10,000 lakes Bassin

I’m your experience what weeds stay green the longest?

I live fairly close to a few lakes, they are all very similar but I’ve never seen or heard anyone mention lakes that are like this. That have a living mat of what I’m 99% sure is Chara, or “skunk-weed” thanks to the help of @MNfisher. I scribbled a couple pictures of what they look like on my phone, don’t judge my artwork lol. The lakes are very clear, 10-15 feet of clarity depending on the amount of algae. The lakes have a shallow flat probably 10-20 yards wide, then it drops of quickly into deep water. As you can hopefully see, there are pads up shallow around most of the shoreline, and some coontail in water deeper than about 10 feet, the coontail actually goes very deep down to around 20ft but it’s not super thick especially up shallow. There are small patches of scattered cabbage in a few areas. The thing that makes these lake weird is the chara, it forms a thick mat up shallow under the pads to the point where there is only a small gap between the underside of the pads and the top of the chara mat. They chara follows the drop off down to the point where I can’t see it anymore so 12ish feet of water or more. My main question is about fishing shallow, this whole situation makes me wonder if there will be a good population of bass up there because it seems lifeless. There are some small bluegill up around the pads. I’m just not sure where the bass will go during the fall when people say that the fish are moving shallow. If they aren’t shallow then where will they be? As it goes for docks in the lakes there pretty much aren’t any, and there is no rocks, there is some downed trees but the are in like 2 feet of water and the chara chokes them out. Thanks everyone

Dealing with some health issues and I haven’t been able to fish hardly at all this month, maybe 8 total hours this whole month. Hoping to get on the water sometime this week/next weekend. Not exactly sure what the water temps are in the bemidji area but it sure feels like fall. I’ll let you guys how it goes, wish me luck.

I bet it will heal, bass are pretty tough, that doesn’t mean that it’s a good thing thought, try adjusting your grip slightly.

This rig will definitely be part of my arsenal from now on!

What determines whether you will fish this, or a jig? I’m sure this is much more snag free so heavy cover it’s better hands down, but what about open water or light cover? I guess one of the main reasons I fish a jig is because I feel that it draws bigger than average bites, do you feel like this rig draws bigger bites like a jig? Thanks!

Thanks man! I’m normally so busy in the spring and fall that I just fish June to August lots of the time, but I know I’m missing out of some of the best fishing of the year. Now I’m excited to get into the fall stuff especially because I love fishing up shallow

Thank you @gimruis! I saw that we were supposed to get a couple lows in the 40s sometime next week so I’m not sure what that’ll do. So once it gets colder you focus mainly up shallow with more aggressive stuff? Is your main goal to cover water, just basically burning the bank? Is there any cover that you look for other than green weeds? Sorry if I’m bothering you with all these questions!

Tuesday I had a good evening, throwing mainly a jig around some grass and chatterbait over the top of and around the edge of some deep coontail. Yesterday wasn’t as great but I managed to pick up a few on the jig, and some on a swim jig by casting it into the pads and working it out. I haven’t fish in September much my whole life so I’m slightly nervous about finding fish this next month. Is there any tips you could give me for fall fishing up north? I’ve heard a couple different things about fall fishing up here, some about bass pulling up shallow in cover, and some about them grouping up out deeper. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

These replies are awesome! Thanks everyone! If you have been fishing your confidence baits for a long while and aren’t getting any, what do you do? Do you switch up to something new that you don’t fish a lot, or do you just try and cover more water?

I posted a topic similar to this a while back, but I figured I’d revisit it again. Lately I’ve had lots of confidence in 3 techniques, a frog a Texas rig and a jig ( including a swim jig). I know that these three aren’t great for everything but they can do a lot. My question is where do you draw the line between being confident in baits and being too stubborn to tie something else on? I can fish a whole 8 hour day using just these 3 and not catch much (or anything) but I still might feel like they fish just aren’t in that area, or I haven’t thrown it in front of any active bass. Is there a specific amount of time that you give it before you switch and stop fishing baits you’re confident it, or is it more of a gut feeling? Also a little side topic here but in your opinion is it more important to master a handful of techniques or is it more important to be very versatile and know how to throw lots of different baits? I guess a happy medium would probably be best, but I know of lots of pro anglers that only fish a few baits and have great success. Thanks everyone, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

Do you ever use his tungsten jigs? They caught my eye but unfortunately there wasn’t 5/8oz which is what I mainly flip

Looks awesome, i know a river where i could hammer rainbow trout on those too!

I was driving to a lake the other day and saw more fully red maples than I want to even think about. Seems like the ice goes out in the spring, we have one week of summer, then it’s iced over in the fall again

I’ve been fishing a lot of deep coontail, milfoil, and cabbage lately, by pitching to clumps of grass or casting and working along the outside edge. I’ve been using Stealth Feider jigs but I’m nearly out and It seems like they’re out of stock everywhere. What other jigs do you recommend for what I’m doing? I was eyeing the Dirty Jigs flipping jig but I figured I’d ask here first. Thanks everybody!

Is there a specific formula you like to use?

I just caught a largemouth that I believe is my new personal best, 21in long and 15.5in around. I didn’t have a scale with me so I’m wondering how to tell its weight with the two measurements I listed. I looked it up online and after entering the measurements the weights range from 5.6lb to 6.3lb so I’m not sure what one to go with. ( I ruined my phone after swamping my kayak so sadly I didn’t get a picture) Thanks, August

In your opinion what are the ten most important largemouth techniques for any angler to master to become a better and or more well rounded fisherman, regardless of where you live in the country? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this

So do I, I never want to fight a fish with no line on the spool even if my drag is all the way locked down.

Yeah I have sufix 832 30lb which is 0.011 I believe and I’ve bombed a frog to the point that it’s just the knot I tied on the spool that’s holding on the line. I was thinking about putting 50lb on it for frogs but that’s kind of out of the picture I guess So the low IPT kind of cancels out the high gear ratio on a long cast? Is the IPT measured with a full spool?

Yep I got your email, I’m just sitting down to read it right now

Just sent you a PM

Growing up in Minnesota and being a Seth Feider fan I’ve heard a lot about flipping milfoil, but in my neck of the woods we pretty much only have coontail. I’m curious if I’d have similar success to the milfoil guys farther south, by flipping topped out clumps of coontail, and punching coontail mats? I think I heard somewhere that the bass don’t like to bury themselves as far in coontail as milfoil, do you know if that’s correct? Thanks!

The mosquitos are nasty this time of year so I normally like to keep a can of 25% DEET in the boat with me. I just learned from this forum about how deet can repel fish. I had been keeping the bug spray in my tackle compartment. I took it out of there and now I’m wondering if there’s anything I should do to clean out the compartment in case there’s some deet left in there, or if I don’t have to worry too much about it Thanks

I order it, I can’t wait for it to get here!