Minnesota fishing, first time-help please

[runnin rooster]

As you can see from my user name, I am an avid bird hunter but only a casual fisherman. Next week I am going to be delivering a bird dog to the Alexandria MN area. I figure if I am going to be in MN in summer, might as well take the boat (17ft basstracker) and fish some. I know nothing about MN fishing, but got a recommendation for Big Pine Lake in Perham. It does look like a good walleye lake, but talking to a local tackle shop, it also looks like a big resort lake. It is well developed and lots of recreational traffic and I will be there over the 4th weekend. I know there are many other lakes including smaller ones in the area that we could get on during the middle of the day jet ski rush.

But I am certainly open to other areas. My idea of a MN fishing trip would be something more remote, more fishing, less crowded recreational oriented. We are looking a variety of fish including walleye, bass, and pan fish. I will only have three days so it needs to be a short drive from Alexandria area. Any suggestions for a slower paced, less crowded area?

 

[j_martin]

Re: Minnesota fishing, first time-help please

4th is gonna be a roller coaster ride in any fishing boat fer sure.

I just spent a weekend in Alex. There's a chain of lakes right there, called either Alexandria chain, or Le Homme Dieu chain. You'll find most every kind of fish you want in that chain. I lived in a house on Jessie, and mostly fished Victoria for bass. Had a blast, caught a lot of fish.

There is probably going to be DNR folks bugging you about a clean boat. They discovered zebra mussels in the chain, and they think they are going to keep them from spreading by blocking channel access between some of the lakes. Never happen, but meanwhile you may have to pull and launch between a couple of the lakes.

In addition to that, the geography around Alexandria is about 25% water, so there's all kinds of lakes, both large and small within a short distance.

The easiest map to work to see the ovealll, and to find lakes is the Minnesota Recreation Compass.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/compass.html

Individual lake writeups, fish info, landings, and topo maps.
Minnesota Lake Finder.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/index.html

hope it helps
john

 

[runnin rooster]

Re: Minnesota fishing, first time-help please

Thanks John, that is great information and fits nicely into our situation. A nephew and I will be rolling into Alexandria Wednesday evening and overnighting there. If we fished Big Pine it would put us in the awkward situation of arriving there Thursday about the time we were told go give way to the recreational crowd. Now it looks like closer lake Victoria for bass early Thursday morning is a great option.

Any details on what the bass in Victoria were hitting? Also, my nephew likes to panfish and especially likes to jerk perch. How is the perch, gill and rock bass fishing in Victoria and the rest of the chain? Any one lake better for panfish than the others?

 

[j_martin]

Re: Minnesota fishing, first time-help please

Thanks John, that is great information and fits nicely into our situation. A nephew and I will be rolling into Alexandria Wednesday evening and overnighting there. If we fished Big Pine it would put us in the awkward situation of arriving there Thursday about the time we were told go give way to the recreational crowd. Now it looks like closer lake Victoria for bass early Thursday morning is a great option.

Any details on what the bass in Victoria were hitting? Also, my nephew likes to panfish and especially likes to jerk perch. How is the perch, gill and rock bass fishing in Victoria and the rest of the chain? Any one lake better for panfish than the others?

Bass are still in the pads. Weather has been a bit unsettled here for a couple of weeks. Should be nice next week. By Thursday they should settle down.
They hit a salted sinking wacky worm pretty steady when we were there. Pad edges, docks, and weed lines.

Lotsa rock bass. I hear the panfishing is good on Jessie, which can be reached from Victoria by a half mile of channel. Early June it was a trolling motor ride, as even with the passenger forward and the main motor as high as possible (150 hp) it'd hang up in a couple of places. I suspect that with all this rain you could just motor through it now. Jessie has a lot of pads, deep weed lines, and enough depth to support a pretty heavy population of fish.

Victoria has a very nice boat landing on the south side, but fairly limited parking.

Good luck, let us know how you do.

John

 

[runnin rooster]

Re: Minnesota fishing, first time-help please

Thanks again John. Your suggetions salvaged this fishing trip for us. We arrived in the area late in the day on the 30th. Only lodging we could find on a lake was Lake Carlos State Park. It is a very nice, quiet family campground by the way. The wind was crisp but we launched and beached our boat like everyone else. That night the wind came up even more and we awoke to find my 17ft bass tracker swamped. The entire stern was underwater with steady waves beating it. After much pushing, lifting, pumping and bailing we were able to refloat. The wind was a constant 30-40 mph for the entire time there, but sunny. We trailered to Victoria and because of the horseshoe shape was able to find refunge from the wind. First day did well on bass with wacky rigged worms, just like you said around pads, weeds, and docks. Back at camp the tent was blown down. Second day did even better on 4 inch Berkely Power Grubbs in pumpkin seed, tipped with a leech. This rig caught both bass and several Northerns, including one nice one. For the last hour or so in the late afternoon we trolled a deep diving Rapala and caught 2 walleye, including one very nice size fish. Being excited about walleye, we decided to go back to Carlos and try trolling, but the tent was down and the lake whitecapped, so we cooked up a nice supper and left the next morning. The wind never slowed the entire time there, but we were able to get a couple good enjoyable days on Victoria thanks to you.