Burntside Lake Fishing Reports---Lake Conditions

[Mike Stark]

Click here to subscribe to this Burntside Lake Fishing Report

 

Made it out to burntside by Ely, MN for the first time this season today. i iced one laker and missed another. met up with lunkercity for a bit and watched him land a nice laker. fished with another guy at the end of the day, he caught one as well.

 

50-65fow had the most action. smaller rattle baits caught fish.

 

the lake has very little snow on it. found 14-18in of ice. very cold temps are in the forecast. we will be making a lot of ice this next week if the forecast holds true.

[Steve Foss]

I stayed on one spot today, a nearly vertical break close to an island. I had 16 inches of clear solid ice. A 3 and a 7 in the morning, and a very dead afternoon. Was able to scratch one more 5 about 4:45. I expect there'll be 24 inches of ice by this time next week, considering the forecast.

All came on jigging lures. The bait setup, which produced fish on Saturday and Sunday, remained silent all day.

If this keeps up, we're not only going to need auger extensions on Burntside, which is not common at all, but we're going to have frozen water and sewer lines all over the place in a month's time.

[Murdock26]

Thanks for the reports guys. I always look forward to the daily updates. Assuming the weather forecast stays the same, it looks like Saturday will be the best chance for fish.

[trumy]

Coming up Saturday curious about what baits guys are using on tip-ups and if you're tipping your jigs. I would think truck travel is fine with the temps we have had lately

[Mike Stark]

i dont tip my lure with meat but a lot of folks do. rainbows, pike suckers, or ciscos for the tip ups.

there were a lot of trucks out on the ice yesterday and we are going to be making a lot more ice this week.

[trumy]

Thanks for quick response Mike. Next 2 days at work will be long ones maybe I'll run across you if your out fishing on saturday

[Great Outdoors]

If using a small bucktail like a 3/8ths oz. for jigging, tip it with a 3" Gulp smelt of better yet, a 3" Berkley Realistic smelt.

If jigging with small spoons (best for Burntside) tip them with a Berkley 1" Power Nymph or 1.5" Gulp Helgramite.

Jig the bucktail very aggressively about 25% of the time, slowing slightly the other 75%.

The spoon should be jigged slightly slower, varying short and long strokes with the fishing rod. If you jig too fast and aggressively, you MAY have the spoon snag in the line every so often.

[Steve Foss]

I don't tip lures that deliver thump and vibration (like jigging spoons, darters, cicadas, etc) because it deadens the action. Some guys tip all lures with a minnow or minnow head for lakers, but I'm of the school that the lure types I mentioned are best left alone to get those lakers to hit.

Lures like standard bucktail jigs, which don't have any special thump or action, I tip the same way GO does it.

I used to tip all my lures, and when I stopped doing that my laker catch actually went up a bit. But IMO it's really a matter of confidence. If you have more confidence in tipped lures, by all means do that. If in untipped, then do that. Why? A confident angler is more focused and in the game, and that attitude spells fish.

Any live minnow is fine on a tip-up for lakers. If you have more than one bait rig out, definitely put a dead cisco on one and lay it on the bottom. Lakes are great vacuum cleaners.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

I never have luck with tip-ups. Not sure why, I try all depths, different presentations, but for some reason, I set them up and they are basically nothing more then decoration on the ice and a pain in my butt when it comes time to real them in.

What suggestions can anyone share that does have success with them.

My usual presentation is threading line through a cisco with a treble hook on the end in the mouth and lay it near the bottom. If I go with live bait, I'll use a treble with some glow beads and suspend it at mid-depth - near bottom.

Any suggestions?

[jesse king]

When I use tip-ups on B side I'll usually use a cisco near or on bottom and all I ever catch is pout. One friend of mine has some success using live bait on a small jigging spoon with about a 3'' dropper from spoon to hook half way down the water column. Don't know if the drop is a factor or if he's just lucky. One of the bigger trout I've seen come out of that lake was caught on a 6'' live sucker 20' down in 80 fow, took some doing not to get the sucker to set off the rig though, but it paid off

[Mike Stark]

I never have luck with tip-ups. Not sure why, I try all depths, different presentations, but for some reason, I set them up and they are basically nothing more then decoration on the ice and a pain in my butt when it comes time to real them in.

What suggestions can anyone share that does have success with them.

My usual presentation is threading line through a cisco with a treble hook on the end in the mouth and lay it near the bottom. If I go with live bait, I'll use a treble with some glow beads and suspend it at mid-depth - near bottom.

