Pelican Lake Fishing Reports - Ashby

[#fishhunt#]

Did you notice all of the reminance of the lake fly hatch on the water?It was crazy. Not sure if that affected any of the fishing or not but they were all over. The gnats were bad also.

Tried seining shiners on friday in the outlet and never got a minnow. Did manage to get 3-4 doz at my other spot. I think they are done running. Tons of boats Saturday all day.

On Saturday between my brother and I 6:30 am -9:30am)we picked up 6 notherns(one 9.5 lbs) all released, 2 walleyes (18"&22") kept the 18, and 1 19.5 inch largemouth. Pretty slow. Tried again at 3:00 but never had a bite. I heard Phillips Point produced some fish on Saturday night. I didnt make coots either as we had a big wild game feast at the cabin. Venison steaks duck appetizer. Good eats! Plus not sure the sheriff or anyone else would have wanted us out on the lake.

Sunday was better for Walleyes. My dad and I caught 7 and kept 5 along with a couple Northerns. 2 over 20" released.We missed 7. The shiner we had were pretty big and it was tough to get a good set into them. My brother caught a couple northerns and missed a couple. He saw 1 guy catch a couple crappies in the reeds around Bird Island 13-14 inchers. Nothing in numbers though. I think it is still going to be a few years before the crappies get back to where they were before the 07 issue. he told my brother a 7 and 8 lbs walleye were caught Saturday.

Back up on Memorial day for a four day mini vacation. Hopefully they will be going a little stronger.

[duckhuntr21]

Which bay do you refer to as Widow's bay? I have heard two different bays called that and was wondering which is which. The one that I think..or thought is was is on the northeast side of the main lake. It sort of runs north and south and there is only 3 or 4 cabins on the bay.

[#fishhunt#]

Widows Bay is to the West of Cty Rd 19 right after Big Point Road

[BoxMN]

email sent jj, thanks! we leave friday morning, till sunday.

btw - I caught a 48" sturgeon on st croix yesterday, wow, what a fight! first ever sturgeon for me, total fluke, haha.

[#fishhunt#]

Did anyone get out with the wind?

[BoxMN]

We did. But boy was it windy. On Friday we hit from narrows a bit, then went to south shore, and hunted Vodka Point area, and the grassy island (between bird island and vodka point) and basically got nothing but pike. Friday afternoon we stayed in more the narrows and tin shed, and not much. I think 3 walleyes on cranks.

On Saturday We went fromt he resort over to Phillips ppt and pretty much stayed in the calm from the pt down to Indian Mounds and my stepson caught lots of pike casting a shap rap to shore as we drowned shiners and worms getting nothing, ha! Boy was it a ride getting out there, a bit better going back with the wind.

Ended up having enough for fish fry on Saturday for a bunch of us, and then a few walleyes Sunday morning on crawlers. I thought it was going to be a much better fishing and weather weekend, but we still had fun and had plenty of tugs on the line, mostly from pike though

Thanks for tips JJ, maybe see you out there next time!

[#fishhunt#]

Box, thanks for the update. Nothing wrong with eating notherns on Pelican this time of the year when the water is still cool. I'm heading up Thursday to try and find some walleye. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Did you use spinners with live bait or straight lindy plain hook? I think it is going to be a weird year trying to find walleyes with any consistency on Pelican but it's always worth trying. Was on Mille Lacs last weekend. We had 7 in our group and we ended up with 26 keepers and about 10 releasers for Friday night and Saturday. Nothing huge 24 inch was the biggest. I'll give an update next Tuesday on Pelican.

[SJMyers32]

Fished Pelican on Friday on a wind blown shoreline. No eyes but a couple of northerns including an 8-10 pounder lost boatside. Fun to get out with a friend of mine until the wind really picked up. Packed up and headed to Norway, nothing special to post same scenario. Spinners in seven to ten feet of water.

