Fishing report?

[HaleDamage]

Good morning from Kansas,
I'm heading up to north central MN (Aitkin /Garrison) a week from Monday.
Pulling my boat up there will be $$$$$$$ I know.
Just filled up this morning $3.89

Just wondering How the Bite is in that part of the state..

Down here everything is about a month late.
The Crappie are in shallow right now.

Thanks.
And if you see an ugly old fart with KS plates in a dark gray GMC pickup - pulling a 18' deep V Tracker Targa -- That-will be me.

Rick

[IMFSHN]

I haven't been out since opener on the 11th, and am heading out tonight to check things out. We had one of those "You should have been here yesterday" days on opener. Every cast, and maybe 5 under 10" Good luck - with the drive and your time in MN fishing.

[Bob/MN]

The Gills and Crappies are up in the shallow now. I have been out twice and the bite was good but a lot of dinks to sort through. I see a lot of people doing well shore fishing also.

[no1son]

Good morning from Kansas,
I'm heading up to north central MN (Aitkin /Garrison) a week from Monday.
Pulling my boat up there will be $$$$$$$ I know.
Just filled up this morning $3.89

Just wondering How the Bite is in that part of the state..

Down here everything is about a month late.
The Crappie are in shallow right now.

Thanks.
And if you see an ugly old fart with KS plates in a dark gray GMC pickup - pulling a 18' deep V Tracker Targa -- That-will be me.

Rick

Everything up here is also about a month late at least.

As of a week ago yesterday the bite up here jumped to like $4.39 a gallon and more and has stayed there. If you are coming up I29 top er off before you leave Missouri. It only gets more expensive the farther north you go. It doesn't look to me like there is anything but expensive gas along I35 and that is certainly true the farther north you go up to and into Minnesota. (Also North Dakota and some parts of South Dakota) So I would recommend topping er off again around Sioux City or maybe a little south of that in Iowa (I29). Don't fill up in the Twin Cities if you can avoid it at all, if you take the I35 route, which is probably your most direct route, just don't hit the TwinCities during rush hour morning or evening, it can be almost stop and go for miles. Be careful about where you fill up, especially around the Aikin/Garrison area. For some reason Minnesota was targeted first for the higher prices even though the refineries down for extended maintenance are in remote states. (The route I would take would be I29 to Sioux Falls, dogleg east on I90 to just across the Minnesota border and then 23 all the way to 169, a real pretty drive, but with quite a bit of 2 lane a little bit of zig zag and a number of small towns.) We use 23 to get from my mother in NW Iowa to the Brainerd area, also pulling a boat every July and we like it.)

Have a look at GasBuddy.com when you plan your route.

The fish are biting, too, but it has been raining so much that near record low lake levels here in the Twin Cities have been almost totally reversed and the Corp of Engineers has closed the top locks on the Mississippi to small craft due to high water. They have been extremely fussy about lures and presentations for the most part, but the bite is there if you can work out the specifics. It seems like there must be white on the tail to get much attention this spring, white twisters, white tailed tubes, white shads that sort of thing, at least here in the Twin Cities.

Currently it is cooler than normal here too. So the best we have done is on shallow, wind protected waters open to the sun. When the sun is shining that is. But then we haven't been out much this spring either. Around here we have just started to see crappie males beginning to color up for the spawn.

If it is bass you are after, they are likely still on or before the spawn now too, but I have seen and had reports of 20"+ fish coming to crappie fishermen in quite shallow water, as well, including hook ups (yes plural) of my own. Big teeth (esox) are also hunting the shallows quite regularly. Where we fish cutoffs are nearly as common as snags. The big eaters are quite often eating tiny still this year.

We are still fishing what is normally April patterns up here, actually more than a month behind.

[HaleDamage]

Hey Thanks Guys..
I getting excited about heading north.
Fishing for just about anything that bites..LOL
Got ultra light rigs to Muskie rigs loaded.
Just kicking back and doing some R+R fishing.. Maybe even a brew or 2.
We will be staying and fishing with my bother-in-law in Aitkin area.
We try to hit a different lake every day..

Thanks again
Rick

[Bob/MN]

Hey Thanks Guys..
I getting excited about heading north.
Fishing for just about anything that bites..LOL
Got ultra light rigs to Muskie rigs loaded.
Just kicking back and doing some R+R fishing.. Maybe even a brew or 2.
We will be staying and fishing with my bother-in-law in Aitkin area.
We try to hit a different lake every day..

Thanks again
Rick

With the late spring we have had the bite is in full swing on most fish species at this time. Muskie fishing opens June 1.