Any suggestions?

sounds like you are doing the right things. last winter i had very little luck with tip-ups on burntside. i stopped putting them out towards the end of the season because of how few flags i had. i like to move around a lot and they were just slowing me down.

on other lakes tho tip-ups are the go to for catching trout. burntside is its own beast.

[Wanderer]

I never have luck with tip-ups. Not sure why, I try all depths, different presentations, but for some reason, I set them up and they are basically nothing more then decoration on the ice and a pain in my butt when it comes time to real them in.

What suggestions can anyone share that does have success with them.

My usual presentation is threading line through a cisco with a treble hook on the end in the mouth and lay it near the bottom. If I go with live bait, I'll use a treble with some glow beads and suspend it at mid-depth - near bottom.

Any suggestions?

Get the DNR to let us use lake caught smelt again.

I've had a lot of luck catching my smelt in the morning and getting a nice lively one on the tip up hook right away. Since they were outlawed, not so much.

I just use a 2/0 straight shank worm hook and hook the cisco just ahead of the dorsal fin and lay it on the bottom now. I'll do this only when I don't want to run two jigging lines. I have used rainbows in the past but the lack of success I've experienced has caused me to not hassle with live bait. BUT, as evidenced by last weekend's cold front bite, I shouldn't dismiss that tactic anymore.

FWIW, I really don't think you gain anything by threading bait and using trebles for Burntside trout. A good thin wire long shank hook will work just as well and easier. You can thread that through the bait if you'd like to hide the hook. Just don't bury it.

[Steve Foss]

I've been using tip-ups religiously (and now rod/reel bait rigs, which, to the fish, are identical to tip-ups) for the whole 10 years I've been fishing Burntside.

Some years are better than others with tip-ups (as in half our fish come on bait rigs/tip-ups). LIke Mike, last year wasn't a very productive tip-up year, but we did nail about 8-10 of our lakers on them, as well as additional bonus pout, and a handful of those fish were 30 inches or over. And some days are better than others. I've had 3-4 fish days when only the dead/live bait rigs got the action, and other days they were ignored in favor of the jigging lures. I don't decorate the rigs with anything. Just a hook (single wide-gap 2/0) and a few split shot a foot above.

I bait with what I have. Often a nice minnow wiggling half way down the water column about 20 feet from where I'm jigging will tempt a laker that I just can't get to go on the jigging lures. Cat and mouse, laker swims away, 10 seconds later FLAG!

When I have more than one bait rig out, one of them usually involves a dead cisco on the bottom. Those yield lakers too, because lakers hoover the bottom all the time. Whether it's dead or live bait, I hook it in the strong cartilagenous flesh just in front of the tail.

So far this season, it's been 11 lakers in three fishing days, and two of those fish came on livebait rigs suspended about half way down the water column (rainbows and golden shiners in this case, but small pike suckers work just as well). I rig with 12 lb XL mono, just like I've been doing for a long time. When I was running tip-ups all the time, my heavy pike tip-ups would double for lakers, and I'd just run about 10 feet of 12 or 14 lb mono as a leader off the heavy braid.

It takes very little time to rig a tip-up as a second line when you're lakering. IMO, even if a person hasn't had much success with it, it's worth doing. Like Tracy, I DO miss my live smelt on the bait rigs. That was the closest presentation to certainty that Burntside ever saw.

I don't run and gun unless I'm on my own and exploring. When out to catch fish or with clients, I'll pick one or two spots and spend the whole day there, and in that case tip-ups or bait rigs aren't a handicap. On Bside, windows of activity open and close without warning and often are short (not to mention you can't predict them), so I prefer to fish spots that I've proven are successful and wait out an activity window. I believe runners and gunners may run afoul those short windows because they may be running instead of gunning when the fish go active.

But that's just how I roll. It's different strokes for different folks, with many roads to the same destination, and that's one of the great things about fishing!

[jesse king]

So i have a 27'' and up release policy in my house as long as the fish are in good shape. Once in a while I want to keep a biggin to throw in the smoker. What is your guys opinion on keeping trout?

[Steve Foss]

So i have a 27'' and up release policy in my house as long as the fish are in good shape. Once in a while I want to keep a biggin to throw in the smoker. What is your guys opinion on keeping trout?

