2 minutes ago, gim said:

It's very active out there today for severe weather here.

I teased Matt Johnson earlier - he was out on the lake cause he was MC for the Denny's tournament that happened today. Asked him if he had a hard-hat for his rain-suit...his reply was that he got a short pounding (he was out on his boat this morning).

1 hour ago, gim said:

It's very active out there today for severe weather here.  In fact I can hear another thunderstorm coming in from the west right now.

It kept me off the lake this evening. I hope to get out after some brown bass tomorrow to make up for it. 

Went out fishing sunday for bluegills from the bank. I am experimenting with different baits, none are artificial. Last week i tried corn, it works but took to long to get bites, did catch my largest with the corn last week so theres that.

This week i tried snails that are stuck to the rocks, breaking the shell open and taking the meat out and the gills really like it. And then there is my bait find of the season, store bought peeled and cooked shrimp in bags found in the freezer section, i took a scissor and cut into quarters 1 shrimp, put the piece on a tiny ice fishing jig so the hook is concealed, the meat is white and wow it worked great, better then the snail meat which is mostly black. It stays on the tiny hook pretty good to where the gills cant suck it off as easy, I will now buy frozen bagged shrimp for every trip.

 

 

 

 

No pics - but I went out this morning to mainly go after panfish.

Arrived at my spot just after 6am and started drowning worms.

Less than half-an-hour and I had two nice bluegills in the basket, and set one 12" LMB free - some reason he liked the worm under a bobber.

Switched over to 1/8oz Missile Warlock (shaky) with a Dinger in Carolina Pumpkin/Chartreuse tail - three more LMBs in the 1#=2# range - kept none (strangely enough for me) and switched over to a 1/8oz Booyah Pond Magic in Pumpkinseed.

Two more 1#-2# LMB and a 15" 'snot-rocket'.

went back to the 1/16oz jig with worm under a bobber

2 more keeper sunnies (1 bluegill, 1 pumpkinseed) and a couple more inquisitive yearling LMBs and I called it quits for the day.

 

4 sunnies about to be filleted and added to my freezer stash.

On 6/15/2025 at 8:48 PM, WaskaCrank12 said:

I was able to get out yesterday (Saturday) and endured the rain - the three largemouth I caught were - 17/17.5/16.5 inches 

Today I went out and caught two largemouth (both 16 inches) - before BOOM, a flash of lightning and then deep rumbling thunder ! - My phone weather app had said "light rain starting at 3:30pm and thru 7:00pm" - nothing at all about lightning and thunder - I fired up the engine and raced to get back to the ramp (along with about a dozen other boats)

I have been using Google Weather (does not seem very accurate, certainly was not accurate at all today) and I have CodeRED text messages for my area (yet this is typically for severe weather alerts only)

What weather apps or alerts do you use on your phone ? 

I use Weather Underground and the Windy app. Both are usually great. 

On 6/15/2025 at 8:48 PM, WaskaCrank12 said:

I was able to get out yesterday (Saturday) and endured the rain - the three largemouth I caught were - 17/17.5/16.5 inches 

Today I went out and caught two largemouth (both 16 inches) - before BOOM, a flash of lightning and then deep rumbling thunder ! - My phone weather app had said "light rain starting at 3:30pm and thru 7:00pm" - nothing at all about lightning and thunder - I fired up the engine and raced to get back to the ramp (along with about a dozen other boats)

I have been using Google Weather (does not seem very accurate, certainly was not accurate at all today) and I have CodeRED text messages for my area (yet this is typically for severe weather alerts only)

What weather apps or alerts do you use on your phone ? 

I use Weather Underground and the Windy app. Both are usually great. 

Update: 4 nice size sunnies put 1/2# of fillets in the freezer

 

Spawn is NOT over - three of those sunnies were loaded with roe...so they're still gonna be up close to shore.

4 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Spawn is NOT over - three of those sunnies were loaded with roe

 

The sunfish spawn can drag on for weeks.  Even longer, some claim.  Although I've never seen it myself.

 

The seasonal cycle of sunfish movement often dictate largemouth bass movements too, since in many lakes they represent a sizable portion of their food.

So much to learn from you guys and looking fwds to it.  First I gotta figure out how to resize a pic on my IPad so I can post one so you see what kind of yahoo your “chatting” width.  In 50 yrs of fishing never paid any attention to bass and after that first SM I caught up on Mille Lacs 2 wks ago, they have my attention.  Looking to take advantage of all the lakes near me for quick trips to learn LM.  I live in Zimmerman and aim to go flog away soon.  All I really know and have gear for is walleye and Muskie, gave my salmon stuff away.

