2023 Lake Vermilion Fishing Reports

[mulefarm]

Off the subject, but did anyone see that older small orange boat with a white mercury driven by a younger kid. Boat looked awesome!

[StillFishin']

Didn’t see it.  What part of the lake?

[mulefarm]

By Ludlow's

[mbeyer]

less weeds on the west end.....is that good or bad?

[partyonpine]

Hows the fising been?  Seeing the walleyes school back up yet?  Or still mainly late summer/early fall pattern.  Going to try it all next week.

 

[CigarGuy]

Edited September 22, 2023 by CigarGuy

[Rivergroup]

Bringing my kids up tomorrow for a few days. Any advice?!

[JerkinLips]

Was up Tuesday and Wednesday this week for a UHV ride to Ely.  Made it out fishing for a few hours those days.  Walleye bite for me was fairly slow but I was only using leftover crawlers.  Most others I saw were using minnows so maybe they were having better luck.  Fall colors should be at peak on Vermilion.  Weather doesn't look the greatest however. Good luck and enjoy the fall season on the lake.

[Rivergroup]

2 hours ago, JerkinLips said:

Was up Tuesday and Wednesday this week for a UHV ride to Ely.  Made it out fishing for a few hours those days.  Walleye bite for me was fairly slow but I was only using leftover crawlers.  Most others I saw were using minnows so maybe they were having better luck.  Fall colors should be at peak on Vermilion.  Weather doesn't look the greatest however. Good luck and enjoy the fall season on the lake.

Thank you. Yes, weather does look sketchy but we'll make the best of it. Looking forward to the colors and just getting away.

[JerkinLips]

A few pics of our ride.

 

[redlabguy]

The colors are getting good. Beautiful time of year. Maples are full red and birch and aspen are going too. 

I’m not finding a formula for walleyes. Best luck when fishing saddles and shoreline drop offs 10’ down to 20’. I’m using old crawlers, too, because a) it’s hard to find minnows although Northwoods in Cook has them and b) it’s been too warm to keep them alive. 

We do have a change in weather happening right now. Wind is coming up and the temperature is dropping. It’s going to be hard to fish Saturday through Monday but the change could be good after that. 
Good luck, you’ll need some. They are out there and you’ll get dinner but you’ll have to work for them.

RLG

[leech~~]

9 hours ago, JerkinLips said:

A few pics of our ride.

 

I've seen that caving on a few web pages. What trail is that on?  It would be cool to ride by.

[JerkinLips]

11 hours ago, leech~~ said:

I've seen that caving on a few web pages. What trail is that on?  It would be cool to ride by.

There are actually 3 tree carvings on the trail from Soudan to Ely.  I saw 2 of them but missed the 3rd.  I believe that trail is the Prospector Trail #4 or #6.  You have to start from the parking lot on the Murray Road 2 miles past Soudan since several property owners on the old railroad bed didn't allow off-road vehicles on their properties.  Another option is to travel from Tower to Embarrass then on to Ely, but that adds a couple hours to the trip.

[leech~~]

 

11 hours ago, JerkinLips said:

There are actually 3 tree carvings on the trail from Soudan to Ely.  I saw 2 of them but missed the 3rd.  I believe that trail is the Prospector Trail #4 or #6.  You have to start from the parking lot on the Murray Road 2 miles past Soudan since several property owners on the old railroad bed didn't allow off-road vehicles on their properties.  Another option is to travel from Tower to Embarrass then on to Ely, but that adds a couple hours to the trip.

Thanks, I'm riding this now TW200 so not sure I can get on any of the ATV trails. Might have to sled by in the winter!

Edited September 24, 2023 by leech~~

[Rivergroup]

We sere able to grab a good amount of crappies and bass but not much for walleye. That being said, always sad to leave the lake for the season but we'll be back eventually.   

[Wakemupwalleye]

On 9/25/2023 at 10:09 PM, Rivergroup said:

We sere able to grab a good amount of crappies and bass but not much for walleye. That being said, always sad to leave the lake for the season but we'll be back eventually.   

Haven’t fished crappie this time of year. I’m on the west end this weekend and would love some tips. Thanks!

[Rivergroup]

10 hours ago, Wakemupwalleye said:

Haven’t fished crappie this time of year. I’m on the west end this weekend and would love some tips. Thanks!

Where are you staying?

