Thread: MINNESOTA... How's the bite this year?

My apologies CTom, I forgot this forum doesn't show sub-replies in it's default flat mode.

Thank you for the T.H. insight. We usually head up each year and spend some time in the gooseberry area or at Superior Shores, but I haven't fished while up there.

Take a spinning rod, medium action 6 or 6'6" will be fine and load with 6 pound mono. Use a good ball bearing swivel on ALL lures. Pick up some gold/orange stripe lil cleos in 2/5 ounce and Kroks in 1/4 ounce. A plain Mepps spinner in gold with the orange plastic tube on the treble in a size 4 or 3 will finish the gold stuff out nice. Blue/chrome and green/chrome works ok too. The water is up so you won't need much but do take a net. For the lakers, cast and let the lure free fall [bail open] to the bottom. When the line goes slack, bring it in using a moderately slow retrieve. This works good on lakers. For the others, cast, count down to as much as twenty and retrieve with a moderately fast retrieve speed. Fish in the higher water column will chase real good and generally are faster swimming than those down deep. From the dogleg to the end of the breakwater expect the water depths on the harbor side to be between 35 and 60 feet, the deeper stuff at the end of the wall. On the outside the water depths are generally in the 70's feet deep. Off the end its about 77-79 feet right now.

Thanks CTom,

Very interesting. Reminds me of fishing the tailraces below the big dam at Garrison ND. We had to detach the landing net's head and tie the four corners to a rope, lower it about 40' down to the water's surface and secure the rope's end to the fence line up top, then lead the hooked walleyes over the net lip.

Do they tend to prefer harbor or lake side depending on the day/time?

Now that my little guys is a bit older, I'll be looking at getting some recommendations, loading up the canoe, and heading farther north on the BWWA

They get fish on both sides. If there's a preference its pretty much an angler thing.

Originally Posted by IMFSHN

Don't be surprised if they show up in your garden, no1son.

LOL I am on high ground here on the near south side, but they might show up on Powderhorn which is about 4 blocks away. There is a prohibited island on that 5 acre pond, but right now it is full of woodies and mallards, also a cormorant or two with sharpshins and the normal woodland birds in the trees around it. Wonderful place for birding. We get loons every spring when the water birds come through along with the grebes and merganzers early, and there have be juveniles on Calhoun for a couple of summers now, but this is the first time full breeding plumage adults have been around this late into the summer. This is definitely a pair, too, that is getting to know each other real well.

Originally Posted by CTom

I'm pretty well land locked right now. Even my shore fishing areas are under water. On a positive note, I don't have to water the garden.

We have probably a good dozen or more DNR fihing docks around the Cities with two each on Harriet, Calhoun, and Nokomis, and singletons on quite a few others, and even one out on the big Muddy, plus walls all along the river, too. Those floating docks generally reach out over the first break and the outside weedline on all those lakes, very often out to over 25' depths, and all in public parks, generally with parking close. Those are there from about two weeks before walleye opener until about the beginning of November, and provide occasionally hot fishing all during that period.

Having seen that same exact type of fishing dock way down in the SW part of the state by Luverne, I thought they were a state wide program. That is what I would look for. Of course they aren't all primo, and none of them are all the time. I realize that not everybody is blessed with the amount of easily available prime fishing water we have here in the Twin Cities. Nor the variety of species to target either. I would have to say we have probably the top urban fishery in the country if not the world.

The Luverne area is flooding to beat it right now.

Originally Posted by CTom

The Luverne area is flooding to beat it right now.

I hadn't caught that on the news, but it is a real mess from well norh of Luverne south which is right through where I grew up and where a lot of my relatives still are. Rainfall there over the past few days of perhaps 10" and more and over a pretty wide area on top of everything. At least one whole town has been evacuated, Alvord. The Rock River that runs by Luverne and then south right through Rock Rapids has cut Rock Rapids where my mother lives in half. Every crik and stream bed and bottom in the area is underwater. My niece had to make a good half hour plus detour to find a way to get across the Rock River so she could get to work at the Rock Rapids hospital which isn't 10 blocks from where she is staying. Mom says she is cut off from the rest of the town to the west, to the south and to the north, open only by a wide detour east; so she says she will hunker down and just stay put until things sort themselves out. So long as her electricity stays on she has a freezer full of food; so she won't starve or anything.