Centerville-Lake-Peltier Fishing Reports

[Tom7227]

I checked out the DNR map of Peltier and was surprised to see how shallow large parts of the lake are. There is a decent size hole that is up to 16 feet deep and I wonder if that's not where a lot of the fish are now. I know the dam lets water out but when looking at Google Maps I can't see a way for the water to enter the lake. Any idea where the water comes from? Is there water going over the dam now?

I guess I'd be surprised if it was a total freeze out.

[Slabasaurus]

Tom, it's part of the rice creek chain i believe... the creek enters on the north end. When I drove by on sunday there was open water below the dam in that little channel to George Watch... could not look close enough to see if the water was going over the dam though.

[tunrevir]

Rice creek enters from the east side of the lake. There is a small undeveloped area with alot of cattails along the shore and that is where the creek runs in.

Tunrevir~

[RonZ]

Clearwater Creek enters from the East side. Rice Creek enters from the north side.

[Tom7227]

Thanks for the direction. I looked at it again and it seems pretty clear that there's a lot of area that drains into the lake. Given the significant melt from a couple of weeks ago and the area that drains in I think there has to be an awful lot of water going through Peltier. I was out on Centerville on Feb 14 and there had to be at least 2 inches of water on top of the ice. That water is all got a decent amount of oxygen in it and I would expect that Peltier is about the same.

I'm not sure the DNR does a whole lot of checking on oxygen levels. If you look at their website for the liberalized fishing list you'll see it is way out of date.

The oxygen issue seems to me to be complex and not a whole lot of data on it. To get decent readings I would think you'd have to check pretty often and at various points and depths in a body of water.

The TMDL study for Bald Eagle is available and there is data in the study on pages 57-60 about the dissolved oxygen in the lake for 10 years. The info shows measurements by depth. I've looked at it and I am hard pressed to come up with any pattern. It makes me think that a lot of info we get is pretty minimal. Check it out and let me know what you think.

http://www.metrocd.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=66

[herefish101]

Petier is a very weedy lake, with the thick ice and alot of snowcover this year there is a good chance that all those weeds died, then they rot and fill the water with noxious gasses. The water currently smells like a sewer, and the fish are all stacked up by the dam trying to get oxegen. I guess the DNR and the local sheriff are out there surveying things today. This is a major bummer, 10 years ago nobody even fished this lake, it was full of big crappies and sunfish, then it was hit pretty hard but it still sustained good populations of good sized panfish, it sucks having such a good pannie lake die, but who knows, maybe it comes back even stronger in a few years. R.I.P. fishies.

[Grizzly_lokolman]

Most of these Rice Creek Chain lakes are just a few feet deep and experience significant winterkill every year. (The lake shores are covered w/ dead rotting fish every spring)...I would imagine this is normal for Peltier as well??? Anyone know? A good example of this is Reshnau... Reshnau had Significant winterkill last year, and sported some decent northern fishing this summer. (didn't try pannies at all)

[eurolarva]

When I was out there I drilled a bunch of holes toward the North East side of the lake. Holes ranged from three feet of water to 14 ft of water. The holes I drilled in 3 ft green weeds came out of the hole when I was drilling. I did not try and smell any of the water but sure did not smell sewer when I was de slushing the holes. Seems to me if there are green weeds there is still oxygen there. Did not mark any fish anywhere. I was at the landing going from shallow to deep and nada on the fish sitings.

[RonZ]

If it gets low in oxygen they can just fire up the aerator on the west side of the lake. Their is alot of mill-foil on the north end of the lake.

[chrismackmn]

heard a rumor that peltier ran out of O2 this winter. Guess they forgot to check it out. Too bad.

[crappie todd]

I was out running the wheeler around last Sunday morning on peltier. The area is blocked off and marked rather well. There was open water along that shore line so the areators were running.

[Tom7227]

Outdoor News has listed Peltier as a good place to catch panfish for two weeks in a row. How come some reports lead to the conclusion that it's been winter killed and yet it makes the paper?

[tunrevir]

Blue Ribbon bait and tackle says that Centerville and Peltier a good places to fish almost weekly in the outdoor news, I don't know that I'd give that report to much weight. It seems to be their default lakes when the are asked to report.