 

So thanks in advance.

 

Rod in Zimm

30 minutes ago, Nodak7mm said:

All I really know and have gear for is walleye

Walleye rigs are good for finesse techniques when hunting bass...so you got a start anyway.

 

Zimmerman is surrounded by a number of lakes that have decent largemouth potential -

Lake Freemont right there in town has what looks to be good structure between the point on the SE corner and the island.

Elk Lake has some nice structure as does Blue Lake.

Going out a little further - Ann, Eagle, Birch, Mitchell and Big all look promising.

I’ve fished most of the lakes on that list by @MN Fisher. Some I still do.

 

I wouldn’t bother with Freemont. It’s too shallow and has frequent winter kill.

 

Blue Lake is solid. Access is a little bit tough to use but doable. Green Lake just east of Princeton is also very good for both walleye and largemouth, plus it’s a little bigger than the others listed.

 

As for Mille Lacs, my guess is that the smallmouth are close to being done with the spawn, if not completely done. They will be moving to deeper water off shore soon for the summer.  You can target them out there with a finesse vertical presentation but it’s not for me. Best time to target them is pre spawn in May or fall in October. I was out there 4 times in May. My presentation of choice was a jerk bait, although I did catch fish on a tube, bladed jig, crankbait, and ned rig too.

 

The Rum River is also a local watering hole but it’s too shallow to handle a boat. You’ll have to wade it or use a smaller craft like a canoe or yak. Good smallmouth fishing exists near areas with current and deeper holes.

 

@Nodak7mm you can PM if you need more specific info on those waters in that area.

 

I went this morning for about 5 hours with a friend. Fishing was not very good. Caught 7 bass and 6 pike. The lake had been recently treated with herbicide along the entire rim of the shoreline near all the docks. Nuked.

 

I’ll come back as summer progresses but I see this periodically on various lakes. Poor timing.

I’ve literally been having dreams about catching smallmouth for the past couple weeks. I got out to my local smallie lake on Monday and caught probably 10 with the biggest being around 2.5lbs and most being smaller. Today I made a longer drive to a super clear water lake in hopes of getting on some bigger brown bass than what we have right around me. Didn’t have a great day, actually struggled a bunch because I’m new to smallmouth fishing especially in that clear of water (averaging over 20ft of clarity). My day turned around at the end when I caught my biggest of the year so far, a very chubby 18”. 

I went to my local lake (9,000 acres) yesterday but the wind was significant (about 20 mph plus gusts) and white caps - so I went over to a much smaller (500 acres) more sheltered lake - lots of PWC's and Pontoons (the lake has multiple resorts) so I tried to find spaces where they were not buzzing by all of the time - I was not trying to, but I ended up catching 10+ pike (ranged from 17 inches to 28 inches) - I lost the first one as it chomped my lure/line off so I immediately went to wire leaders and was glad I did - once some of the PWC traffic settled down I made my way over to a shallow area and caught the biggest LMB of the day (18 inches) on the smallest lure I used all day - so the same small lure that caught a number of blue gill also caught the largest (of the bass I caught) - With the heat/humidity and wind I probably will not get out this weekend (and the lakes are packed with PWC's/Pontoons as I live in a resort heavy area) but hope to get out 2 or 3 times this coming week

 

2 hours ago, WaskaCrank12 said:

lakes are packed with PWC's/Pontoons

 

This has been the first hot weekend we've had all season.  Plus the water temps are now warm enough to "recreate" in too.

 

Have to imagine most lakes are crawling with recreational watercraft right now.  Pontoons and jet skis don't really bother me though.  It's the wake boats and their tsunami-style waves that bother me.

 

And just a week ago, I had the lake all to myself in drizzly mid 50's...

Warm summer weekends and any holidays - head to the smaller rivers for less chaos and better fishing👍

@FryDog62- Yes, I have been scanning the DNR site and local online maps to find some smaller lakes to fish (for weekends and also high wind days) - I really enjoy my local lake (decent size at about 9,000 acres) but getting out on other/smaller lakes will encourage me to use more of the way too many lures/baits I have 😎 and challenge me to try some different approaches - thank you for the nudge to do so !

