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Best bait?


Creek Kid

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I'm gonna be on the big pond Friday night/Saturday morning on the S or SW end. What's the best bait to be using right now? Seems like leeches start losing their effectiveness this time of year. I realize the bite is slowing down. Are they still all over or are they starting to concentrate on certain areas? How's the night bite? Any info is appreciated.

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Just got back from a great trip with my daughter. She'd never caught a BIG walleye before so I thought we'd give it a shot. She used crawlers on a harness and I used leeches and she out fished me 2 to 1. And the look on her face when she landed a 28"er was something I will never forget. Seemed like wherever we went we (or she) caught fish. 7-mile, the boot, and 8-mile seemed like favorites. Good luck!

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Thanks WalleyeWizard! Were you using a floater or just a plain harness/hooks? Spinner? This will be my second time there this year. Last time was my first time aside from a launch trip. Would really like to improve our success rate as we didn't do well when everyone else was murdering them. Right now the plan is drifting a crawler harness w/floater, 6' leader, no spinner. Or, slip bobbers, with minnows or leaches and a red bead. Right, wrong? Close? Sorry for all of the questions. I'm pretty much a beginner here so any replies are appreciated. Just want to put few in the boat to get my picture taken with :-)

[This message has been edited by Creek Kid (edited 07-31-2002).]

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Creek Kid, most of our(her) fish were caught on a standard crawler harness with red beads and a brass spinner. I tried everything from a long line (6') Lindy rig to a single hook spinner with a leech. Saw a lot of fish caught on long lines. I think my problem was my line was out of the water so much while I netted her fish that I didn't stand a chance. I still loved every minute of it though. Seemed like most of the fish were on the downwind side of the flats. Best of luck and let us know how you do.

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This post is mostly just to say thanks for the info. My overnighter was hampered by gremlins in my boat's electrical system and mother nature. We did bobber fish from 10-2 a.m. Friday night. Marked a lot of fish but nothing was biting. We tried leaches and crawlers. The fish were in 24 feet +. Saturday we threw for muskies and had a follow and saw a tail. Then the weather chased us away. I think I'm done with Mille Lacs for awhile. Everyone we talked to seemed to think the bite was pretty much gone. Maybe I'll be back in Sept.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
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