The DNR no longer stocks lakers on Burntside. Though there's good circumstantial evidence that natural reproduction has retaken control, I'm not convinced. Especially because of the huge increase in fishing pressure in winter on Bside in the last several years. So I throw back the large majority of the lakers I catch there. I keep a few for the pan and the smoker, because that's what fishing is still about for me, to some degree.

I don't tell or coach clients when it comes to keeping fish. As far as I'm concerned, that's their business.

It does take a long time to grow a 15 pound lake trout.

[Mike Stark]

selective harvest is the best bet. it takes a long time for those trout to get big. i have kept a few bigger trout for the smoker. nothing over 30in tho. i usually only keep a big one for a special occasion.

[jesse king]

Are all stocked lakers fins clipped? I have caught a couple 20'' this year one clipped one not. The 29'' I got on tuesday wasn't. Have they always clipped them?

[Mike Stark]

all stocked fish have clipped fins.

[jesse king]

Alright. Thanks guys.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I know I'll keep at the tip-ups, or even take up a rod rig style.

Question about those, Foss..... how do they hold up in the cold weather? Guides ice up? reel freeze-ups? I suppose if you have quality gear, one would be alright.

Funny thing I noticed over 3 days straight of fishing BSide last weekend (Sun-Tues) was that all 3 days, all in the same general location/piece of structure, there was a 0930 bite, almost to the minute! So wild! Especially when it happened on Tuesday!

Next laker trip for me will be to Lac La Croix in 2 weeks.... Yeah baby!

[Steve Foss]

Question about those, Foss..... how do they hold up in the cold weather? Guides ice up? reel freeze-ups? I suppose if you have quality gear, one would be alright.

They can't ice up unless they get water on them. They can't get water on the line/reel until/unless you get a fish, right?

And I use foam hole covers so the holes don't ice over.

[Wanderer]

all stocked fish have clipped fins.

How about all clipped fin fish are stocked?

In the Gozillion posts about B-side lakers over the years I think I recall reading some info that most but not all stockers get clipped. Potato / Potahto I spose, but just sayin'.

Brule, how you getting into LLC? They got enough snow on Dawson now? Good luck up there.

[Wanderer]

So i have a 27'' and up release policy in my house as long as the fish are in good shape. Once in a while I want to keep a biggin to throw in the smoker. What is your guys opinion on keeping trout?

Just thought I'd add: I prefer to let everything go over 27 inches too. I like 22 - 25's the most for keeping. I've kept bigger also if I think I REALLY need to take one home and haven't gotten anything else but I won't keep a 30+ unless it's bleeding.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

Brule, how you getting into LLC? They got enough snow on Dawson now? Good luck up there.

The plan is to go across Dawson's portage. I'm holding out hope that there will be enough snow, otherwise, plans may change. Fingers crossed!

Sounds like a few inches on the way over the course of the next few days. Got a couple fresh inches this AM in Duluth.

[maxpower117]

all stocked fish have clipped fins.

Absolutely not true. I emailed the DNR on this because I caught an unclipped fish in a lake that is thought to have very poor natural reproduction and he told me that they only do it religiously on lakes that they are studying the reproduction.

[monstermoose78]

When I was in college I like them 2-3 pounders to eat and only kept a 36 incher that now has a home on my wall.

[Steve Foss]

We now have about 3 inches of snow on Burntside, with pillow drifts to 6 inches. Trucks, ATVS, sleds, all in the mix now!

Here's some of today's action. We ended up with three fish on the day, a couple 4s and a 5.

[Steve Foss]

Absolutely not true. I emailed the DNR on this because I caught an unclipped fish in a lake that is thought to have very poor natural reproduction and he told me that they only do it religiously on lakes that they are studying the reproduction.

I think MIke meant all stocked lakers on Burntside are clipped, not all stocked lakers in Minnesota.

[Mike Stark]

Nice fish Foss. That's a heart breaker losing a nice fish at the hole.

I was talking about stocked lake trout on Burntside.

[Steve Foss]

Conditions have changed somewhat with the new 2-4 inches of snow. More sheltered areas have about 6-8 inches of snow. Out in the open the wind has scoured some of the snow away by the end of today, so there are bare patches alternating with pillow drifts of about 6 inches. Stil no hill at all for a climber.

The snow is basically done, but Mother Nature continues to rearrange things with the wind. After a couple more days, I"d expect thing to be pretty much the same out in the open, but snow will be blowing into narrows and shorelines. Luckily there's been 17 to 20 inches of hard ice everywhere I"ve been in the last couple of days, so this snow isn't going to cause problems.