Question about northerns in perch-forage Minnesota lakes

Questions about Freshwater Fishing

Question about northerns in perch-forage Minnesota lakes

Postby Questor » Sun Oct 22, 2006 7:45 am

Larry:

First of all, thanks for maintaining the forums despite the nuisances that you encoutered. I appreciate it.

Here's my question: I can't figure out how to find northern pike in the perch/bluegill forage lakes near my home in south central Minnesota. Although I've fished a lot, I have never fished much in October or November because I've preferred hunting. Now I want to figure out how to fish at this time. Can you help me find places worth looking for Northerns?

The typical lake I am fishing is like this:
1) 45 degrees north latitude
2) Amoeba-shaped glacier-formed bowl lakes with little structure except weeds. Some have bays and marshes. Sand/muck bottoms prevail. Rocks are rare.
3) Typical maximum depth about 25 feet
4) No sharp dropoffs or breaks
5) Lots of bluegills and perch under 7"
8) Ordinarily good fishing for Northerns among the weeds during spring and summer
9) Weeds are dead and rotting by mid-October, except a few, which are mixed in with rotting weeds. No sign of living weed colonies. Typical weeds are coontail, milfoil, and various cabbage.
10) Extensive shallows, with enough deep water to prevent winterkill.
11) Rushes in shallow water of 3 feet or less
12) Water surface temp seems uniformly in low 40's everywhere in lakes.

I have no trouble finding fish until the weeds start dying off, and then I lose them. The weeds die off at about the same time there's a dramatic drop in water temperature.

Thank you for your time.
Questor
 
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Postby dahlberg » Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:43 am

Hi Q,
There's a period in fall when the water first starts cooling rapidly at night causing "turnover". when this happens in they type of lake you describe the water color gets very murky, as in pea soup mixed with coffee and cream, and until things settle out can be almost impossible fishing.

With no rocks or bottom composition variations, I'd guess the pike will be near the perch, which ought to be near the last remaining vegetation, even if some of it appears rotten.
There's also a strong chance they might use the reeds.

You refer to the weeds as structure. Weeds are not structure, they are cover.

Structure is the physical, topographical shape of the lake bottom.
In any situation it's the combination of structure and cover that dictates where the fish are most likely to set up. I'd start looking first along the steepest breaklines, and preferably where a weedline rooted immediately adjacent to the primary break.

Try cranks, heavy single spin tipped with a sucker minnows, suspending minnow lures, soft plastic minnow jigs and small musky type jerk baits. For some reason chartruese always seems to be the most effective color. You may have to slow your presentation way down.

I'm sure the lake gets fished thru the ice for pike with tip-ups. The area where they're catching them with tip-ups at first ice ought to be good right now.
best of luck,
L
Larry Dahlberg
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Postby Questor » Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:45 am

Thanks. I had no idea of where they would be. All my references to fall fishing for pike discuss ciscoes, of which we have none. I'll get back out there and see if I can find some patches of green weeds. I assumed they all died off at the same time and that the fish quit using them when they were dead.
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Postby Bob Daly » Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:27 am

The particular lake I fish in Northern Wisconsin is very good for deep water walleyes once the lake turns over usually around the middle of September. The perch will gather near the deep mud flats for a couple of weeks once turnover begins. The walleyes follow. I have very good luck trolling perch hot-n-tots using 18lbs lead core line in about 25foot of water. Also, a larger northern or muskie will also be caught in the deep mud flats during this time following the walleyes and perch.
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