Recent Bite on Ottertail

[RIF]

Has anyone been out lately? It's been quiet here and I was wondering what depth you were catching or marking fish. I plan on getting out this weekend and I appreciate any help you can provide, bait, methods that worked or not.

[Canon Guy]

I have not been up in a couple of weeks,but a friend on the lake called me 2 days ago and told me he was doing quite well fishing 24'-45' using small suckers.

[castagain]

Was on the lake the past week and the bite was kind of tough. Fish seemed scattered and I am sure the storm and high winds did not help much. We traditionally come a week later, but had to come earlier this year. Tuesday, the bite was good, last day of course...evening bite was hot in 15 to 19, jig and sucker minnow. The pike are on the chew as well.

[UMC]

Thought I'd revive this post.  Coming out to OT next week, how's the bite been?  About usual for this time of year?

[UMC]

Well this forum seems pretty dead but I'll post my report for Tuesday, July 7-Saturday the 12th.  In general the fishing was about on par with previous years, with a couple good days and a couple pretty slow.  We don't fish super hard, but go out for 2-3 hours in the morning and sometimes back out in the evening.  The weather was fairly stable with no storms and no terribly windy days.  Best day was the first day when 2 of us kept 11 15-18" walleyes on spinners and crawlers from about 11:00-12:30.    Probably the best outing I've ever had on OT in the 25 years we've gone.  Rest of the days were slower with outings ranging from 2-5 keeper-sized fish and the odd thing was we never caught another walleye in the spot we did so well on Tuesday.  Didn't keep fish after our good day as we had enough for a family fish fry.  We fished humps on the western third of the lake with most of our fish coming in 18-22 feet of water on spinners and crawlers.  Walleyes seem to be in really nice shape with fat bellies which didn't always seem to be the case on OT.  Lots of 4-6" perch to steal your bait as usual and found a couple of those in the bellies of the walleyes we cleaned so no surprise as to the chunkiness of the walleyes. 

[BTL]

Thanks for the report!

[slammer]

How has the evening crank bait bite been?

[Fish'n guy]

Just spent a couple of days up on Ottertail and found a very good walleye bite. I started out fishing the mid-lake humps out from Zorbaz between 27-31' of water and found active walleyes right away. I had to sort through some smaller ones, but picked up a few keepers in the 14-15" range. I then moved around to a few other humps only fishing the ones I marked fish on and didn't yield much other than a few small perch. I moved over to the humps just outside the Balmoral flats area and found a nice school of walleyes in the 20-24' depths on the top if a long flat that topped out at about 20'. Quality was better here. Winds were very light and flat calm at times but it didn't seem to affect fishing. As for presentation my best color was fire-tiger blade with a leech and my next best color was black blade with a leech. I fished from 10:00am-4:30pm and probably put 10-15 fish in the boat. I went home with my limit of walleyes from 14"-18"  with a few throwbacks (biggest was 23.5"). I didn't get a chance to do the traditional plug bite after dark on the shallow flats however I had heard from a few others I talked to that the bite was on after dark. 

[PC Rider]

What's the water level like everyone?  River high enough to get into Walker?  Heading there in 3 weeks, so starting to get the itch...thanks

[BisoNation]

It's looooow.  Probably can't get to walker unless you jump in water and walk it thru.

we fished last week, very we'll, 10-12 Walleyes all on cranks deep. 15-18 feet during late in the day.  Next day did night crank, got 7-8 more but those were much smaller wall eyes up in 6-8 feet.

[PC Rider]

Thanks Bisonation!  Appreciate the info.  Looks like a cool down is in the cards for a couple weeks, hoping that gets em on the chew a bit.

 

[JoeyPChild]

Any recent updates?  Heading to Ottertail on Saturday for a week, wondering whether/how shore fishing is working?

[UMC]

I'll bring this back although it seems this forum is pretty quiet.  Had our annual vacation on Ottertail from July 10-20.  Weather wasn't real cooperative for fishing as it rained quite a bit early in the week and almost every day we were there had some sort of rain shower and most of the non-rainy days were fairly windy.  Sounded like the area got 6+ inches of rain in the time we were there, but some neighbors said June was very dry and the lake was as low as I can remember (been going since 1990).  Anyways, fishing wasn't great but again our effort was less than normal due to the weather.  Found enough eaters for a fish fry by working humps from 20-35 feet - couldn't find much shallower than that.  Seemed as though we caught more 10-12" than normal but did find some 16-18".  Kind of just a one here, one there deal - never really got into a good pattern.  

[slammer]

Are docks still in at OT?

[papadarv]

Spent past 4 days (and nights till 2am) on Ottertail one wheelhouse and 4 portables. Bite was next to (0). 5 guys 4 day got 5 eye 14" to 17" and 6 perch 7 to 10". Friday -21 on the lake at 3pm. Pressure at 30.90. Did not move a lot but did some moving 30' to 9'. Saturday bit warmer day made it to 11 deg. Same result moved a lot humps, breaks valleys, 40' to 9'. Marked lots of fish in deeper water and some at 9 to 16'. Resort owner talked to half dozen other villages on west end, All having no success. Pressure never got below 30.28 but temps warmed to upper 20' on Sunday. Not a banner weekend but sometimes "that's fishing"

Took a fall on slick icy parking lot week ago, found out today I have 3 fractured ribs. No wonder my right side hurt a bit.

Edited January 17, 2017 by papadarv