2020 Lake Osakis Fishing Reports

[Chad Peterson]

Sounds like a good day on the water. Pretty steamy out there today.

Sniffer

[SunnyCrappieDay]

Anybody make it out over the weekend? I was on Mille Lacs all weekend and have the walleye itch!

[Finlander]

Was out Saturday evening and there is a lot of floating debris from all the rain making trolling almost impossible.

[Sportfish1850]

I fished both Sat and Sun and it was pretty slow. I think the changeable pressure and weather fronts moving in and out on Saturday seemed to affect the walleyes. If you like 6 inch perch it was a great weekend. Hopefully a little stabilization in the weather will put the walleye's back in a more aggressive mood.

The first of the year year forage bait fish are getting plentiful now and have moved out into more open water. Several times on the graph this weekend around 14 FOW I'd mark a large bloom of bait fish with 2 or 3 solid arc's of predator fish just suspended underneath or off to the side of the bait cloud.

Like Finlander said, there was a lot of floating weeds to deal with.

Looking forward to when the sunfish move out onto the sandbars in a couple more weeks.

[SunnyCrappieDay]

Headed out on Sunday to try for some eyes and the lake was a mess after the storm on Saturday. We had to use a concrete block to get onto the dock because the water was so high. There is also floating weeds and bogs all over the lake. The access was full of washed up weeds.

We tryed it anyway but only had a few perch bits. Fished Half Mile and Anderson's bar in Town Bay. I am sure once we get some steady weather the fishing will get better but I was amazed on how terrible the water quality was on sunday. Good luck fishing.

[pikeguy2003]

Has anyone been catching any sunfish on Osakis lately? We are hoping to take our annual day trip this coming Sunday. Don't need any tips on where anyone is catching fish, just would like to know at what depth they are finding them?

Thanks, Pikeguy

[pikeguy2003]

Had a good time on Osakis yesterday. A friend and I each took one of our kids fishing. My daughter caught her first smallie. It was a lot of fun watching her catch a 16 1/2 inch smallie on an ultralight set up for pannies. We had two other really nice smallies as well. CPR'd all of them. We caught more sunnies and perch than you can count and we kept 60 sunnies. We kept 10 really big sunnies and the rest we kept were smaller. We burned thru about 500 leeches in 7 hours. Easily could have brought home a limit of 80 huge sunnies, but just because you can doesn't mean you should in my book. It just isn't necessary. The small sunnies on Osakis are better than the big sunnies on most of the metro lakes. Osakis is such a great fishery! I'm glad we don't go there on a regular basis. I hope that it keeps producing those huge slab sunnies for people to catch for many more decades to come!

[Finlander]

Nice report pikeguy! Osakis is a great bluegill lake for sure! Were you catching them in deep water say 20+ feet or in the pencil reeds?

[pikeguy2003]

11-15 fow water out from the pencil reeds. No bobber, decent sized split shot about 8 inches up from the hook. Panfish leeches way outperformed waxies. Drop it down to the bottom. Let it rest for a few seconds pick it up, wait for the tap and then set the hook was what we did all day. My 11 year old daughter had to take a break after 5 hours of fishing because she said her wrists were starting to hurt. It was cool, because normally her attention span is about a half an hour. After a 20 minute break, she got back in the game. It was her only complaint all day. Honestly, I didn't catch that many fish. Every time she would get one, I would hand her my setup, and then proceed to take off her fish, and then put on a new leech. She almost always had another fish on. We caught just as many perch as sunfish which was not normal. Of course we never usually take our day trip this early in the summer. Usually we make it up for a day during the last week of August. I am sure it had something to do with it. Plus I noticed when we cleaned the fish they were full of may flies. Must have been a good hatch earlier in the week. Another thing I noticed is that if you were not within 6 inches of the bottom we wouldn't get hits. Hopefully this helps your next time out. My daughter wants to go back so we might actually make it up for one more day trip near labor day. If we go, I will give another update. Take care, Pikeguy

[Nathansdad]

Going up the last week of August. Haven't fished the lake in 23 years. What are the odds of catching numbers of 10"+ gills? How does the lake compare to the 70's and early 80's?

[Finlander]

I've been fishing Osakis since 1968 and I would say you can catch good numbers of 9" sunfish. 10" sunfish aren't as plentiful now as back in the 70's for sure. 10" sunfish are in there, but you won't fill a bucket of them.

Good Luck!

[RangerJack]

I've been fishing Osakis since 1968 and I would say you can catch good numbers of 9" sunfish. 10" sunfish aren't as plentiful now as back in the 70's for sure. 10" sunfish are in there, but you won't fill a bucket of them.

Good Luck!

And if you do run into some 10" gills, please don't put them in a bucket! Throw them back, so the larger and better genetics stay in the lake.

[goose89]

I've been fishing Osakis since 1968 and I would say you can catch good numbers of 9" sunfish. 10" sunfish aren't as plentiful now as back in the 70's for sure. 10" sunfish are in there, but you won't fill a bucket of them.

