Fishing Report
Since the big rainfall, I have not spent as much time on the water as I would have wished due to prior commitments but I have been out a few evenings and this is what I have found:
The largemouth bass are all over the place and hungry. I have caught bass in 2 feet of water under docks to 30 feet of water on rock bars. That say a lot about the underrated bass fishery in the Brainerd Lakes Area. I think it is a much overlooked opportunity to get a ton of bites, have a bunch of fun and teach a new fisherman what a bite is.
Last Wednesday, I decided to head out to one of the many local lakes in the Baxter city limits for a little bit of bass fun. Every single bass spot that I have on the lake had hungry fish. I started with a Big John jig and a 6 inch worm fishing the weed edge and the first cast I popped a 16 incher. The fun didn’t stop on cast 1 I can tell you that. I caught 16 fish in a 45 minute span before I decided to move to spot 2 where I had very similar results. In 2 1/2 hours of fishing I caught 43 bass up to 19 inches and many small pike.
On Thursday, I decided to go hit yet another lake inside the city limits of Baxter and found some really nice bass again, this time casting some deep diving crank baits. This time, the fishing was a little bit slower but the size increased. In 4 hours of fishing, I boated 13 largemouth up to 21 inches with the average size being around the 17 1/2 inch mark. The best part of this was how acrobatic they were. Every fish jumped shortly after the hook set and it was a great time!
On Friday, I had a friend in town and we decided to go after some crappies and it wasn’t a complete bust but it wasn’t on fire either. We found a very large school of all sizes of crappies off of the tip of a deep weed point, which is the type of structure that is my first spot to check in late summer. In a couple hours of pounding the school, we caught around 20-30 crappies anywhere from 4 inches to 13 inches. Every one were released to fight another day! Red and white tubes on a 1/32 oz white jig head was the ticket.
On mid day Saturday, I headed to Gull for a little bit of a reprieve from my computer to try to catch enough gills for supper. It turned out to be a very easy adventure. I found some very nice fish deep in an inside turn in some cabbage. I had to make long casts with a small ice fishing jig tipped with waxies. In 2 hours, I would say I boated 50 big gills from 8-9 3/4 inches. I kept 5 in the 6 to 7 inch size for the frying pan. The magical depth was about 7 feet. The key was to find the gaps in the weeds. If you could get your jig below the weeds, it was a matter of seconds before you had a fish on.
Reminder: I do not live on a lake but I want to remind all of us boaters…the water in the Brainerd Lakes Area is still extremely high. I ask you all to please have some courtesy for the land owners and also for the public lands that are around a lake. Please keep your wake to a minimum within 100 yards of shore. There will be enough damage to property, both private and public due to the natural circumstances. Lets all try to do our part and not add to an already serious problem.
Recipe
I was recently in Canada for a filming work trip and was blessed with yet another fine and extremely simple recipe that I want to share.
Get yourself a nice tinfoil pan or make yourself a boat out of aluminum foil. Spray it down with a good no stick spray. Make a single layer of fish on the bottom of the pan and season with granulated garlic, season salt and pepper. Put on a generous helping of ranch dressing and with a brush cover each of the fillets. Thinly slice one sweet bell pepper and lay the slices over the top of the fillets. Cover with tin foil and bake at 400 or grill on high for 20 minutes and check to see if the fish flakes. Once it does, the fish is done and enjoy!
This goes very good with garlic bread and a cold potato salad!
Nate Berg
Nate Berg Fishing Guides
218-821-9488
