Hi Everyone,

It has been a busy spring: Water conditions on Crow Lake are still staying at 48-49 F, up at the north end we have found temps at 52-53 F. We have had a wide range of different types of fisherman, from Lake Trouters to Smalley to Pike. The Lake Trout fishing started out slow for some because of the water temps the bait fish were not coming up to the surface. What was working was slowly back trolling watching for the arch on your graph at 40 feet over 60-75 feet of water stopping and dropping using sonars. Some use even a simple 1/2 oz jig head with a 3 inch flat head minnow. It was early for bank fishing for some
but this past week bank fishing has been doing well with sucker meat or shiners and ciscos. The back trolling and jigging are still working. We have seen while bank fishing pairs of nice size muskies coming up into the shoreline.

Smally fishing started out slow because of the prolong spring weather lack of weeds and slow in water temps rising. We are just starting to see weeds in Blackys bay, bass alley. We are expecting very warm temps 75-85 and think in this next week we will start to see numbers on Crow Lake. Lake of the Woods seeing more and more beds with the water temps in the low 60's. Some of our smaller remote lakes are producing nice smalley and pike. So, if you can't catch them on Crow or Lake of the Woods we always have other lakes to give a try. Many of been using 3 inch flukes, 3 inch crawlers, no weight letting them sink slow. The crawler hooking them wacky style. Colors used watermelon, pumpkin seed, and the top water bite is picking up. Pike fishing all you need to use is something shiney, meps spinners, they pretty much hit on anything.


Went walleye fishing on Lake of the Woods, caught them on every spot we went to catching them at 21-24 feet deep. Used a jig and a minnow, caught a ton of 12-14 inch, and a dozen or more over 18 inches. Kept it pretty simple, just look at your map pick your points and move if there are no fish there.

Looking forward to muskie opener, and think it might be one of our best openers.

See you on the lake

Paul Trinkner
Muskie Bay Resort
800-363-3379