[MarkB]

My cousin and I just returned from beautiful Lake Vermilion after 4.5 days of the most spectacular walleye fishing you could ever hope for. Usually our mutual friend joins us but his father passed away and he had to opt out. We arrived late Saturday afternoon and packed things up after our morning outing Wednesday. We stopped at Cabelas on the way up and found them to be sold out of pike suckers. While they had them, they were charging 99 cents each! We then stopped at Harris bait shop and found a help yourself situation that was also out of pike suckers. They sold them while available for 6 for $6! We eventually found them locally for the same price as last year. During our stay, we used pike suckers, rainbow mix, and crawlers. The walleyes hit them all but, I believe, the rainbow mix caught the most, the crawlers were almost as productive, and the pike suckers produced the biggest fish.  We caught them in depths ranging from 13' to 27'. They were in the rocks and in the mud depending on the time of day. We caught walleyes all day every day with 5 o'clock PM to ~7 o'clock PM being optimum for quantity. The weather was absolutely HORRIBLE with high winds and non-stop rain early in the trip. Boat control was very difficult and I struggled to keep our speed around that .4mph to .6mph. Hits were fast and furious but the hit to catch ratio was at best 5 or more hits to one catch . We stuck with the 1oz bottom bouncers, 3 red beads, and a size 2 hook for the big suckers. I found a shorter 3' leader to be most effective. We caught 153 walleyes on our trip and I would bet we had at least 5 times that many hits!. Now, with all that said, we don't feed line to walleyes to help avoid gut hooks and that certainly gives rise to a poor hook-up ratio. We ate fish twice and brought home our limits. Everything else went back. The walleyes ranged in size from ~13" to 26". We caught lots of slot fish and fair numbers of 15"-19" fish. In addition, we caught 10 smallmouth and only one jumbo. Our really big fish were never landed. My cousin had a true giant walleye laying on top of the water right beside the boat and grabbed her by the base of the tail in an attempt to scoop her into the boat. She was having none of that and with a major flop, snapped the leader. We didn't use a net because I forgot it at the dock. Getting old is a bitch. I had two different walleyes(I'm sure) hooked on Tuesday that came off directly below the boat. Both fish I thought were snags when they hit. Anyone who thinks walleyes don't fight have never caught a truly big one. Both fish ran off several yards of line while fighting to get free. Eventually they both succeeded. I would hesitate to say how big I think my cousins fish was that he had beside the boat, but, my wife and I have caught some really big walleyes in Lake Vermilion and I know what a big walleye looks like. That walleye was absolutely enormous. 

We've decided to bring my cousin's two sons back up for a short trip a little later on. Hopefully, the walleyes will still be in a feeding frenzy. Lastly, I usually like to include pictures with my posts. I have a big problem this time, I got a new phone and I know nothing about transferring the pictures. That will be remedied when we come back up. In the meantime.......

Good Fishing,

MarkB

[redlabguy]

Thanks for a great report, Mark. Glad you’re still getting up to the lake and enjoying great fishing. Bet you never forget your net again.
Glad you found minnows. They’ve been hard to get. Northwood Bait in Cook is the most reliable local option. I ended the season on crawlers because my minnows didn’t survive hot weather earlier that week.

We left the island on Monday, the 25th because we had a brief break in the high winds and rain. The fishing was good that weekend but I didn’t get much fishing in with closing chores.

Good luck on your next trip. I wish good weather for you!

[partyonpine]

Had a great Wens-Sunday of fishing.  We crushed walleyes, we caught them as shallow as 2 feet and deep as 34 feet our best fishing was 14-20 feet.  Backside of Pine seemed most successful for us.  We did not keep any fish but could have had a heck of a fish fry if we wanted to.  5 slot fish over the week.  Lot of big big perch, our biggest was 14.5 inches.  I would say a dozen over 12 inches.  We used redtails and jigs for most of the success.  We did catch some fish on leadcore at 20 feet and trolling long lines at 2.5 mph.  Compared to prior years the average fish was closer to 14 inches years past more in the 11 inch range.  Excited to get back up Oct 10-14th.

[mbeyer]

We spent Tuesday sept 26 to this Tuesday on the east end of the lake. Very consistent temperature and that southern wind with a bit of cloud cover was great for walleye fishing. We followed the wind and fished wind blown points and shoreline.  A few minutes on the graph showed us fish most places.  We saw fish, caught those fish.  We tend to fish lindy rigs but fished entirely jigs and minnows,  (y-store had plenty of bait).  Didn’t go to Big Bay but probably left some schooling fish for someone else. Caught fish all times of the day.  Didn’t need to low light for success.  Last two days of warmer temps and full sun slowed the bite a bit.  Didn’t see the 30” pigs as others have referred to but saw plenty over 20 and many of those smaller fish to remind us of the future health of the walleye population. Got to love the jig bite……

[MarkB]

Returned today from 3.5 phenomenal days on beautiful Lake Vermilion. The weather stunk for the most part(35 degree cold and 25mph+ winds gusting to 35+ made fishing difficult) but we toughed it out and caught lots of fish. We had 4 people this time including my cousin Tim and his two sons. Bait was absolutely no problem and we used suckers and BIG rainbows exclusively. The fishing was superb from early morning(if you could stand the cold) until about 11 o'clock and from 4 o'clock until dark. At the beginning of the trip, water temperatures were 60.7 degrees and yesterday they had dropped to 54.5 degrees. Terminal tackle didn't seem to make any difference whatsoever and the walleyes clobbered both the suckers and rainbows with equal enthusiasm. The strong winds made maintaining the proper speed difficult but if I could keep the boat in that .4mph-.6mph range, they jumped on the baits consistently. We caught walleyes, northerns, and bass on the trip. We caught lots of slot fish with the majority in the 21" to 24". We got into one small school of fish that evidently contained all slot fish as we caught 5 out of the school that were all slot fish. The northerns and bass were right down with the walleyes. The best walleye of the trip measured 26", the best northern measured 35", and the best bass measured 17". We had 3 walleyes grabbed and ripped up by muskies(we presume) on the way to the boat and lots of our walleyes had gashes on them. We ate walleyes 3 times while there and returned the rest. The majority of our walleyes measured 14"-19". As usual, we missed countless hits and one of my cousins lost 5 big fish right at the boat. Most of the fish were hooked in the boney upper jaw. All things considered, it was a wonderful experience and we can't wait to return next year.

