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| Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [30 messages per page] Muskie Fishing -> Fishing Reports and Destinations -> Bemidji Area Blues |
Nebraskies |
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| Hey everyone, I just took a week trip up to the Bemidji area in MN. I took my finacee with me as well so she could catch her first MN muskie. We are from NE and don't have many muskie lakes. What we have are stocked but we do have some success. We are still rookie muskie anglers in my book though. But our trip up to Bemidji didn't go as planned and wanted to get some input from experienced muskie anglers... We tried several lakes: Plantagenet , Little Wolf, and also Lake Irving (connected to Lake Bemidji). Day 1-2 (Plantan): We visited this lake in early June (before Muskie season) and got a lot of nice pike/some walleye and saw some nice muskies in the shallows just swimming around. But this time around (mid August) we barely even had the bite from the pike. Maybe this was just because the time of the year? Early August and water temps in the mid 70's. We gave our best shot for some muskies by positioning ourselves in 10-14 feet of water with standing weeds and casting toward the shallows. We used cowgirls, 6 ft crankbaits, jerkbaits, and a little bit of topwater. And nothing but some sweat and achy hands and arms. Not even a follow or a hit. Day 3-4: At this point spirits were low. I have heard about Little Wolf on this forum and others as kind of a "fall back" lake. It was smaller so I thought we could manage the lake a bit better and hopefully boat a muskie. We spent two days here trying the same technique as before. This first day my fiancee had one really nice follow on a cowgirl and one take from a sandbar with weeds surrounding. But the muskie got off right before I was going to net it....such is muskie fishing, right? Having just a little bit of action got spirits up. But the next day at Little Wolf was a little bit less exciting. I was able to boat one largemouth on a large crankbait and a decent pike on the same crankbait (wasn't what we wanted, but some fish finally!). I switched to a black/green bulldog to see if soft plastics would help. Only one BIG hit. Ended up bending the bulldug where the muskie must of hit and that was it. My fiancee ended the day being skunked, no action at all for her.  Lake Irving was kind of a gamble. I never have heard of muskies being caught out of it but since it was connected to Bemidji and close to our hotel we thought why not just stop by real quick. This is where we got our largest pike (about 26 inches). Right after this my fiancee was fishing with our heavy bass/pike set up (makes it easier for her to cast all day and she needed a break from all the heavy casting). She was throwing a 1 1/2 oz spoon and hooked up with a nice mid 40 inch muskie. But sadly...this muskie also got off. This left her heartbroken and even more determined to catch her first MN muskie. Even more so than me. So my main question, what would have you guys done differently? We fished out from 10-14 ft water with weeds and casted toward the shallows and also deeper. We fished with cowgirls, single bladed spinnerbaits, crainks/jerks, some soft plastics, and some topwater. Did we use the wrong presentation or were we trying the wrong area for early August muskie fishing? I want to at least make our next trip successful with one muskie! Tomorrow is going to be our last shot. Right now a severe storm just rolled in and made us stay in our hotel. We are not sure how this storm will effect fishing. Hopefully Little Wolf will produce something! | |||
| Silver Scale |
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| Musky Face |
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| mnmusky |
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| OnceBit |
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Posts: 99 | Use your graph to find the deep weedline and position your boat to it. One of you fish shallow the other parallel along the deep weedline. Watch for and concentrate on weed points, inside turns and thicker cabbage area's near the steepest part of the breaks. If you find a fish frequent the area cause there usually are more. Most of all enjoy the time on the water.  | ||
| RJ_692 |
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| FlyPiker |
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| BenR |
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| Kirby Budrow |
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Posts: 2346 Location: Chisholm, MN | |||
| BNelson |
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Location: Contrarian Island | |||
| Travis A. |
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Posts: 157 Location: Lincoln, NE | |||
| muskymaniac4ever |
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| Nebraskies |
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| We ended up getting a lot of action the last day on Suicks alone. I almost had one on at Little Wolf on a Suick Thriller and my fiance ended up getting one in the boat! 38 inches on a 6 inch Suick, not a monster but fought like no other. Oh, I know about Fremont Lakes I've always done well there before the water temps got so hot. I have tried Wagon Train once, but got nothing. I am from Omaha so Merritt is a bit of a drive. The last time I was at Fremont Lakes was in June and the water temps were getting pretty hot. I am hoping the water temps will cool down a bit here in NE soon! As well as the overall temperature. I can't wait to get back to Fremont to try out some things I learned up north. Thanks for all of the help! | |||
| Nebraskies |
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| Nebraskies |
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| Here is the picture of our only muskie from the trip. I am glad we at least got one and she got to experience it! And that blood on the muskie is mine...ended up slicing my finger open while getting her out of the net. Bad hold and a head shake got me a trip to the Urgent Care for some glue. The muskie was released and swam off beautifully! Thank you to everyone for the pointers. All of the help and tips will be helped in the future. We are rookies, but I can't wait to get back out there and get some more in the net. Attachments ----------------  get-attachment.asp.jpg (80KB - 319 downloads) | |||
| Nebraskies |
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| FlyPiker |
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