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Really having some challenges finding fish in the Smarts Bay / Frazer Bay area. Do minnows seem to be the ticket now? What depths are folks finding fish?

 

Thanks in advance as I have two friends coming up today

 

 

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Fished on and off Thursday to Saturday, from Frazer to Big Bay, caught a few in the 15-19" range. best success was in 28-32' FOW drifting with bottom bouncers and spinners.  Bigger suckers out performed smaller rainbows.  If any one knows where to get some larger rainbows, that would be nice to know.

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My daughter and I will be fishing the west end Saturday afternoon, Sunday, & Monday.  Any tips would be great.  This will be her 3rd time on Vermilion and she's anxious to catch some walleyes!  

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On 9/21/2020 at 4:31 PM, Raven77 said:

Lead core was on fire for us on Saturday on both the east and west end in 22-30' of water.  Five of us in two boats boated over 70 fish on Saturday.  A lot of 10-12"ers but enough keepers to fill 5 limits.  Biggest was 25".  We did great Sunday and today as well although not as hot as Saturday.  The only live bait fishing we did was with minnows on Lindy's.  Caught a few but honestly did not spend much time live rigging as the lead core bite was so hot.  Stomachs on most fish we cleaned were empty.  The ones with full stomachs had mostly small crayfish and minnows.

That's a phenomenal day on Vermilion.  Particularly this year since the lake has been pounded so much.  Anyone take a photo of the 25"?  

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3 hours ago, BigVTim said:

Rivergroup, I'm not a doctor, but sounds like if you just pay Raven and hop in his boat, that's the ticket.

I think you're on to something there!  ?

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Anybody out over the weekend? Is the lead core bite still holding on? Heading up for next few days so any tips appreciated.

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Out twice last week for a total of about 5 hours on Big Bay and Daisy Bay.  Four people fishing and the bite was pretty good.  Used jigs/minnows and lindy rigs (my wife prefers the lindy ?).  Jig/minnow was the hot ticket in the holes on reefs and points.  The Lindys found a few smaller fish and lots of nice bass along the gravel/mud transition at the bottom of the reefs and along the shoreline points.  Biggest walleye was 22" and only two under 13".  Most of the fish were perfect for dinner, between 13" and 18".  Saw a number of boats pulling wooden minnows and they seemed to be getting the net out occasionally.

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Thanks for the posts all. I've been monitoring this forum for a bit and it had gotten quiet so made me worried the fall bite was off to a slow start.

 

Glad to hear jig and minnow bite is going as that's by far the most fun way to get em!

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1 minute ago, Wishin4Walleyes said:

Thanks for the posts all. I've been monitoring this forum for a bit and it had gotten quiet so made me worried the fall bite was off to a slow start.

 

Glad to hear jig and minnow bite is going as that's by far the most fun way to get em!

I forgot to add all our fish were on a lindy rig with a medium sized rainbow

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Well, day 1 was a grind. 2 boats, 3 guys we ended up with 3 eaters and 4 smalls. Threw back 1 23". The keepers were good quality (18, 19).

 

Lead core bite was dead. Jig and minnow got our fish. Today gotta try something different as the spots we fished just weren't holding many fish.

 

Gonna burn some fuel today and try to find em.

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13 hours ago, MarkB said:

eserved the same time slot for next year. I think we hit the fall colors at it's peak and it was spectacular to say the least. 

 

Great to have you post again Mark. It sounds like a fantastic trip back to Vermilion. Take care!

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Yup - the fall colors have peaked and will be gone very soon. My maple dropped all of its leaves since Sunday. The birch are still holding on but losing them slowly.

 

I hope to add a fishing report after this weekend. Nice work MarkB

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I know this question is tough to answer, but any thoughts to how the walleye fishing is setting up to be the next two weeks starting Sunday? We were almost shut out (except for a few 14"ers" from the 21-23 of September and I have a couple of friends coming up on Sunday (Frazer Bay/Smarts Bay). Usually for me this is the absolute prime of the year, but again the 21-23 was tough, perhaps due to the flat water, sunshine, and 70 degrees.

 

We usually fish many of the common areas in Smarts/Frazer using either a Lindy Rig or jig with a minnow. 

 

Any thoughts would be welcomed!

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Two days of fishing monday and Tuesday were really tough. Day 1 I posted on previously. Day 2 I covered a lot of water checking structure on side imaging for pods of fish. I couldn't find em. Spots I did stop and fish only netted 1 nice crappie, several rock bass, couple small eyes, and a fat smallmouth. I did best trolling lead core in big bay for a couple hrs. Got a couple smalls and a keeper eye doing that. Water temps were 58-60. I never got a pattern figured out.

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Sorry To hear you guys are having trouble connecting with eyes.  Do you think the guides know better spots or are they just off their feed?

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No expert here but IMO the cold front that came through this week cooled the bite down.  We were hammering them on lead core from 10/19-29.  Most of the fish had empty bellies.  The last few days have been tough.  Yesterday, in one spot I marked more fish than I've marked all year.  We fished it with crawlers and minnows on jigs and rigs for over an hour and caught 2 dinks.  I'm hoping the bite will turn on in a day or so.

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Black Bay was slow for crappies tonight, only caught 3 in about 2 hours. A few other boats were out and didn't see any of them landing any fish.

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Fished yesterday afternoon/evening. Caught a dozen 12-13” walleye in a channel in 21’ between big boulders.  Most fish came in a 45 minute flurry. We could only catch them on a jig with a crawler. We used a whole crawler and hooked it 2-3 times so a ~4” tail was hanging out.  We fished a lot of spots this weekend, East and West ends. Tried jigs, jigging raps, lead core and rigs.  We found a few fish with each technique in 15-35’. Of course, the biggest 2 fish our group caught were off the dock near main lake weeds. 22” eye and 32” northern. 
 

There are always several patterns going for Vermillion walleye. Don’t get stuck on one pattern/depth/presentation.

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  • The title was changed to 2021 Lake Vermilion Fishing Reports

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