Pepin Report

Fished the lake on Friday and Saturday. Friday was a fantastic day for us. We had to sort a bunch of fish for keepers. I was keeping track for awhile and the ratio was about 5-6 short fish per keeper. We ended the day with 15 keepers. We left 3 spots open for Saturday. Could of had our limit on Friday, but wanted to continue to fish Saturday. Perch SR 5’s at 100 ft in 10.5 ft trolling at 2.5 mph. We spent all our time in the upper 1/3 of the lake. Saturday the bite was tougher for us. No wind and too many boats. Only put one keeper in the boat in 4 hrs of fishing. Should have changed up, but was stubborn and stuck to Fridays pattern.
How did others do on Saturday and the rest of the weekend? Are any fish being caught south of Lake City yet?

Good luck,

Old Coot

Fished the head of the lake on saturday from 6 AM till noon and di not do well at all trolled teh whole time and caught a few dinks thats it the live baiters looked to be doin ok but i didnt bring any with so i was SOL Hawg how did u do up there were u were at I was gonna stop and see how u were doin but you had an Army around you the whole time.

I put 4 hours in yesterday working the WI side of the lake with only two shorts and one monsterous sheepie. This thing completely in-haled the #5 shad. It’s definitely the biggest to ever come to my boat, unfortunately I didn’t have a camera along.

We then moved to the MN side of the lake, but only short fish there. The live bait boats were consistently sticking more fish, but only saw one legitimate keeper out of 30 + fish. We worked depths from 7′ to 20′ with #5 & #7 shad raps in firetiger, walleye and crawdad, with craw bringing in the most fish.

Old Coot,
I was catching fish below Lake City on Sunday! Had a real good jig and a leech bite going on in 6.5-feet to 11 feet.
Ran out of leeches, went to crawlers and the sheepers came in!

Have fun! What weather eh?

Jim W

Jig and leech bite, eh? Any size to ’em? I fished down that way a bit this past week and the shorties are on the prowl and am interested to hear if you found the good ones.

thanks.

Erick, I had a pretty good day. 5 between 21″ and 24″, also 2 at 19 1/2″. I told ya live bait, maybe next time you’ll listen. Your dad is lucky I did’nt have the camera out when he mooned me. Take care….

A Media Staffer missed a shot of a full moon during the day light?!? Must of been too busy catching fish hey Hawg?!! Thanks, Bill

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A Media Staffer missed a shot of a full moon during the day light?!? Must of been too busy catching fish hey Hawg?!! Thanks, Bill

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Sure!! I’ll bet he doesn’t have pictures of any of those fish either!

Fished a tributary on the north end of pool 4 on both sat and sun. Sat we boated 4 fish over 26″ and lost about a 30″ right at the boat. Another 1/2 doz fish from 20-23″. Every year I seem to get one day like this in that place. Sun we failed to boat any pigs but had a successfull day catching a dozen or so 20″+ fish. For all you river rats, you better get up there before the water comes down. 3-ways and floaters. Oh, and expensive bait too. I’ll be in Kansas for the Cabela’s tourney this weekend, along with Jim Siewert and his partner. Wish us luck.

James,

Yup, mostly “shorties”! A couple “box” fish. Interestingly enough, the bite ran between 3:30pm to about 5:30.

Did not return for a possible dusk bite.

Jim W

James,

Yup, mostly “shorties”! A couple “box” fish.

Jim W

We caught a ton of 14-14 3/4″ inch fish on jig and a minnow. We were pitching jigs to rock piles and a straight leech under the boat. Sunday night and Monday morning the colors were anything dark. Purple, Blue, and Black were the best but anything worked. Those little buggers were just pounding the jigs. It was a blast. Ended up keeping 4 good eaters and about 18 inches.

i guess i’m not the only one noticing a pelthora of 14-14 3/4″ in the river lately. so how long will it take for all these fish to become 16,18,20+ inches long? they are just starting to reach their peak growing season, aren’t they? exactly just how long can a walleye grow in a year?

By fall we’ll have oodles of 16″ – 17″ fish to deal with. Not sure how long it will take a 14.5″ fish to grow that needed 0.5″ to be legal but the river fish grow very fast so… not long. Not a bad problem to have really since there are just gobs of larger fish in the system too. (They just don’t behave like the little one’s )

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i guess i’m not the only one noticing a pelthora of 14-14 3/4″ in the river lately. so how long will it take for all these fish to become 16,18,20+ inches long? they are just starting to reach their peak growing season, aren’t they? exactly just how long can a walleye grow in a year?

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