fishing with the kiddos over memorial day.

[DonkeyHodey]

Don’t ya love when the weather forecasters are wrong?  S’pose to rain all weekend, but we were blessed with overcast/partly sunny weather.

 

Over the weekend, we fished around on 3 little lakes (all <200 acres) in Bemidji area (Clearwater county).  One lake was already up to 66 degrees in the middle! 

Most vegetation is still low except a few lily pads were just hitting the surface at the shallows; bulrushes are still dried/brown.  With the warmer weather this week, I’ll bet the lakes will start filling out with vegetation in a matter of days and probably be growing fast.

 

Sunny/crappie bite was nice on Sat; dead on Sunday—had to work to find them though.  (Morning bites were poor--Afternoons much better.  Evening is always good…)

(males were staging; females weren’t around yet)  Their location varied between hugging emergent bulrushes to being suspended at ~8 feet in ~15 feet of water.  (the suspended ones weren’t biting, though)  We were using slip bobbers with 1/32 flu flus and nightcrawlers.

Found some nice perch hugging the bottom in 7-10 FOW jigging with 1/16 pink/white beetle-bou jigs.

 

Once sonny boy starting catching northerns casting a shad rap, then princess wanted to catch a nort too; so our fishing trip shifted from casting bobbers to trolling with spoons and the norts were very cooperative—getting 1-2 strikes every time down a simple shoreline of ~100 yds.  Norties were fat and healthy!

Princess caught her PB northern!

 

Hoping to be back fishing around in Stearns and Morrison county (central MN) this weekend and got another getaway planned for next week.  Happy Fishing!

[KidMoe]

Looks like a great time and some big smiles! You’re gonna have the kiddos rousing early you every weekend for more time on the water!

[ANYFISH2]

Nice to trip for the family it looks like.

A round home here in central MN, the fish are very much in that phase of, 

 

Bass- they are three phase right now, some are post spawn, some are spawning and on beds, other are still pre-spawn and staging.  Nice that most tactics can work on a single lake but each day is different.

 

Panfish are similar, most fish are still staging but alot of males are shallow and some beds are being swept.

 

Pike-have been all over the board here.  I have figures out a great system yet.

 

Walleye- are still preferring shiners and other minnows right now.  Leeches have not really produced well with the exception of the river bite.  Most fish still biting in less than 16ft of water.

 

Water temps- continue to be very lake dependent.  I have been seen 60-65 degrees on most smaller lakes and the bigger 2000 acre lakes I am seeing from 55-60 degrees main lake.