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Just wondering if anyone could give me some insight on lake osakis. We are from Hutchinson and are heading up there the week of July 3rd through the 10th. We are staying at Lakeshore Resort and would like to get in to some walleye and crappie action. I dont want hotspots just ideas of where to start. We have never fished this lake so no idea on where to begin. patterns of fish and what techniques to use would also be great! live bait... leeches crawlers minnows? thanks in advance and happy 4th of July!

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Live bait, above all leeches, for the walleyes. Shiners (not baitshop fatheads) have their moments too. Bring crawlers along just in case.

Fish the live bait along the deep weed edges (around 15')with a slip bobber or lindy rig. Some people have success on the edges of the pencil reeds during low light. Trolling perch-colored crankbaits can be effective for walleye on Osakis, too. All these tactics will also catch a lot of Northern.

I've never really targetted crappie on Osakis this time of year, so I don't have much to offer there...

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So, what is the walleye fishing like on Osakis right now?

I'm heading up there for a week this Saturday--will be staying at Idlewilde.

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Been catching a lot of fish..all right on the low edge of the slot though. Everythings been between 14-16" only heard of a couple over 18. Seems to be leaches trolled along the weed edges are working best.

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I second what DrRodey said, I've been catching plenty of 14" fish on the weed edges in 12-14ft of water and plenty of pike to boot. Spinners with leeches about 1.5 mph get lots of hits. Have yet to boat a 15+ walleye this way but I have to believe its only a matter of time since this method usually works for me in late June and July.

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I've been here (Osakis) since Saturday; there is a sporadic walleye bite on the weed edges. That is, you can catch fish easily for short periods of time, and then you have to look or wait a while. A majority are under 15", but we've been getting some eaters too.

We are also catching some nice sunfish, but not as many as I had hoped.

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The weather really dictates the bite on Osakis. Storm fronts = closed mouths!

With steady weather forecast for the rest of this week, look foward to better fishing as the weather stabilizes.

Check out the 15' depths as this is always the preferred depth for walleyes on Osakis this time of year!

Try crawlers/spinners as this has always been the top producer!grin

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How is the fishing on Osakis right now? I am heading up to Idlewilde resort this weekend for our annual fishing trip.

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I've just finished 4 days on Osakis and I think the best word to describe the fishing is inconsistent. Sunfish are being caught but with great effort by folks willing to park in the pencil reeds and work hard to find one's of any size. Some guys are saying the big females are still full of spawn. I wait until mid august and open water fishing for the sunnies but I've seen lots in the cleaning house.

Walleye bite: its hard to get any kind of pattern going. Fish seem spread out all over the lake along weedlines in 12-16ft of water. Keep moving with small minnow like raps or crawlers and you pick up a few here and there. Slip bobber with a leech near 14ft off a bar and you pick up a couple at night but for every 1 keeper (15"+) you get 10 between 13"and 14.99".

Even the bass and pike seem a bit off this year and not where I've caught plenty both for size and numbers in the past. Maybe the number of boats in the pencil reeds pulling sunnies off the beds is spooking the bass and pike out of their usual mid summer cover.

Good luck.

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I've just finished 4 days on Osakis and I think the best word to describe the fishing is inconsistent. Sunfish are being caught but with great effort by folks willing to park in the pencil reeds and work hard to find one's of any size. Some guys are saying the big females are still full of spawn. I wait until mid august and open water fishing for the sunnies but I've seen lots in the cleaning house.

Walleye bite: its hard to get any kind of pattern going. Fish seem spread out all over the lake along weedlines in 12-16ft of water. Keep moving with small minnow like raps or crawlers and you pick up a few here and there. Slip bobber with a leech near 14ft off a bar and you pick up a couple at night but for every 1 keeper (15"+) you get 10 between 13"and 14.99".

Even the bass and pike seem a bit off this year and not where I've caught plenty both for size and numbers in the past. Maybe the number of boats in the pencil reeds pulling sunnies off the beds is spooking the bass and pike out of their usual mid summer cover.

Good luck.

Ditto from me.

We were up on Osakis the previous week, and this is pretty much what we found. I concentrated on walleye, and managed to come back here with four keepers frozen in the cooler, and a few more we ate during the week, but it was hard to find any pattern that consistently put fish in the boat.

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I agree with Sportfish1850 and eyehunter. Walleye bite has been real hit and miss. Can't seem to get anything to work consistently. Tried changing live baits, tried plugs, different colors, different speeds trolling, jigging, floats, doesn't seem to matter. Same with the bass and sunnies. Usually this time of year I have bass and sunnies all around my dock and lift area. This year I normally don't see any when I go out on my dock. Every now and then I might see a few, but usually nothing.

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Well I hope we have some luck on our side. During the night fish, are you guys trolling?

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I fished the shallow flats right off Idlewilde's dock a couple evenings when the weather made fishing from a boat a dicey proposition.

Our first night we got a few walleye off the dock on leeches and slip bobbers, but after the first of the week's weather fronts rolled through no one got any more walleye there.

