January report for the Bemidji area…

We had an open slot in our rentals last week, so I took the whole family out for a day of fishing. We picked up some Pizza Hut and brought a slough of movies and arrived at the shack around 1:15pm. We sat down and everyone began eating while I set lines, it was mayhem for the first hour as we were catching and missing and losing fish non-stop. Only 1 of the fish in that hour was a keeper perch, but my son was able to reel up his first fish through the ice. From 3-4 things were pretty dead, but from 4-5 things picked back up and we had 5 good walleye bites, mostly missed or lost fish, but we connected with a few… the nice plumper below being the big fish.

All-in-all a decent eve. on the lake. We left with fish still on the flasher but we got in almost 4 hours of family fishing.

Frisbee Jigs and plain glow hooks were on the set lines, and I was jiggin a Lightning Spoon in clown with a shiner head. 21′ of water. Big fish came through in a school of tullibee’s suspended 5 feet off bottom.

Yesterday I was on a mission for some tullibee’s after seeing all of the chatter about people traveling to Mille Lacs and Leech for them the last few weeks. Had to prove that we’ve got good fishable numbers in our trenches as well… we were rewarded with some great fishing and some delicious smoked fishies…

And I was begining to think there weren’t any fish in bemidji, been out 4 times this year and haven’t caught a fish yet, although this is my first year up here, I was expecting to have some luck. Going out tonight for some eyes after class. Good report though, glad to hear some one is catching em. Thanks for the report matt

Sorry to hear that, man! There are definitely fish out there to be had! All of our rentals are kicking out at least a few walleyes during twilight hours, and some nice perch off and on during the day. It’s a tougher year than most, but they are still there!

What depths are you fishing? Area? Type of structure? Maybe I can help…

well some days we had vex and some days we didnt, so a few times we were fishing in 12 and others in 30ish, and somewhere in between, tried out by the point by “cameron” and a few times out by i think diamond point in front of tamarack hall at bsu. been using a buckshot glow tipped with big fatheads. Ive heard suckers have been the ticket, but coming from the st. croix, its hard to believe walleyes bite better on suckers than fatheads or shinners. Tomorrow i think we might try for perch depending on the weather due to our transportation of being a car or a 2wd s10

Suckers on set-lines in the middle of the night has been stellar. When jigging or catching the evening or morning bite I’d stick with a shiner or a shiner head on a jigging spoon. I wouldn’t fish shallower than 17′ of water right now, unless you’re spending the night in the shack. Anywhere from 20-36′ of water has been productive for multi-species action. Perch are more active out deep. Keep at ‘er, they’re out there!

Thanks for the info, definately going out on a nice day like today.

Guess I will have to come up there and put u on the fish, hope you pay better attn: in school, then you do to the old school dude fishing master, by the way that sheephead filet was excellent, could’nt tell apart from the walleye filets. Think back to everything you were taught as a kid, we will have to get u a vex. If one of the guys u are fishing with has one spend time scouting, location-location. keep on em.

You have more fish bucks, but I catch more fish. Oh ya you got the biggest walleye so far. any lawyers I mean pout, in lake bemidji.

haha you eating sheephead, hell i’d never sink that low , by the way i told bill about it, and he got a kick out of it.