Anyone been out fishing in the NE Metro????

[MN Bassfisher]

I got out for 7 hours on Saturday and another 6 on Sunday. Saturday I went out to Peltier and Sunday we were trying to get to a spot on Bald Eagle but the ice was too shotty so we went to Peltier instead. Looking to get out to a couple other lakes this week, just wondering how people's experiences have been and how the ice has been. Saturday we caught perch, crappies, sunnies and some pike on flags. It was a very fun first outing and there was quite a few people out there by mid day. Sunday we were pulling out on Bald Eagle, checked the ice about 100 yards from shore 6+ inches of ice. We walk about 50-60 yards more and the chisel went through pretty easy, we punched a hole and it was about 3 inches of not so good ice. Our spot was quite a bit further so we decided it wasn't worth it and took off for safe ice. My freind's brother went out to the spot and said at one point he was on 1 1/2 inches of ice, which scared the crap out of him so he left. It seems parts of the bigger lakes are not safe yet, give it another week or so.

[vigilante]

Define NE metro Bassfisher.  I live in the Columbia Heights / Fridley area and am new to minnesota so I'd love to learn about more lakes close to home.  I have only been on Nokomis so far.

[MN Bassfisher]

Well I live in White Bear Lake, usually NE metro is around there, Stillwater, Woodbury, Oakdale, Forest Lake, Scandia, Centerville, New Brighton, etc. I've fished a decent amount so far this year, Peltier (twice), Centerville, Bald Eagle (twice), White Bear Lake (twice), Demontreville, Channel between Chisago and South Lindstrom, and Island.

[crappiegetter]

I live in Shoreview and I have only been out twice so far because I have been spending most of my free time make a flip over shanty. Was thinking of hitting peltier today but I have other chores that I have to take care of first.

[vigilante]

I'll be going to silver lake (just off silver lake road).  I'll let ya know how the conditions are.

[Hagigun]

I just posted about my Bald Eagle and WB lake experiences in another post. This was 2-3 weeks back. Bellaire at WB Lake was our best session. Caught 2-3 real nice 9-11inch crappies. Other two trips were small Perch and bluegills.

Ice was Ok, 4-6 good ice at most, 2-3 of ice/snow.

The first trip to Bald Eagle was the earliest Dec 9 maybe? and Ice was 4-5" good, but changed in spots. That snow really damaged good ice production.

Looking to get out this weekend for sure. Either White Bear or Bald Eagle. Getting a Vexilar today, so now that I have an idea if there are fish below me, I should do much better

[MN Bassfisher]

I'll be going to silver lake (just off silver lake road).  I'll let ya know how the conditions are.

I've never fished Silver but it's close to me. I'd love to hear how your session went out there!

[MN Bassfisher]

I just posted about my Bald Eagle and WB lake experiences in another post. This was 2-3 weeks back. Bellaire at WB Lake was our best session. Caught 2-3 real nice 9-11inch crappies. Other two trips were small Perch and bluegills.

Ice was Ok, 4-6 good ice at most, 2-3 of ice/snow.

The first trip to Bald Eagle was the earliest Dec 9 maybe? and Ice was 4-5" good, but changed in spots. That snow really damaged good ice production.

Looking to get out this weekend for sure. Either White Bear or Bald Eagle. Getting a Vexilar today, so now that I have an idea if there are fish below me, I should do much better

Okay, good to hear. I've fished WB twice, early on into the season we went out from the VFW with not much luck, small sunnies. Then last week tried the rockpile (out from Ramsey beach) at night time, we caught a crappie and a small northern. Glad to hear about the Vex! I just got a flasher this winter and it's so much nicer than fishing without one! You'll love it!

[Hagigun]

Went out on White Bear Saturday the 1st. Arrived about 1:30pm to Belaire. Super windy on the lake. We didnt drive out, but saw 5-7 smaller suv/trucks out. We were a bit surprised...until we drilled. Easily a foot of ice. How much was very good quality was uncertain, but it sure looked and felt like plenty. Might have been 15-17 inches in spots. It was really cold. We had a hard time setting up our 6 man shacks. Wind was really going. Staking it down was a pain, but we got it done. Hardly any snow to help shovel on, it was blowing all over.