Tunrevir~

[tnm27]

I would agree as well, nothing against these guys, but I don't know how much credit I would give there report(s). I asked one guy if Jane had frozen up back in early ice and he said solid 6-8 inches on the lake, I get to the lake and there's still open water, take it some parts were frozen but there was a big hole in the middle of the lake...

[OnAFly]

Peltier hasn't had a person on it in weeks that I've seen. The lake smells like sewage where it runs out of the dam. I wouldn't put a whole lot of faith in that report.

Centerville however is a great place to catch hundreds of panfish...hundreds of 4" panfish.

[tunrevir]

I see that in this weeks issue you can go out on Peltier and catch crappies and perch from the afforementioned source. I wish they'd give it a rest! I do know they are pretty decent guys but it makes me wonder if they aren't steering people away from their local lakes. I guess in a way I could give the same report on Forest every week. The fish are biting, keepers may be far and few between with regards to panfish, pike are alwyas willing, walleyes harder to find but they're around and the bass are always biting(open season only please) in the summer months. Muskies are out there and usually are biting somewhere on the lake I think they may be trying to take the focus off of White bear, Bald Eagle ect. in an effort to get people to fish other lakes. Just a thought. Oh yeah, where did Josh catch the state record tiger muskie, might want to poke around over that way as well.

Tunrevir~

[largemarge]

I was out with a buddy two weeks ago. Noticed there was nobody else on the lake...Now we go to the spots that we have caught fish before and right out from the landing, in the bay where you can watch the cops pull speeders over left and right, we drilled 50 holes accross 300 yds in that basin. we hole hopped each hole and then some that were there from others the days before. WE MARKED 2 FISH with no biters(They had to be fish as they slowly moved out of the cone of the ducer). Something is definitely wrong at Pelteir. Low oxygen levels? very strange...as just as we got hit with that first 12-15 inches of snow months before, we caught all the fish we wanted in those same spots.

Try a different lake if you want to catch a fish.

[Jughead]

Hi!

I was out on Peltier Wednesday last week, walked straight out from the launch (still 18" ice) to the middle where there were many holes drilled, 11-13 FOW.

Unfortunately all I got was a sunburn- I marked 2 fish in 3 hours (granted it was noon- 3)and I walked all over the place, trying different holes. I did have some success there earlier this year, but they must have moved.

[OnAFly]

Take a big whiff of the water coming out of the dam. That lake smells like it killed this year. We'll find out when the ice comes off and the shoreline is covered with dead crappies/sunnies/bass.

[Grizzly_lokolman]

fished below the dam yesterday...nothing going on there...but:

1. No bad smells from Peltier

2. No dead fish on shore anywhere

[OnAFly]

Walked 100' of shoreline on Peltier just a few minutes ago.

~50 dead sunfish, mostly small ones.

~10 dead catfish, between 10-15 lbs each

~10 dead bass, a couple that were 18"+

No dead crappies, no dead pike, no dead perch. Looks like a partial kill.

[MN BassFisher]

10-15lb Channels? That's kind of sad, The bass too.

[eyeballs]

Looked a lot worse than that where I was looking (East side). Bummer......

[eyeballs]

I take back what I said earlier. The lake is fine. Thanks to the Pelicans for cleaning the place up though.

[OnAFly]

No kidding, there must have been a hundred of them out there this morning.

[perchslayer29]

How's the crappie bite going has the crappies moved in yet

[abcnerdd]

Any reports from Peltier?

[OnAFly]

Not much in the way of traffic on that lake yet. I've seen maybe 5 boats out there since ice out.

[abcnerdd]

Went there yesterday late afternoon, a lot of fishermen out there going after pikes, crowded at the dam, a lot of sunnies action on crawlers. Didn't catch any sunnies, crappies nor bullheads on gulp or plastics. Caught and release a small pike on a bucktail.

[Timerislegendary]

Went out on Christmas eve from 1 pm to 430pm and caught some good size perches and one sunny with my dad. Didn't get any crappies probably because of it being too sunny. Didn't stay for the night bit but I'm sure the crappies were there for the night bite. About 7" of ice.