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My son and I are coming up next weekend (1/30) for a long weekend of ice fishing. We fish up there every summer, but this is the first time in several years I've been up in the winter. Just wonder if any of the smaller local lakes have been producing any decent panfish. We usually fish Leven, Villard, and Amelia, but I'm willing to move around a little to get on some fish. Also, what are the requirements on a portable house. Do I need a license, where do I get it and how much. Thanks for any help.
Graybeard

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any place that sells licenses sells fish house license.i would fish on villard lake for panfish all last summer i was catching alot of nice sunfish on the east side and the west side they must still be there.the crappies are pretty decent to.minnewaska has alot of small panfish in it.

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I did pretty well for sunfish on Villard earlier this year. Couldn't find the crappies though. Were fishing on the West side along the weed edge. Most sunnies were keepers too! Also ran into a lot of small pike too. Anyone know if any walleyes ever bite on Villard?

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I have not had much luck on waska this year for sunnies. They say the bit is starting in Torgy's bay but I was out there this past weekend and all I got was perch that were smaller than shiners. Maybe with the snow cover now the bite might start to pick up.

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I FISH VILLARD ALOT DURING THE SUMMER BECAUSE ITS GOT ALOT OF NICE PANFISH IN IT.TRIED WALLEYES A FEW TIMES BUT NEVER ANY LUCK THEY MUST SWIM INTO AMELIA UNDER THE BRIDGE.

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stop right on in at Cenex on main street in villard and you can get bait, gas, licenses- the whole 9 yards. but as for the fishing.... i wouldnt waste me time around villard or amelia. ive been fishing these lakes for my entire lake, and i know for a fact that there isnt anything goin on on lake Villard right now and amelia is skittish too. leven is bad- somehow a rumor got spread that they were gettin some crappies out there now theres 30 houses and there still isnt anything biting.. i know theres walleyes in Villard and theres only about 3-4 places on the lake that hold eye's. Try the break along the resort on the north end or just to the east of the swimming beach in about 14' for crappies and walleyes, then the weedline along the west end, and the break along the south end with the sunken island coming off it. for panfish though- try minnewaska. anywhere along the glenwood side- find 10 feet of water and some weeds and you are gonna find sunnies and crappies.out from the lakeside ballroom. go just inside the first group, we usually pound the crappies and sunnies there later, but ive never fished it this early- id say thats also worth a try.

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Well, we spent the weekend fishing the area, and had mixed results. Friday my son and I were on our own, tried Leven first, no luck. We went to Minnewaska afternoon, not knowing the lake we just kinda followed the crowd. Not much there either. Saturday morning a friend of ours took us to a private lake, just caught a few little sunnies. Fished on Villard in the afternoon, out in front of the resort, and caught a mess of sunnies. We had to do a lot of sorting, but kept a decent mess. Kid had a lot of fun catching small northerns on tip-ups. Sunday, started over again, Tried Leven, nothing. Went to Villard, picked up a few more sunnies. Then we went to a small lake to the east, and caught a nice mess of perch, up to 10 inchers. Maybe not the greatest fishing weekend, but not bad, and we had a blast.

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Graybeard, was the private lake...Lake Marlu? Was out there once earlier in the year and could have caught all the northerns I wanted, but was after panfish. Did not catch jack. The ice was a little spooky at the time too. So I headed over to Smith Lake and limited on crappies in a couple of hours.

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how about that little lake just to the east of lake villard?? what would that be? ohh... never mind i think i figured it out...

10"ers over there??

if i am thinking correctly did you fish up by the culverts??

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Gogblon,

What lake?


Kicker

[This message has been edited by Kicker (edited 02-05-2003).]

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the only lake thats east of villard is Westport... ive heard reports that they are pickin up some northerns and a few perch, but every other time ive heard that i went myself and didnt do so hot. that lake is also about the most dangerous one in the county, lots of springs and bad ice. i speared out there a few years ago, and even when it got down to about 15 below, my spear hole stayed open, and actually grew bigger and bigger every day, so i had to move it about every 4-5 days or it would have fallen through..

also, the perch seem to congregate right in front of those culverts and thats all open water.. i dont know.. im going to Waubay this weekend!!

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Yes, Marlu sounds right, it was just south of town a little. Westport was where we caught the perch. They weren't all 10 inches by any means, but we caught about 35-40 keepers between all of us. Very few little ones, the only place we kept more than we threw back. We'd heard about the northerns there also, but we never had one hit, not even on tipups. I don't know about the culverts, we drove down the old boat ramp, and just went a little ways,fished not to far off the road.

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i fished westport for awhile this afternoon and picked up about 6-7 decent sized perch. pretty slow going for the most part though.. one or 2 fish every 15-20 minutes..

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  • 2 years later...

I'm looking for any information on Westport Lake. There's no profile on the DNR site that I could find. Any help thrown my way will be appreciated.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • smurfy
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