By the time we got set up, 13 FOW just had some crappies and bluegills. Only a few decent. We threw em all back as usual. Only stayed until 7 or so. Bite cool-ed a bit and we had a rough 31st, so headed back for food and Hockey viewing.

i will probably consider driving my small Jeep out there next weekend if the weather stays cold. Stay in normal areas until i see people going out, but it's looking good ice wise...just wondering what the fish think of this weather?

[Hagigun]

Out on WB again last night. We arrived after work about 7pm to Bellaire again. We drove out. Probably 20 others driving out as well, tons of people when we arrived. We drilled a few holes looking for fish and finally got set-up about 7:30-45 or so after some deliberation. We wanted to at least try coming out during the week to see what the bite was like. We really wanted to go after some Walleyes, but didn't come up with many.

We found tons of fish. With the 4 of us, 3 Bluegills (all small), 1 Pike (tip-up, pretty small) and about 25-30 Crappies. Most of the crappies were normal sized 6-8 inches. Almost everything on small jigs and waxies. We tried some Walleye lures, but it seemed to just be Crappies down in our area. After the bite slowed a bit, some of us went to minnows. Caught a few more. Finally my friend caught a slab! It was about 13 inches. Really the only awesome fish of the night. Another 2-3 were borderline keepers, but we threw them back as usual.

All in all a Tri-species night, that's always fun! 

Ice was about 12inches good, 3 inches white ice. We took off about 11:00pm after the last 30-40 minutes we went ice cold and didn't get a hit. The fish were down there though. My vexilar was lit up like a Christmas tree still. My bottom 6 feet was flooded completely red with fish moving in and out. It was hard to see your lure because of it, but no complaints here. Just couldn't trigger bites anymore.

We will be going out again Saturday and Sunday for sure, maybe Friday. Looking at WB (try our own spot) maybe Bald Eagle, maybe Forest Lake.

This our our 1st season ice fishing. We have been out 4-5 times now. Still no Walleyes. Any idea where i need to go? What time of day should i expect them to be hitting the best? Just normal sun down times? I mean, I've read plenty of articles and tips, we just can't seem to find them. Maybe go deeper? We were in about 16 FOW. There is nothing much deeper near the area we were, and we were not gonna drive where others hadn't yet.

[Hagigun]

Strictly going for Walleyes.

Saturday the 8th Headed out to Lake Owasso. We were right off the beach side, but over to the right compared to most of the others. Out from 2-7pm. Caught a few small perch early, then my gal had a few real small Walleyes, like 8-9 inchers. We saw some other fish come right off the bottom, but nothing was working for us to get more strikes. Darters, pimples, buckshots, waxies, minnows, minnow heads, plastics, you name it. Tried 17FOW and also 23FOW. Tip ups were at 20, 14, and 7. No action on the tip-ups all day.

We talked with another guy who was marking fish as well, same story though, no bites. Probably more real small walleyes  .

Sunday I went out on White Bear. We skipped "Tent City" off of Bellarie since that has been mainly Crappie area for us. Found a different spot all by our lonesome. Same story as Owasso, we caught a few small Perch early. Then My gal caught a small Walleye 11inches. I had a real nice strike, got it about halfway up, went to grab my transducer out of the hole and lost it. I'm just gonna roll with teh tangle and not jeporadize the fish. My buddy had just left the shack for a bit to check tip-ups or he would have been able to assist me. Still a rookie at this 

We were marking bigger fish all along the bottom. We just couldn't get them to strike again. Tried all sorts of stuff again, lures, live baits, still nothing.  We did get a decent Pike on a tip-up. So not a lost cause, but it was only 23-25 inches or so.

Going to keep trying new things, see if we can't land at least an eater out of these trips.

[newicefisherman]

I seem to always have that same experience on Owasso too.

[Hagigun]

I am heading out on WB tonight. Looks like each Wednesday eve has been designated as "Crappie Wednesday". We had some good success last week, so we will try again. I get off work earlier so should be on the ice by 6:00. Last week it was 7 and we still got plenty of action up to 10:15pm or so.

Going to stay away from bellaire again because of the crowds, but will be somewhere on that side of the lake. We just got Lakemaster on our GPS so I've been researching a few spots. I'll let you guys know how it worked out and what we caught. The Lakemaster stuff is a lot different than the standard DNR maps. Lots more detail and it hardly resembles the DNR map at this point.

