2 minutes ago, FryDog62 said:

likely the smaller/mid-sized

 

Smart. Gives you a better chance to find them faster. For me, fishing is finding.

 

4 minutes ago, FryDog62 said:

We'll probably target smb first day and lmb the second.

 

Cool! Sounds fun.

 

5 minutes ago, FryDog62 said:

Don't really want to be on Leech or Mille Lacs if it's cold/blowing.

 

Amen. I've had the dickens scared out of me on several northern Minnesota lakes.

 

Good luck, errr, good finding!

6 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

Don't really want to be on Leech or Mille Lacs if it's cold/blowing.

Only times I went on Leech was in the college girlfriend's 24' Ketch - course then you WANT the wind blowing.

 

6 hours ago, FryDog62 said:

The good thing there about 300 lakes to choose from in Cass County alone!  

Say 'HI' to the old neighborhood for me - high school g-friend graduated from Cass Lake while I'm a Bemidji HS alumni.

10 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

Your bass are so thick! I'd love to see a photo. I'd estimate a Maine 18.5-incher at 3.5 pounds. 

Here you go! My 20” at 5.2lbs and my 18.5” at 4.2 or 4.3lbs ( can’t remember exactly)

@10,000 lakes Bassin: I reacted with a laugh emoji because they're SOOOOOO fat they make me laugh! Real beauties. Thanks for posting them.

1 minute ago, Swamp Girl said:

@10,000 lakes Bassin: I reacted with a laugh emoji because they're SOOOOOO fat they make me laugh! Real beauties. Thanks for posting them.

Thanks! They need some insulation to make it through the winter up here 😂

39 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

@10,000 lakes Bassin: I reacted with a laugh emoji because they're SOOOOOO fat they make me laugh! Real beauties. Thanks for posting them.

He ain’t kidding, those things are bulbous.

1 hour ago, 10,000 lakes Bassin said:

Here you go! My 20” at 5.2lbs and my 18.5” at 4.2 or 4.3lbs ( can’t remember exactly)

 

Really nice coloring on the top fish. 

Got out south of the metro today. 67f water temp and fishing was fairly tough. Probably caught 10 fish with most of em being 1#. Fish were at all depths. Not sure if the heat wave has em confused or what. 

7 minutes ago, Adrift said:

Not sure if the heat wave has em confused or what.

I wondered that too when I went on opener and it was 63 degrees. I thought it would warm up given the coming heat, but there is another rapid change coming by the weekend and beyond.

 

The bass I caught on opener were clearly all prespawn. Starting Friday I don’t see anything in the 10 day forecast above 75 degrees. So now I have no clue whether they will be prespawn, spawn, or post spawn in a week.

Fished a lake west of the metro yesterday. Caught a ton of fish but still no big ones. Fish were clearly prespawn. Could see males guarding empty beds in 3' of water.  

70F water temp. 

I went out for a few hours Tuesday afternoon. My best 5 went for 24.24lbs  give or take a couple ounces. 
They were:

20”( spawned out I think), 4.4lbs 

20”  4.8lbs 

19.75” 5.02lbs

19.5” 5.15lbs 

19.5” 4.87lbs 

I still am at a loss for words. That got to be my best day bass fishing ever. Ive caught the same amount of 20”+ largemouth in my 3 trips this year than I have my whole life before this year. 
Water temps were around 67 degrees.

 

Im not sure what this cold snap will do to the spawn cycle. Highs in the 30s on Saturday. I’m a little nervous if I’ll be able to find them again. 

I went to Mille Lacs for a couple days.

 

Thursday: awesome.  Manageable wind, off and on clouds.  Very good bite, about two dozen smallmouth, including a pair of prespawn 20 inchers 10 minutes apart.  I weighed one of them and it was 5.25 pounds.  Saw one other boat in 6 hours.

 

Friday (today): rainy, cold, windy, miserable.  Limited to the very far SW corner of the lake.  Still managed to catch 8 smallmouth, which was a lot better than I expected given the circumstances.  Talked to 3 boats when finished at the access and they all completely blanked.  No fish.

