Ohio fisherman coming to Minnesota

[Buzzbait Brad Ohio]

Hey everyone. I'm new to the forum. I am a member of Ohio Game Fishing forum and an Ohio citizen. I'm coming to visit a friend and stay in his lake house at the end of July. I have a few questions. 

 

Ill be fishing Long Lake near Erhard, Minnesota. I'd  like to know if anyone could give a detailed fishing report of that lake. 

 

Also, I'm trying to plan a river float on the Ottertail River and I can't find a public access map. Can anyone help with that? With smallmouth being my favorite species to target, I'm really hoping I can catch some of these great northern smallmouth I keep hearing about and also hoping I can find a launch point and take out point for me and my kayak. 

 

Thanks! 

[chaffmj]

Go online to MN DNR and look it up on there. Here is a link for you. http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/watertrails/interactive_map/index.html

[Buzzbait Brad Ohio]

58 minutes ago, chaffmj said:

Go online to MN DNR and look it up on there. Here is a link for you. http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/watertrails/interactive_map/index.html

 Perfect! Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. 

[Bdeanpete]

You can access the Ottertail River (or any body of water in MN) anywhere there is public road right of way touching that waterway. In other words, any public road bridge over the river provides access to that river. 

I float a lot of rivers in my kayak and almost never use a designated access. Just be careful where you leave your vehicle so it's not blocking the road or a field access etc. 

Best of luck and be sure to post up some pics of the smallies you catch. 

[Buzzbait Brad Ohio]

5 hours ago, Bdeanpete said:

You can access the Ottertail River (or any body of water in MN) anywhere there is public road right of way touching that waterway. In other words, any public road bridge over the river provides access to that river. 

I float a lot of rivers in my kayak and almost never use a designated access. Just be careful where you leave your vehicle so it's not blocking the road or a field access etc. 

Best of luck and be sure to post up some pics of the smallies you catch. 

 

Thanks! I appreciate the info. 

 

Is there any canoe/kayak outfitters on the Ottertail? I'm just trying to figure out how I'm gonna get picked up after I'm done floating since we will only be driving one car up to your guys state. 

[Buzzbait Brad Ohio]

Thanks for having me Minnesota. I wasn't able to float the Ottertail river but I did fish the lake every morning. Most fish the first 3 days came on top water whopper plopper. The last day, the water temperature heated up to almost 80 so I changed it up a little bit and fished deep water 10-20 feet and caught fish deep. Here's some of the better fish from this week. The fishing up here is great. Can't wait to make it back.