I hit the water yesterday and got

into them largies the best I have in the last couple weeks. I don’t think anything was super special, i just threw confidence stuff  instead of messing around with techniques/location that I’m not good at fishing. Water temps were already ~75 degrees which was a surprise to me. 

1/16oz Shakey head was the lure of the day at Coffee Cove - nothing huge, but 1.0#-1.5# is satisfying enough. First two were on Zoom Finesse Worm in Green Pumpkin Magic, last one decided it wanted a Finesse Worm in PB&J

Yesterday (Thursday) I took on the constant/driving rain and close to 20 mph wind - for a little over 4 hours

I tried the east side of the lake as I have found a spot that bass seems to be at - I caught two 15 inch LM pretty quickly - but I was being tossed around/battered by the waves - so I took the slow/grinding ride across the lake to get to the east side, which still had waves but was much more reasonable - my streak of catching pike continued, 3 in a row - and then I landed on several 15/16 inch LMB in about 15 feet of water

I have a question for you guys - I saw several big walleye (probably 25 or so inches) jump up and out of the water - probably 8 or 9 times - it was raining/choppy/windy and they were in 18/22 feet of water but were jumping out of the water - Have you ever seen this ? What would be causing them to jump out of the water ? These fish (walleye) have teeth and were big so I am curious what in the lake would cause them to flee/jump out of the water ?

20 minutes ago, WaskaCrank12 said:

saw several big walleye (probably 25 or so inches) jump up and out of the water - probably 8 or 9 times - it was raining/choppy/windy and they were in 18/22 feet of water but were jumping out of the water - Have you ever seen this ?

 

I've never seen a walleye jump out of the water in 25 years of fishing here.  They are generally bottom-dwelling predators.

 

Not saying one would never do it, but it seems like very abnormal behavior, especially over and over like that.  Are you sure they were walleyes?  I've seen lots of other species jump that I thought were something else and then once I got a really good look at one, it was something else.

What are people seeing for water temps out there?  Are we in full summer mode now?

 

I'm thinking of going a day soon here and just wondering.  Thanks

Low seventies out there for me after a cool few days, was up to 76 a week ago. Might be warmer down there. I think all your fish will be in summer mode. Good luck! 

4 hours ago, WaskaCrank12 said:

have a question for you guys - I saw several big walleye (probably 25 or so inches) jump up and out of the water - probably 8 or 9 times - it was raining/choppy/windy and they were in 18/22 feet of water but were jumping out of the water - Have you ever seen this ? What would be causing them to jump out of the water ? These fish (walleye) have teeth and were big so I am curious what in the lake would cause them to flee/jump out of the water ?

 

Garrett asked to go fishing for a couple hours this evening.  Turned out to be a good decision.  We caught 5 largies and a decent walter in about 2 hours.  One of the largemouth was 20 inches.

 

He won a new daiwa setup at a crappie contest in early May and this was the first time he used it.  The walleye was the first fish he caught on it.  And it's also the first walleye he's ever caught.  Pretty dang impressive for a 6 year old.

 

Water temp was 73.5 degrees and fish were definitely post spawn.

 

 

@throttleplate I like the flying fish photo !

@gim - to clarify the jumps occurred about 8 or 9 times in approx. a 40 yard by 40 yard area on the lake - in a short (2 minutes or less) period of time - my guess is there were 2 or 3 different fish doing the jumping (based on the timing of the jumps and one jumping and then suddenly one jumping 30 yards away - so it was multiple fish, yet they each jumped multiple times) --- I have never seen anything like it - I cannot be 100% certain they were walleye, yet based on the color and shapes of the bodies (wider head area, tapered to a thinner rear section is what it looked like, yet they were jumping and their bodies moving/twisting in the air which can serve to distort things) it appeared that way to me - yet it was raining, the wind was 19 plus and the water was very choppy/waves -- they did not look like bass (based on head area/body shape) and they were not pike/torpedo fish -- and they were good sized fish (which made me even more curious as I am thinking -- why are these relatively big fish with sharp teeth frantically jumping up and out of the water in an 18/20 feet depth area ?) -- I am going to stop by the local branch of the DNR at some point and ask them what their thoughts are on it -- this lake certainly has some big pike, but I do not think it holds any Muskie -- so perhaps it was caused by big pike (or something else ??) on a feeding frennzie going after some good size walleye/or whatever type fish they were ?? - I am really curious as to what the heck was going on !