I actually think I enjoy finding new spots almost as much as catching the fish. Just a sense of accomplishment to find some new locations rather than follow the packs. There are more fish in that lake than just Bellaire...sometimes I have to convince other people that is the case. 

Since Bellaire has been a great spot, i looked for similar characteristics of those spots and tried to find similar spots on other parts of the lake. I have 3 or 4 spots in mind, again we will see how it goes and I'll let you guys know.

[Hagigun]

Well my map skills didn't pan out! Partial problem is WB's lake level. My map on Lakemaster would say 20 feet and it ends up at 7feet. Then when it says 32, it is 32! Needless to say the spots I thought would be solid were not.

We arrived about 6:45, went way out lright of Bellaire's normal spot. Saw 2 perms (vacant) and a guy packing up his portable when we arrived. I drilled about 7-8 holes in a 100 foot radius and only marked 1 fish. So after some deliberation, just decided to go back to good ol Bellaire shanty town since time was not on our side. It was less crowded obviously than the weekend and lots of people were leaving as we arrived. Not too bad at all.

It was a repeat of last wednesday. We caught about 8 Bluegills (all small but 1 decent, not a keeper though) Then about 30 crappies (kept 3, 9 inchers or so). Fish of the night went to my girlfriend...AGAIN! She had a dead stick working and hauled up an 18-21" Pike right in the shack. It was just a minnow so we had thoughts of a nice Wally on the the end of her line. Good solid fight for her, good times. Another solid weeknight Bellaire style.

Crappie Wednesday is now a staple.

[MN Bassfisher]

Good Ole Crappie night. I'd like to get out with ya one of those nights but I have basketball on Wed nights. I got out today on a small private lake that my buddies grandparents live on, we caught some of the smallest perch and crappies I've ever seen. I'm talking like 3 inches. We jigged up two northerns, and caught two on flags. Nothing to write home about but its always good getting out!! 

[Hagigun]

Good Ole Crappie night. I'd like to get out with ya one of those nights but I have basketball on Wed nights. I got out today on a small private lake that my buddies grandparents live on, we caught some of the smallest perch and crappies I've ever seen. I'm talking like 3 inches. We jigged up two northerns, and caught two on flags. Nothing to write home about but its always good getting out!! 

We will have to get together soon. Usually each Wednesday it has been 3 of us and we fit 4 easy in the Big hubs we have. I will keep you posted when we are short...but like you said, Basketball might hinder you. We certainly may switch up the weeknights on occasion if something comes up.

We are going out tonight on Bald Eagle. 2 friends are heading out about 4:00. We are going to go meet them once I get off work. I should be out on the ice by 6 tonight depending on traffic. We are going to pull a late one and stay out until 11pm at least. See if we can run into some fish. Then head back home and watch the Wild game on tape (I can't miss a game!). Tomorrow we will head out about 2pm as well, just not sure what Lake yet. Depends how we do tonight here I guess.

I'll be in touch, let me know how you do or if you are going out. Maybe we will end up on the same lake over the weekend. I'd like to watch some of these football games and may take Sunday off and head back out Monday.

Side Note: 2 of my friends have been at Mille Lacs since Wednesday eve. Only fish they had up to last night was 2 small Wally's. But they did get a $599 and $150 on tabs! I guess that will pay for the unsuccessful trip thus far.

[MN Bassfisher]

I ventured out to Shantytown today on WB. We did decent, I heard the crappies bite around 4-6:30 so we were set up and fishing by about 1:30. We caught some sunnies and an occasional crappie  during the day and then at 4, we both hooked up with 9-10 inch crappies. We managed some decent crappies for the next hour and then at 5 we stopped marking fish. The highlight of the trip was that my buddy hooked into something real nice. He fought something for about ten minutes before it snapped his 3lb test. He had his ultralight completely doubled over, it made a handful of serious runs and took out about 75 yards of line. He saw it right off the bat and we still never found out what it truly was, big muskie, northern, or walleye. More likely A or B. It was my best trip out to WB, so that was fun.

Yeah, we'll get out sometime soon. I can always bring my hub and setup next to you guys. I'm sure you'll catch some fish on Bald Eagle, I hope your able to find some size. Tomorrow I'm volunteering through the DNR and helping out with a Big Brothers Big Sisters ice fishing event tomorrow on WB starting at like 8-9am.