My nephews were catching a lot of very small perch and some decent bluegill on bits of worm off the dock by the end of the week. Their watchers caught a few Northern in the process.

Like I said, it was an inconsistent week of fishing--the worse we've had on Osakis in quite a few years. We were about due for a less than awesome trip, but on the bright side I was complaining that I could only make it to Osakis once this summer. Now that doesn't seem so bad.

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i thought i figured out a pretty consistent pattern on the lake over the last 5 years...then last mid oct......when that freak cold front blew in seemed to change everything......the late late fall and winter bite was off and this spring was inconsistent for me as well. looking forward to this fall and hoping things return to my "normal'. the more i fish ,the more i think i have things figured out...the more i realize i might be lucky and not as smart as i think i am!!!

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The 3 boys and I hit the big O last wensday and fished till sun. noon. We found no consistant pattern that caught fish. every bar we tried we caught a fish or two and that was it. There were a lot of walleyes under the 15 in. limit, the 15 plus were far and few between. In the days we fished the 4 of us managed to catch 16 eyes over 15 ins. The sunfish were in 12 to 14 feet of water over smaller 2 to3 ft. weeds and would bit quite well. We also found croppies in 30 ft. of water sup. 15 to 25 ft. deep off of johnson bar.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Are the sunfish out on the sand flats/bars yet or are they still in the reeds? Memory serves they should be moving out into more open water on the bars in late July or early August.

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I just got home from O. The sunfish were supended on the north side of Johnson bar over 25 ft. of water, quite a big school.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fished a lot this past weekend between storms and during showers. Not much has changed on Osakis. Walleye are very sporadic and spread out all over the lake. We caught some fishing shallow and mid level depths (10-20ft). Weed edges near drop offs produced the best fishing. Cranks, crawlers, jigs all put the occasional fish in the boat but literally, there was no one single pattern that really produced anything consistently. Seemed changing up things produced a fish or two, then changing again for a couple more. Be flexible and don't get married to one and only one pattern.

Sunfish action was good. 10-14 ft of water was the key to finding them. Again, caught plenty of sunfish in several locations you don't have to be part of the parking lot on half mile bar.

In the 8 years I've been fishing Osakis regularly this is the biggest population of 3"-4" perch I've ever seen. Hard to keep them off your line when you are sunfish rigging. The little tiddlers work your bait over pretty good but I think that's a positive sign for the fishery as perch fingerlings will make a healthy diet for the bigger predatory fish.

Good luck.

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Sportfish, what bait do the sunfish prefer on osakis? Going up this weekend but might stick closer to the northern arm for the sunfish..hopefully they have started moving up there already.

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Pieces of nightcrawler and wax worms both worked well. Thanks to little perch wax worms dissapeared really fast whereas crawler chunks lasted a bit longer. Also had some success with gulp maggots (pink and chartruese) and gulp corn niblets. The artificial stuff didn't catch the volume of fish but a greater % where sunfish rather than perch.

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Not much is different from my report above. Was a tough Saturday and Sunday thanks to very unsettled weather and storms but Friday the sunfish where jumping in the boat.

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Haven't been sunfishing lately so I can't help you there. This is a copy of a post I put up on another site a few days ago about the walleye fishing. Basically the same as Sportfish1850's report.

The keepers are out there, just not as willing to take the bait as the small guys. One day you may find them at 14 feet. the next day you come back and their gone, moved out to 22 feet, or 18 feet, or possibly not in that area at all. No consistent pattern. No consistent presentation either. You might catch a couple with a slip sinker and spinner rig near the bottom and then suddenly it's dead. Maybe change up and put on a bottom bouncer with a spinner and catch a couple more, then nothing. Change to a bottom bouncer with a floater, or maybe a slip sinker with a floater. Sometimes it's leaches, other times it's crawlers. You might want to have a couple of small floating rapala's with a 3 or 4 foot snell tied to each one because at times you may need to use one of those with a slip sinker or bottom bouncer. It's hit or miss. Just need to try different methods. Once in a while you'll hit the mother load, but that hasn't happened much this year.

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  • 2 weeks later...

How is the bite doing? We will be up this coming weekend and wondering what to expect. Will be fishing for whatever is biting. Any ideas and reports would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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I was up there last weekend looking for the sunfish bite. The perch were everywhere!

Hard to get anything else to bite. Did catch one blugill about 8" amongst the perch.

Give it a week or two and the sunfish should be biting in the 15-30' of water next to the weeds and rock piles.

Didn't fish the evening or morning so there could have been biting better then!

Good Luck!

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Thanks Finlander. We are staying up there for a couple days this weekend, so hopefully we can coax some fish into biting. Will post a report when we get back as to how it went.

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have only fished the lake in may and late october, coming up over labor day weekend, wll not be a serious fishing trip and will be using a resort boat on the north end.....any general depth ranges for panfish, crappies, eyes and slimers ?

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  • The title was changed to Lake Osakis Fishing Reports

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