 

Water temps: 58 on Thursday, 55 today.  Jerkbaits were by far the best presentation.  Also caught a few fish on a ned rig, a tube, and a crank bait.  But snapping a jerk bait (various colors) caught more than half the fish.

 

Didn't see any fish spawning yet.  I think that process will now be delayed there for a couple weeks, at least, with the current forecast - which I'm fine with.  That will give me another chance to target these prespawn brownies.  It's gonna be hard to top my outing on Thursday though.

 

 

I got out for a long day today. Water temps had dropped 10-12 degrees since early last week so the fishing was tough. I struggled big time with finding anything of size. Biggest fish was a little over 3lb. I couldn’t seem to put any sort of pattern together. This cold front really messed with stuff, dropping the water temp from nearly 70 to 55-57. 

Leg day on the boat today! Almost lost my hat but the 3.5 pounders were biting!

 

Caught a few little guys shallow so I decided to head out deeper. Decent fish on the outside weedline that were ready to eat. Caught 7 or 8 3-3.5 pounders and lost a better one boat side. Pretty fun day. 

 

South metro lake. Water temp 58 (down from 68.) Fish wanted to eat off the bottom. No moving baits were harmed or lost. 

31 minutes ago, Adrift said:

Leg day on the boat today! Almost lost my hat but the 3.5 pounders were biting!

 

Caught a few little guys shallow so I decided to head out deeper. Decent fish on the outside weedline that were ready to eat. Caught 7 or 8 3-3.5 pounders and lost a better one boat side. Pretty fun day. 

 

South metro lake. Water temp 58 (down from 68.) Fish wanted to eat off the bottom. No moving baits were harmed or lost. 

Everything still pre spawn? 

9 hours ago, 10,000 lakes Bassin said:

Everything still pre spawn? 

Everything that I caught was. 

I got out for a few hours yesterday on a lake I haven’t fish in a while. Water temp around 57. Fishing wasn’t great. 

I went back to Mille Lacs for about 5.5 hours today.  Tons of boats.  Stunning day out there.  I only caught 7 smallmouth today but 5 of them were at least 17 inches and one particular 20 incher was very plump.  It was 5.68 pounds on my digital scale.  Everything was still prespawn and the water temp was 55 degrees.

 

 

I fished locally with my dog for about 3.5 hours this morning and did pretty well.  Largemouth were definitely still prespawn.  A black spinnerbait in whatever weeds I could find produced the most bites, and the biggest.  Water temp was 64 degrees.

 

The season has started off very well for this guy.

 

 

 

Fished a river in the Brainerd area this weekend.  Usually pretty decent smallmouth river, but it was slow.  Fished a familiar stretch on Saturday, and only managed two smallmouth.  They didn't want anything to do with the upper 2/3's of the water, and I only managed to get them once I switched to the fly rod, with a crawfish pattern and a sink tip leader.  Swing through the current with no movement, they were pretty lazy.  Also managed my first walleye on the fly with that technique. 

 

Fished a new section upstream of that on Sunday, and saw why.  Lots of beds, most with smallies actively guarding them.  Got my one bed bass of the year.. I don't normally try for them, but the water was so clear that it was fun to watch it interact with my jig.  Saw a giant walleye mixed in with a bunch of river redhorse, but it spooked before I could get a lure down there..

I fished a long day today. I didn’t catch many, maybe 7 or 8 but all were probably 14” or bigger. Biggest was 3.99lbs. 

Ive been seeing lots of bass in the 2”-5” range up in the shallows. Could these be ones that hatch this spring already?? Or did they overwinter at this size?

Those are likely last year's hatch.  This year's hatch can't be that big yet.  They are fry right now, like an inch long.

 

Some lakes the bass haven't even fully spawned yet.

That’s what I figured, I just hadn’t seen many of these until a few days ago so I was wondering: 

Absolutely got it handed to me on Shields Lake today. Couldn't buy a bite. To add insult to injury i had to pull about 100 pounds of weeds off the trailer after loading up. 

Neat lake though. Saw a few pelicans and a whole bunch of bigmouth buffalo. Would definitely go back... in my canoe. 

68F water temp. Saw lots of beds, no fish.