[HaleDamage]

With the late spring we have had the bite is in full swing on most fish species at this time. Muskie fishing opens June 1.

Maybe I can get a Muskie this year.
We have had some "follows" but no hits.
Cider lake in Aitkin county has a few in it.
Rick

[no1son]

Best chance at a muskie without a guide is to go to the Minnesota DNR Lakefinder and check out the lakes in your chosen area for DNR muskie stocking patterns that are active. Chose a lake with the smallest size in acres to highest stocking level ratios you can find. The Lakefinder generally has stocking records.

The levels point to local muskie fishing interest and likely population levels, since they also point to heavy local muskie fisherman political pressure and the ability of those waters to hold persistent and catchable muskie populations. Very often you will also be able to note if local moneys and officially sanctioned private stocking is augmenting public efforts.

My impression is that state wide, curiously enough, those will be inside the Twin Cities, but the patterns apply across the state to regularly stocked waters. If those smaller lakes have a reputation for large crappies that is a negative but not a complete one,since crappies can outgrow targeting by all but the largest muskies, but the real negative is large sunfish, indicating that the muskie/human sunfish harvest ratio is too small to limit the life expectancy of the sunfish needed to grow to bull gill size.

Up here it takes 10 years to grow a 10" bluegill under good conditions. They have to be able to live that long on a regular basis. In heavily stocked small muskie waters, they don't.

Sunfish will never outgrow muskie predation in such lakes, but crappies may, if human take is small enough. In normal pike waters, sunfish, especially bluegills and some of the hybrids may outgrow most predation targeting, but muskies have enough size potential that sunfish never outgrow targeting and consequently have too little life expectancy to size up to their top local potential. Ask in the local bait shops about smaller lakes that have a reputation for panfishermen getting cut off by muskies stealing hooked panfish. That will also be a positive.

Big pike are not a negative, but lots of small pike are, since they will consume much of, if not all, the muskie stocking effort. The genus that contains both pike and muskies are preferential cannibals, and pike and muskies do not associate, in part because of that. Lots of small bluegills is a positive, especially if the other factors are also present.

Fish normal bass casting, etc. with that size bait and sooner or later, if you have the right water, a muskie will be a very real potential bonus.

Right now they are feeding after spawn, if that is over, in particular roving for schools of small bluegills and for ducklings, which is to say moving shallow quite frequently sometimes into barely enough enough water to cover themselves and will continue to do so except in the hottest periods. Muskies have a much greater temperature tolerance range than pike do and can grow to respectable size in waters that cannot produce trophy pike.

If you watch the weedline closely, especially in the afternoons, you may see them patrolling, feeding occasionally as they move.

Catching a muskie for a neophyte is always chancy, but they are relatively common bonus fish for bass and panfishermen in many waters if you pick your lake properly, but cut off ratios to bite will be pretty high. Heavy stocking ratios mean heavy muskie targeting, which is why smaller presentations are your best bet.
One other thing, a live bluegill under a bobber would be prime bait, especially presented to visible fish, but do not use it. It is strictly illegal in Minnesota with heavy penalties. Same for using yellow perch or any other game fish. Same for using goldfish or carp, for that matter.

If you would be satisfied with a mid to upper 30's to low 40's muskie then normal block and tackle style traditional muskie equipment is not necessary, either. Your normal tackle will do just fine, provided you are skillful enough to handle an extended battle. They are not that strong for their size. I have landed several in that range on 5' ultralight rods with 4# test line and you are up for an extended battle. Just make sure your drag is set properly and not too tight. Those fish took crappie sized tubes on jigs with size 6 hooks. BTW those takes were soft on the order of crappie style one-timers, little more than a single tap. You will get more aggressive strikes on bass plugs. Bluegill patterns in bass lures are often very good for both bass and muskies in the right stocked waters.

To me stocked muskies are a plague, but I have to deal with them on nearly every trip out, both through the ice and all throughout open water fishing. I watch for them and observe those I see pretty closely. Around here they are after the same quarry I am; so our paths cross quite often.

[HaleDamage]

Thanks Guys,
We had a super Relaxing fishing trip north.
We fished a different lake each day for 9 days.
And we caught nice fish each day.
Found some nice crappie in 2 feet of water on one lake.
While Crappie fishing, I hooked a huge Dogfish.
Man what a battle. It broke my 6# line at the boat.
I really did not want to boat that monster.
At one of the boat ramps, something punched a large hole in one of the boat trailer tires as we were pulling my boat out of the water.
The hole was to big to patch..So I have a new tire.
Now back to work.