I have a few pictures this time because I finally learned how to transfer them to my computer. The pictures aren't meant to chronicle anything other than a few family members enjoying each others company on the most beautiful lake in Minnesota. 

Good Fishing,

MarkB

 

 

[ReidgSaarela]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here but figured I would share some results from my last outing as they very similar to mark’s. We fished 3 days this past weekend and battled  high winds and rain for most of it. Although fishing was great! Jig and minnow off the edges of deep, mid lake structure was where we found our success. Anywhere from 26-32ft depending on time of day. Included are some pictures of the highlights. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by ReidgSaarela

[leech~~]

3 hours ago, ReidgSaarela said:

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here but figured I would share some results from my last outing as they very similar to mark’s. We fished 3 days this past weekend and battled  high winds and rain for most of it. Although fishing was great! Jig and minnow off the edges of deep, mid lake structure was where we found our success. Anywhere from 26-32ft depending on time of day. Included are some pictures of the highlights. 

 

 

 

 

High winds and rain but you still had the grill cooken!    Looks like a great time out there and welcome back to the forum!  

[JerkinLips]

Fished Wednesday-Friday morning this week.  Fishing was great the first 2 days although the eyes were quite small for me.  My biggest was only 16 inches.  Then Friday morning they seemed to shut down.  Only managed a handful of 8-9" perch and one little 9" walleye before I finally quit for the week.  Pike suckers were the best for me (only $6/dozen and perfect 3" size at Vermilion Fuel and Food).  Chubs were a distant second best and caught a lot more perch than pike suckers did.  When fishing was very good I even tried some crawlers I had left over and still caught walleyes.  No decent fish to take pictures of but at least I enjoyed the fall colors still on the lake.

 

Good luck fishing this weekend.  Could be quite busy on Vermilion as I saw a lot of trailers heading up north when I was driving home Friday evening.  However most of them were pulling ATVs/UHVs.  Enjoy fall on Vermilion.

[Brianf.]

Jeff and I fished lake V this past weekend on a multi-species mission...walleyes early and late, smallies at mid-day, and crappies at night.  We also keep a rigged muskie rod on the deck as we always seem to run into some during the course of the day, 
 

The bite was pretty good for all species, though the highlight was the school of mega crappies we found on Sunday night.  For about 2O minutes we were in 'Crappie Disneyland', catching one giant 14" to 16" slab after another.  Then the school dispersed, but what an awesome experience!   

Edited October 24, 2023 by Brianf.

[Lunderfull]

Nice Crappies I've never caught a crappie in this lake what were they bighting on ETC? Going to head up this weekend and brave the cold to and do a little fishing and more winter prep. 

[Brianf.]

^^^Pitching 1/16 jig & plastic, 10' of water, shoreline related.  Honestly, I think we just got incredibly lucky to have found this particular school.  In my original post, I failed to mention that we let them all go. They're all still swimming, none the worse for wear. 
 

Good luck up there! 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Brianf.

[ReidgSaarela]

Had what was most likely my last open water trip of the season this past weekend. Fishing was great again, despite a fairly light bite and lots of misses on hooksets. If I had to guess we were 1/5 on bites to hook ups, if not worse! Even some of the slot fish we caught bit very light.  
 

Highlight of the trip was a beautiful 30.5 inch walleye my friend caught on the first morning out. It was incredible how thick that fish was from head to tail.  We landed a handful of other nice walleyes and a 40” pike that we thought was an even bigger walleye 

 

I didn’t catch any of the big fish this weekend, but I sure had a great time being the net man! Hard to beat vermilion in the fall. 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by ReidgSaarela

[JerkinLips]

Fished Tuesday and Wednesday for my last open water fishing this year.  I also found the bite was fairly light.  I probably missed 2 for every 1 I caught.  Didn't catch many but caught my largest smallmouth (18"), northern (32") and walleye (22") of this open water season.  The northern broke one of my lines, then I landed him about 15 minutes later on a new line.  Safely removed both hooks from his mouth.  I caught the same 22" walleye 3 times over the two days.  I was sure it was the same fish because of the injury on her right cheek  and a mid-body scar also.  Weather was decent for me, but it doesn't sound very nice the next week.  Pulled the boat out of the water and winterized our mobile home.  If you still venture out this open water season, good luck and enjoy the end of fall.