Valentine LAKE by bethel college

[fishyje]

j/w but, are there any fish in this lake? my sister goes to Mounds View High School and i drive past it all the time. Just curious

[wall-i-king]

Yeah there are fish in there. A fair number of northerns and bass as well as a pretty good population of panfish. I have only fished it in the summer but I am sure that you could get fish through the ice as well. It gets pretty choked in the summer but get out there and give it a shot. If I still had friends at Bethel I might have tried it myself. Get out there at some point and try it and let us all know how you do. Good luck

keep fishin'

wall-i-king

[so haaad]

I used to live very close to Valentine, so I've fished it a handful of times in the winter. I've caught a few perch and a few small northerns. I caught my smallest northern ever...about 4 inches long. I also heard there are bass. The problem is that the lake isn't very deep. I heard that it freezes out every few years or so. Another spot you can try for craps and northerns is the pond in the northeast corner of 35W and County Road D. I've got some bigger northerns out of there. Would you believe it's over 20 feet deep??? It's a nice place to fish on a Friday afternoon...you can wave at everyone sitting in the traffic jam on 35W!

[The Grebe]

I gave the lake a whirl a couple years in a row and did'nt do much, a couple little snakes and some small bass.

I talked to a few people and they said that they used to get afew crappies out of there, but that the lake froze out and it was'nt any good anymore...I tried it anyways.

I tried it a few times last summer also, in the spring, trying to get some Crappies, but the lake is loaded with Carp, I did'nt do anything.

[BigStevie]

I went to Bethel and we used to fish Valentine all the time. Back then (90-94) we used to catch bass and pike... bass in the 2-4lb range and pike in the 2-7lb range. The action wasn't fast and furious, but the fish were a bit bigger than average. The lake did freeze out a few years back. It was a mess in the spring. The whole campus smelled of rotting fish! Kids were putting dead carp on each others cars etc. It wasn't pretty. The deepest part in the lake is supposedly 11 feet, but that was a small hole in front of the dock that Bethel puts out. Other wise you'll be hard pressed to find anything over 5-6 ft. Please keep us posted if anyone fishes it this year. I'd be interested to hear how you do.

[fishyje]

thanks for the replies guys...i did see one guy ice fishing last week sometime, he was all alone...guess there's no pressure if you get out on here haha, but hey if i decide to fish this lake on a lazy saturday afternoon, i'll see how i do