Good Luck!

And if you do run into some 10" gills, please don't put them in a bucket! Throw them back, so the larger and better genetics stay in the lake.

Good point Jack...I'd even go as far as suggesting keeping "a bucket full" (within the law of course) of 7 1/2 to 9"ers and let most of the 9+s back. Keeping the most common size of any sportfish / panfish and releasing the largest, less frequent is the premise of Selective Harvest. Keep your limits of nice ones, take pics of you and your kids holding and releasing the largest ones. Would be great to see Osakis back to "glory days" panfish status.

[Finlander]

RangerJack quoted:

And if you do run into some 10" gills, please don't put them in a bucket! Throw them back, so the larger and better genetics stay in the lake.

I find the 7-8" sunfish taste alot better than those 10" for sure!

[Nathansdad]

I'll be taking a weeks vacation on Osakis starting this coming saturday. Bringing my family up and really want to get my wife and 2 year old son on some crappies, bluegills and maybe a few walleyes for myself. Anybody care to give a report? Interested in general patterns, not specific spots.

Thanks for the help.

[Sportfish1850]

Don't mean to throw a bucket of water on your good time, but while I was catching plenty of fish in July, after pulling the boat out for a 2 week vacation elsewhere, upon returing I've found the big'O is pretty tough right now. Plenty of food in the water with all the minnows and perch, a major bug hatch that lasted nearly a week, and high lake levels have thrown everything up in the air from what it was 4 weeks ago. Got a few but very few sunfish in deeper water (16 - 20ft) off the bars but walleye are a tough bite right now.

Normal early/mid august patterns (especially pan fish patterns) have yet to materialize and predicting where to find and how to catch anything right now is a bit tough.

Good luck though, let us know how you do.

[timjones]

What Sportfish1850 said. It has really slowed down. This past two weeks all I have had is a few small perch and some large crappies that hit on my #5 shad rap trolling for some eyes. And yes, the bugs are terrible.

[Finlander]

What's the water level now?

[UKCM]

As of last weekend it was down a good 4-6 inches from the previous week. So still high. Not sure if it has continued to go down, but if it has I may have to adjust my boat lift down. However it will still be about where it is normally is early in the year as opposed to a 'typical' year where I have to move it out to deeper water in the late summer and fall.

[timjones]

It's a couple inches lower than it was the beginning of May. Still high for this time of year.

[Nathansdad]

Just got home from a week on Osakis. What a great week it was!!!! Did not do much on sunfish but did not have time to search them out as we ran into great crappie and walleye fishing. Caught numbers of slab crappies (13" to 14"ers) in 6' to 22' feet of water. Also many smaller crappies as well. Also did well on walleyes. It was primarily a morning bite with 18" to 19" fish common. Caught most of the eyes in 12' to 15' feet of water. Lots of 12" throwback also. We did mark a ton of bait everywhere we went but was surprised to see relativly little in the stomachs of the walleyes we cleaned. The crappies, however, were full of bugs but it seemed everywhere we went we caught at least one slab. Even caught a slab in 6' of water in the rushes on a worm looking for sunfish.

It's been over 22 years since I've fished the lake and although the lake itself has changed the fishing is still great. I plan on making another trip to Osakis this fall and more trips next summer. Why did I stay away so long!

[labman]

Making a family trip to Osakis the weekend of Sept.9. Have never fished the lake before, looking for some crappies and blue gills to entertain my 2 yr old son and wife. Any info to head me in the right direction of some walleyes would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help. Will post with any info after the trip. Thanks again

[SunnyCrappieDay]

I am going to try hitting the diver ducks on osakis this fall. Has anyone got any pointers? I am used to hunting Pelican Lake near Ashby but the hunting pressure has gotten to be too much.

[fishingfinn]

Some have good luck on Little Osakis, but the only place you can launch a boat is at Head Of The Lakes Resort and go under the bridge. Unless you know a homeowner on the lake. We always hear a bit of shooting on Big Osakis, but don't know how good it is. Check with the DNR.

[joneshat11]

I am going to try hitting the diver ducks on osakis this fall. Has anyone got any pointers? I am used to hunting Pelican Lake near Ashby but the hunting pressure has gotten to be too much.

The pressure isn't any better on Osakis.

[Finlander]

Sunfish still biting?

Here is a nice gill we got on the 24th!

[HighBoard]

Trying to decide where to fish tonight had been our on Osakis a couple weeks ago ice still good or did our heat wave melt it down should i make the drive or watch the game at home..

[HighBoard]

Trying to decide where to fish tonight had been our on Osakis a couple weeks ago ice still good or did our heat wave melt it down should i make the drive or watch the game at home..

[Chad Peterson]

You will be fine on the ice. Ice is holding very good but watch out for the ice heaves.

Sniffer

[HighBoard]

thanks man went out did pretty well caught of few walters up near battle pt.