2021 Lake Vermilion Fishing Reports

[SkunkedAgain]

My best tip is to read through the Vermilion forum. There are a lot of great threads and posts by Cliff, Ace, Casey, MarkB, and others that will tell you more than you'll ever need. It just takes a minimal amount of effort

[neptune]

How's the bait situation up there? Any shortages with the later ice out? Looking for mainly rainbows and pike suckers probably.

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Neptune,

Plenty of bait to be had!

Cliff

[cigar man]

What technique do you recommend for walleye in Black Bay?

Cigar Man

[Cliff Wagenbach]

#1. Troll raps!

#2. Jig/minnow or lindy rig/minnows

Cliff

[cigar man]

Night time better for trolling?

Cigar Man

[delcecchi]

Never heard of anyone having much luck night fishing on Vermilion. You could be the first.

[neptune]

Great weekend of fishing. Beautiful weather and biting fish. I tried fishing with my 4 year old Saturday morning and he made it about 15 minutes before he was bored. After trying snacks and other distractions I brought him back to the cabin around 7:30 and headed back out. I missed many fish and caught a few nice keepers. Went out with the wife around 5-8 and caught over a dozen, kept six nice eaters and missed a dozen more. They appeared to be sucking on the pike suckers and we had to be real patient before setting the hook. Fished in 27-32 FOW, 5' snell with red hook and pike suckers. Moving at about .5-.6 MPH.

[neocostical]

There was a shortage of rainbows this weekend. I called all over till I found some in Cook. They were very very small minnows. Made it tough fishing in the tournament with such small bait.

[cigar man]

Any updates on the fishing on the West end? Water temps climbing?

Be there by morning!

Cigar Man

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Matt,

Most of my fish in the Big Bay area are coming out of 24' to 36' of water.

Lindys or jigs with minnows are working best.

[PSU]

Hello Friends great to be back on the lake and have such beautiful weather! Sort of makes you forget the winter we just had!

Fishing has been fantastic (22-37 feet) in Frazer Bay area, but wow are there tons of 6-8 inch walleye. Really working hard to keep the mortality rate down but sometimes the throat hooks are inevitable!

[laker1]

Here we go again-water temps?

[StillFishin']

Yea I'm interested in the water temp also.. But another question:

Minnows keep coming up as the preferred bait and not much mention of anything else.

I'm just wondering if anyone has tried crawlers and leeches and found they didn't work or just didn't try them as minnows work and no reason to try anything else?

The reason asking is that one guy in our group just doesn't like fishing with minnows and thinks leeches are the best bait ever.

Yea I know later in the season things change to crawlers and leeches. But for early season what's your thoughts about crawlers and leaches?

StillFishin'

[VermilionGold]

We fished both minnows and leeches today, had about an equal catch rate.

[jjz]

Crawlers/leeches work as good often better than minnows. They become a problem when other fish (panfish, small walleyes, etc) get to it first, you will still get walleyes but you are mostly are wasting your bait on other fish you don't want to catch. Minnows usually are tougher, stay on the hook better, and yield more walleyes when large amounts of other small fish are in the area simply because your not putting new bait on all the time. You can go through 20 or 30 bucks of crawlers/leeches in short order when perch, sunfish, rockbass, other bass, etc are in the same area you are eye fishing.

Good Luck

[Cliff Wagenbach]

We tried crawlers today for a while. We did not get even one bite on them!

Boated 60 walleyes on minnows though. As mentioned by others, there are tons of little fish biting right now. Happens every year at this time!

Cliff

[jbone7]

Coming up this weekend wondering what end is producing more walleyes? What type of rigs are you using Lindy's/jigs? What type of bait and depths are producing?

[SkunkedAgain]

Read the survey data. Nothing has changed. Big walleye on the west end, smaller and more plentiful walleye on the east end.

[Eyewitness]

First time up in a while. All I can say is wow, what a great weekend! Weather was phenomenal. Over 100 fish in my boat in about 10 hours of fishing. Unbelievable!

Cliff, I did see ya Sunday morning first thing at 7AM. Pulled up and you were right on the mark. ;-). Was gonna stop and say hi, but headed straight north and found a pile of fish. Couple of males were even still milking! Also got a bunch of tanks (jumbos). Nice to see the perch on the upswing again. Beautiful bonus additions to the live well for sure! Kept the kids busy and the bobbers going down with lots of happy smiles all around. :-)

[Opie]

Sounds like it was a great weekend Bob.

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Bob,

I thought that was you!

Glad that you did well!

Jennifer and I did well also in the morning.

Cliff

[Sota2Florida]

Finally made it up to the lake yesterday. What a great day to be out! Found a bunch of eater walleyes in 30 feet. Most likely due to the sun and no wind we had to use a short snell to keep it on the bottom. Small chubs were also the key.

[Passthru]

Water temps anyone? I know in the grand scheme of things they don't mean all that much, but for a guy who lives 800 miles away and only gets there one week a year, it's nice to hear them as it adds some color to the daydreams! Good luck to all whatever species you're chasin'.

[53orbigger]

Depending on time of day, wind, and location on the lake we saw 53-68 degrees over the past 6 days. The 53 degree water was on the west end on Sunday and was the only water we found that cold. The 68 degree water was found in some of the shallow mud bottom bays when we were fishing for pike. Most areas were right about 60 degrees.

[SkunkedAgain]

63 in Black Bay on Sunday when I jumped in for a swim

[JerkinLips]

63°F in Stuntz Bay on Sunday.

[Deet]

Can someone please share their latest reading of water temp? And maybe comment of the time of day and the weather that day, if you would be so kind. Thanks.

[JerkinLips]

Stuntz Bay was 69°F on Friday, May 30 under sunny skies, and 65°F on Saturday when it was cloudy.

[Deet]

Wow! Thanks for sharing.