[#fishhunt#]

Tough going last weekend. The walleyes are not cooperating where I think they should be. Winds were blowin pretty good out there. Wasn't picking up anything jigging (and ran out of juice on the batteries)so switched over to wind blown reeds and started speed trolling (3-4 mph)floating raps in 7-9 fow. My wife and I picked up 3 walleyes and 5 northerns in 1.25 hours. Tough fishing in those waves and speedtrolling. It made the fish feel like they were 5 pounders. That was it for walleyes for me the rest of the weekend. My brother and his son got into some nice gills Sunday pm and Monday am. Not a limit but some nice fish. He also picked up a two scattered walleyes on spinners and crawlers and my dad picked up a nice 23.5 inch walleye that was released speed trolling. Anyone else have any luck on Pelican?

[Elkaholic80]

Slow fishing this weekend. Spent alot of time on the lake this weekend with not much to show for it. Fished a walleye, northern tournament today and out of 12 boat only 2 eyes caught.

[jjohnson5150]

I have been up for the past 2 weekends. Fishing has been good for me. I was out at sunrise yesterday AM & got into a few Pike. One of them I hooked in the tail. What an incredible fight that was. It was a decent Pike to begin & having that fish swim in the opposite direction many times made for a heck of a battle. I also got a bonus slab 1.5 lb White Crappie. The time I spent on the dock was used to soak giant suckers under a bobber with decent results. Sorry to hear about the coots tourney being slow again this year. What was the winning weight for Pike? Did anyone hear how the Bass tourney went?

[Elkaholic80]

Not sure what the total northern weight was, the biggest northern was 36in, and the biggest eye was around 25in. The pike was ok, its just to bad the eyes didn't cooperate this weekend. Not sure how the bass tourney went.

[#fishhunt#]

Anyone get out last weekend or heading up for the fourth? I am heading up camping this weekend with the family Friday Sat Sunday(probably mostly sunfish with the kids) then back to work for 3 days and back up over the fourth for 6 days for walleye(hopefully.It gets tougher this time of the year. May have to look into finding some new spots or techniques plus there is always bass fishing for fun.

[#fishhunt#]

1.5 hours of fishing walleyes got a 16 and a 25.5 my dad got a 22 and a 24. Kept the 16 others were released. Kids caught 10 decent keeper gills for appetizers Saturday night. More of a weekend for the kids swimming, 4 wheeling, sunfishing. Going back up on Wednesday evening after work for 6 days.

[jjohnson5150]

Spent the last 9 days at the lake. Got into the Walleyes pretty good one evening into the dark, but the mosquitos were absolutely horrible & drove me off the lake. Ended up with 3 walleye that night. One went 27.5. I didn't have a scale, so it went back without a weight. Best guess was 8 lbs. Caught many, many pike each time I went out in the daytime. Fishing was pretty good after all the 4th of July weekend boat traffic pulled out.

[#fishhunt#]

JJ, good to see you got into some action. Nice fish on the 27.5er. It figures they bite after I leave. I only ended up with and 18 and 22 in walleyes on Friday b4 the fouth. Also had a few northerns and a 2 nice Crappies. Care to divulge what your bait of choice was for the walleyes and pike? I assume not much wind on the lake since the bugs were bad. I am going to try the thermocell that I have for bowhunting, to see if it helps on those calm evenings. I may be heading up Saturday to put up a shed and possibly get out for a couple hours.

[#fishhunt#]

Anyone out last weekend. Gonna try it this weekend. Sounds like the weather will cooperate.

[#fishhunt#]

********Finally******** Cty Rd 19 has been blacktopped!!! and the road between Evansville and 19 has been reopened also.

Fishing was brutal. Did pick up 4 walleyes in the 7 to 10 inch range. I guess thats good news for 2012. Surprised they made it that long with the 3000 cormorants on the lake.

Even the northerns were difficult to come by. I guess it is that time of the year on Pelican Lake.

[jjohnson5150]

I had the same luck this weekend. It was SLOW. If someone can show me where the sunfish are I'll give you $1. It might be time to hang some jumbo suckers off the end of the dock. The big suckers from Melby are always fun. Go get a big bobber, fireline, leaders, jumbo hooks, loosen the drag & find a place to wedge your rod. The new moon & full moon in Aug might change the bite. I bet it will be game on for the Sept new & full moon.

