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Hey guys,

My brother has been taking a 4 week class up in Virginia, but he has this weekend off. So this weekend we've decided to give Big V our first shot. My question is coming from Virginia, which launch should we use and where should we head to get a true Canadian shield fishing experience? It'll be a Musky/pike guy and a smallie guy fishing, with walleyes being of little concern. Never really spent much time up north so just looking for an area that doesn't resemble anything like the lakes near the cities. If we can't find the fish doing that Saturday, we'll probably fall back to what's most familiar and hammer the weeds around Wakemup Narrows for a while.

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Nick,

It really does not matter which end of the lake or where you decide to fish.

Almost none of Vermilion will resemble a Metro lake!

Muskies are biting well the past few days in both rocks and weedy areas!

I saw two caught by gator guys the past two days!

A friend hired a local guide and they raised 10 fish, hooked 4 and managed to land one 45 incher. Had two hooked that were at least in the 50's he said.

Operator error on the fisherman's part that they did not catch more according to my friend! wink

Cliff

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Thanks Cliff, that's reassuring. Are all the launches pretty good? The DNR site lists some sites as having no parking which seems inaccurate.

Operator error is pretty frequent muskie fishing. I've missed my last 3 over in Wisconsin. Frustrating but at least I know what's moving fish, unlike early in the year when you would get absolutely nothing.

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Nick,

There are a few good landings on the East end of Vermilion with plenty of parking area.

Hoodoo Point landing

Fortune Bay Casino marina

Shamrock Marina

Public landing next to Shamrock

Just to name a few mid-lake spots.

Cliff

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Well guess I spoke too soon. After 2 days and 15 walleyes, everything shut down for us. Not a walleye on for the last 3 days. Caught everything on leeches then nodda. Even tried some chubs and no luck. Guess I should be happy with the fact that we at least hit them when we got here. Good luck to all!

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Cliff are the eye's still picking up?

We are still catching walleyes and now a few jumbo perch as well. Not what I would call a real hot bite but still catching around 15 walleyes in 1/2 day with about 1/2 of them keepers.

Bait rigs with 1/2 crawler or gold spinners with 1/2 crawler are working best for me. Got about 1/2 of our walleyes on spinners/crawler in 5' to 7' of water today! (At NOON!)

Cliff

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Cliff, in 5-7ft of water how are you fishing- casting out, over the side, slip bobber? Odd to me you'd get eye's at noon in shallow water but-YOUR THE MAN!

stillFishin'

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StillFishin',

It really surprised me to, but they were there!

We caught them using my deep water rigs! Lindy with 3/4 oz sinkers and also a gold spinner with a 1 oz. sinker! We only had the bait about 6 feet behind the boat at a speed of around 1.2 mph.

A more normal spinner presentation with only a split shot trolled farther behind the boat probably would have worked even better, but I was only experimenting our last hour of the trip and did not bother to change over. I will certainly use a more conventional rig tomorrow when I have more time!

Cliff

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Hey guys, headed up from Austin, TX tomorrow to stay with Ed over at VDL for the week. Any ideas on what to focus on to get into some good smallies? Had decent success in past years using t-rigged senkos and finesse jigs with small trailers. Any additional info or tips? Assuming main lake points is where we will start.

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Cliff, I'm intrigued with your shallow water 'eye catching experience. so I'd like to ask you more If you don't mind.

So how did you figure to do this shallow thing? Where there weeds, rocks or what? A large flat and deep water near by? I assume east end but waht time of day- cloulds wind etc.

StillFishin'

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Following up on what Cliff said we were up there 2 weeks ago anf fished with Cliff on the east end one day and then had good luck on the west end the rest of the week never caught a walleye deeper than 12 feet with 77-80 deg. Water I said to myself over & over (this makes no sense) but lets keep fishing

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Had a window of quick action this afternoon. Found a pocket of nice keepers in 12' of water with spinners and crawlers. I should have had my 4 in about 10 minutes but lost one. I quick went back to the cabin and grabbed my son and nephew in the hopes of getting them some action. We immediately had 2 nice bites and then it wad done. The weather here got active so it seemed to either trigger the action or end it quickly.

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Stillfishin",

I had lost my deeper water bite and could not get a fish by going even deeper so it just made sense to try shallower.

Started at 12 feet and just kept moving in until I caught our first fish at 7 feet! Tried shallower today and caught a couple of walleyes at 4.5 feet! Sand bottom, no weeds,just a few scattered branches and wood on the bottom.

Also caught fish at 22 feet today again. Lindy with 1/2 crawler.

Cliff

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PSU,

It certainly has been a different bite this summer! I know that I have not caught as many walleyes as on a normal year either. I still think that the tough bite is a result of there being just to much easy natural feed in the lake this summer.

Cliff

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Heading out shortly again. Found a solid crankbait bite last evening. Nice fish. All 14-15.5".10-12'. All told between the short window we fished in the afternoon and then in the hour last night, there was a nice mess of eyes in the well.

Update: found a few more this morning. Spinners/ crawlers again. Lots of short hits today though. Should have had about 8 rather than the 3 we got.

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Hit it hard on the upper east side Sat. Got a few on lindy's in the morning with only one keeper. Switched to crankbaits, but it still didn't pan out for the amount of water we hit. Eventually though we did find some active fish and got a few more on the cranks.

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We boated 12 this morning with 5 of them in the slot. 18" to 24".

Only had 3 keepers and 2 jumbos in the live well at noon.

All were caught on bait rigs with 1/2 crawler in 20' to 22' of water.

Cliff

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Just got back from the much too short weekend outing. Had one mid 30's follow on Saturday but that was it for muskies. Pike were active Saturday along the weeds on the west end, but Sunday on the east side other than a couple small ones that looked at our muskies plugs they were shut down. Just couldn't find any weeds next to deep water out of the Black Duck launch. Fished tons of windswept rocks (both sides) and there were lots of smallies there (nothing huge though), but couldn't find the other species there.

I don't like leaving reports without pics, so here's the best pike of the trip (35.5"). Probably the healthiest pike that size I've ever caught midsummer. Future big fish for sure.

full-19978-11364-img_2934.jpg

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I understand one of the bait shops may be bringing in Rainbows this week.....Too early for minnows?

Thanks-coming up Thursday

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PSU,

It may be a little early for minnows but well worth a try. This has been a very different summer so a fat lively rainbow may just be the thing that will get a walleye to eat!

Trolling Raps in shallow water has been working well on some evenings for a few fishermen!

Cliff

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Thanks for the insight Cliff! Bringing another family up to the cabin this weekend and hopefully we will find some walleyes, but not too confident as it has been VERY slow for me this summer! It's their first trip to the Big V!

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Most of my eyes are now coming from shorelines, both shallow and deeper.

All on crawlers yet. Caught a couple last evening trolling gold Husky Jerks in Pike Bay.

Cliff

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It has been a pretty tough year for me up there. I was just up there again and the first 2 days were pretty bad 6 total. I even abandoned Vermilion for a morning and went over to lost lake but didnt have much success there either. Monday night was a different story. We were running lead core just off the bottom at at 20-17' trolling about 2 1/2mph. we picked up about 15 that night and about another 15 the following morning with a couple really nice 19 1/2" smallies in the mix as well. Hope this is a sign of a turnaround up there. I was marking tons of fish all weekend so finding the fish wasnt a problem. getting them to bite the first couple of days was.

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Well, that makes me feel a bit more optimistic.....looks very windy today.

Any water temp updates?

thanks

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