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20 hours ago, BWpineisland said:

I’m looking at a Crestliner fishing pontoon with 23’ floats and 60 hp. It will be used for family fishing, cruising on Vermilion. Any thoughts pontoon guys?  

I personally think the tube diameter is a bit small, when you laod it up if your balance is off some waves can be dicey on a boat with smaller tubes. Crestliner makes a good boat though. What kind of motor?

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9 hours ago, Dr. Bombay said:

What about Black Bay or Norwegian Bay?  Smallies?   

 

Dr. Bombay

Norwegian always has fish! Smallies were on rocks for me just about everywhere two weeks ago.

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I haven't been up since August 4th as my son was up there for a week with his friends. Reports I have heard is that Frazer is still going strong with pockets of excellent fishing. If I were up there this weekend, I would still focus on the 17-22 feet areas with a Lindy Crawler/Leech presentation. I have really learned from this board to trust electronics and move on if you don't mark too many fish.

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I haven’t seen many posts lately which means I’m not the only one struggling to find fish. I ventured out of Frazer into Big Bay today and fished 20 fow on a shore line pulling a spinner/crawler  at 1 mph and got a limit of nice fish in a half an hour. They hit almost as soon as I got the bait to the bottom. Just me and the lab- - otherwise, we would’ve put a lot more fish in the boat. It was the third place I tried. It’s good advice to fish where you see fish on the sonar. 

RLG

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RLG, good to hear and I think that's one of the most important tips I've learned from this forum. Trust your electronics!

 

 

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K-dub,

I have been seeing a lot more bluegills of that size in Big Bay this year then ever before!

Ran into a school of them last week and boated 17 gills that size one afternoon!

Cliff

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All,

 

My grandkids are coming up to Frazer Bay this weekend. Any pan fish tips for this area of the lake? I know the east end is not great for pan fish. I had my go to spots on the west end but am starting from scratch on the east. Any tips would be much appreciated.

Thx

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I'll be up starting mid September.  I'd like to spend some time targeting larger  (5+ lb) walleye - C&R / barbless hooks.  What type of structure and lures / bait / presentation would you recommend when targeting larger fish?  

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tarpon6,

 

8 to 10' of water outside larger weedy bays (Larson, Muskego, northern reaches of Norwegian, etc). Pull blue, bronze or gold shad raps at ~1mph, maybe a bit faster. Use raps designed to run 5 to 7' deep. Mid September may be a bit early so consider the closest "summer structure" or hole near such locations. If fish are queued up in the deeper staging areas, you'll need to play with other presentations such as slip bobbers and minnows. Some folks will fish the shallower areas with slip bobbers too. However, it's just too much fun to have those sows crush a running lure. Good luck.

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Surrounding the comments on panfish, I for one have caught more panfish this year in the Frazer/Smarts area than probably the last five years combined while fishing for walleyes (Lindy/crawler or leech) in 17-22 feet of water. Also, the smallmouth fishing has been on fire for me using the same techniques, without me targeting them.

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All,

 

Looking ahead to this weekend, it looks like the wind will swing from the south Friday AM, to WSW Friday evening, to WNW Saturday AM, to SSW Saturday PM though Sunday AM, and then SSE Sunday evening. It will then swing to the NE Monday as the next round of showers enters. I'll plan to start my search on W/SW facing inside turns and breaks. May also consider Cliff's notes and work a bit more with minnows. Just getting the strategy juices going. Please share yours as they come.

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We were up for the weekend Sat - Mon.  Really struggled to find any active fish on Saturday, we fished all day and ended up with 8 keepers between the 4 of us.  Same story for most of the day on Sunday as we didn't have one keeper to show for our efforts between 6am - 3pm.  Ended up going in for lunch and heading back out at 5pm and finally found the fish stacked up in 16 FOW over boulders.  Horizontal jig and a minnow was the ticket as we put together a 4 man limit in less than 2 hours of nice 16 - 19" fish.  We back out Monday morning before heading home and they were still there and hungry, ended up losing a huge walleye at the boat right away and also got a nice 4 lb smallie.

 

Looking forward to getting back up sometime in October!

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I had a really tough time finding any keepers this long weekend in the Frazer / Smart Bay area using leeches/crawlers in my standard spots...wasn't showing too many on my graphs at all of my locations.....heard the same reports from others in the area

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Sand and mud flats that had been producing with crawler harnesses were devoid of fish on the finder. Would occasionally see a few decent soundings on some steeper breaks but seems a significant seasonal shift may be upon of in the Fraser Bay area.

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We caught over 30 walleye saturday afternoon in about 3 hours.  Almost all were keep sized 13-17" fish.   Frazer bay.  15 -18 FOW near some humps that top out at 10-11' (but not up on the hump)  All on Chartruese Jig and half a crawler.   Missed a lot of bites on lindy's, switched to jigs and they just hammered it.   

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Interesting Walter, I was considering moving to a jig, but was too lazy....plus I was fishing the more "communal" spots, but did see boats out around the humps....should have known as they stayed there quite awhile :)

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We need a Fraser Bay thread! I’ve been trolling spinners/crawler in Fraser with limited success at my favorite spots. 20-25 fow at abou 1 mph. I’m liking the jig idea on the rocks (I’d recommend any brand, shorter hook shaft, chartreuse, gold, rainbow colors but what do I know). I need to get myself some minnows, too. 

RLG

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I was near the point adjacent to the long sand beach.   I think we got a little lucky.   We were moving around and hooked up once.  Dropped in a waypoint and every fish we caught was within a 20 foot radius of that waypoint.  

 

I go as small as possible with jigs, 90% of the time I use 1/8 Oz.  I like the standard Northland jigs, no bells or whistles.  Chartruese, chartruese/orange, and pink.  Keep it simple.   Fish were often hitting on the drop.   

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We fished Sat-Tuesday, off and on, depending on rain and some cabin projects. Probably put about 6-8 hours on the lake. Walleye fishing was tough early, seemed to get better by Tuesday. About 15 walleyes, kept 7. Biggest was 17", most in the 14-16" range. We fished both crawlers and minnows using Lindy rigs. Crawlers out-fished minnows. While we weren't getting a lot of walleyes, it seems for a while we got every other species in the lake: smallies, perch, rock bass, and sunnies.

 

We finally hit the bluegill schools everyone has been talking about - first bluegills ever on the V for me. Found a big school and landed about 10 in 10 minutes. Including 3 over 8" and one green sunfish (see pic) at 9.75" and 1 lb 1oz! Looked it up later, that is pretty close to state record ( 10.25" and 1 1lb 4 oz). Maybe there's a record there somewhere :)

 

 

Sunnie-2018-09.jpg

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  • The title was changed to 2020-21 Lake Vermilion Fishing Reports
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