[#fishhunt#]

Wish I could tell you where the sunfish were. I tried that for a while also with no luck. My wife and father-in-law caught a couple nice ones trolling spinners and crawlers for walleyes. Lots of pecking at the crawler going on so I assume sunfish and/or perch. They were fishing along the East shore out of the narrows towards Big Point and also along the east side of Big Point in 8-9 FOW. I'm sure there are quite a few smaller ones under the docks and boat lifts also but I'm not a fan of getting close to others docks.

[GRA]

Sometimes wonder if with all the weeds in 8 ft. of water and less, if they're scattered all over the place. A couple spots that used to produce a few sunfish years back--nothing.

[#fishhunt#]

Same here. There are a ton of places they can go in this lake that is for sure. So many bays. Got a few sunnies over Memorial day weekend but July and August used to be the go to months for sunnies on Pelican. Maybe deep pencil reeds around Phillips. We used to find the thickest pencil reeds and get right in there with the boat. I think they use them for shade when it is sunny out. I'm just hoping for 1 more decent weekend for walleye and northern. Maybe Labor Day or Opening Duck hunting. Its has been disappointing for me this year except on opener and Memorial which were decent. Nothing like last year. I caught a lot of fish that I let go over 18 inches and caught at least something almost every weekend. Still good to get out on the lake though.

[jjohnson5150]

Fishing has been absolutely horrible as of late. Nothing to report but failures. I'm going to wait to see what happens when the water cools. I'll be sitting in a few ft of water with my cooler until then.

On a sad note, it appears as if the Eagles nest SW of bird island went down with the tree in a recent storm. I've reported this to the DNR, but they will likely let nature runs it's course. Hopefully, the nest will be rebuilt.

[#fishhunt#]

Wont be up til Labor Day. Something has to change soon. Probably wont start picking up til first of Oct.

That really sucks about the Eagle's nest. It was always nice to take a boat ride and see them over there.

[jjohnson5150]

The eagles were still there, so I hope they stick around & rebuild in that area. We were really bummed also.

[jjohnson5150]

Has anyone been out lately? If so, any luck? I'll be hitting the lake this weekend for some power fishing and hope to have a good report when I get back. This same weekend last year was really productive.

[#fishhunt#]

JJ,

Was out over Labor Day wekkend and fishing was tough. We had 4 people fishing and caught 8 walleyes with 4 keepers between 15-18 inches and 4 too small. We used jig and minnows. Only 1 northern that we had on that spit the jig. Tried all around Phillips Point area, Big Sunken and Little Sunken and never had a bite which was a little depressing. Our best bites were in evening when we caught 6 of the 8 on Sunday night between 5-7. We fished the same spot in the Sunday morning and caught nothing and it seemed like they were coming up out of the deeper water and hitting in 8 feet towards evening. Hoping to be back up duck opener to fish a little. The kids caught a bunch of little sunnies and perch under the dock that they released. Lots of bait fish in the lake. 16-17 turkeys continue to visit our cabin every morning and have since this spring. 2 broods. Kind of fun seeing them. They grow quick.

[jjohnson5150]

Those must be the same turkeys we have seen in our yard. It has been fun seeing them. The fishing has to turn around soon. Did you try after dark at all? I was never much of a fan of post sundown fishing on Pelican until this spring. We lit it up in the dark.

[#fishhunt#]

We used to fish off the dock a lot when we were younger after dark(Bullheads and an occasional crappie or walleye) but we usually head in at sunset now when in the boat. Got to get the kids to bed and stuff now. With the lake getting clearer early in the year I suppose it may be time to try the night fishing out in the boat again. Did you mostly use lighted bobbers on the breaks after dark or trolling rapalas?

[jjohnson5150]

Strictly trolling raps above where the weed line would grow in. I'll have to go inside or outside of the weed line if I'm going to do this in the fall.