnies. there was not the size we got last time. the water was still murkey and still low. it seems like the lake did not gain an in. is there a hole in the lake or what. you would think with the rain you would at least see a little gain. good luck.

[Slob_Samurai]

I have also gotten irritated by people fishing off the boat launch dock on centerville. I would think that a launch in a park that requires a pass would offer you a clear area to load and unload your boat. I even asked the park employees and was told that they allow fishing off the dock. Retarded in my opinion.

[PmDavis300]

Saw some guys sledding on the lake this weekend. whats the ice looking like? I wouldnt mind getting the sled out there next weekend.

[Seamus]

i was out there fishing yesterday andthere was 7 inches on lake two some guys were driving across on sleds but i personally would give it another week

[servocam]

i was out there fishing yesterday andthere was 7 inches on lake two some guys were driving across on sleds but i personally would give it another week

How did you do when out? I measured 7-8" of solid ice, 1" of crud and 3-5 inches of powder. I only went 200 hundred feet off shore. Lots of snowmobile tracks. I plan to go out Thursday afternoon evening. I see others have been out.

[FLnick87]

was out today, caught nothing. same ice report

[FishingFL]

It is good to hear that at least the ice (should be) good to go from now on. I had really good success on FL last year on multiple species by trying new things all season long so I can't wait to get it going this season.

[servocam]

was out today, caught nothing. same ice report

Was that you set up on 2nd lake in your flip-over?

[FLnick87]

nope. i had a 4 wheeler. just had tip ups out