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31 incher!	35" pike: Frank McMahon of Lindstrom, MN

Arnesen’s Rocky Point Fishing Report February 6 th

Hi Gang! Ogs here with a January summary and a February update; in a word fishing the past month has been challenging. We want to thank our customers for hanging in there with us and allowing us, the guides, to find you fish. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would call January a “5”. It’s nice to know better fishing is ahead.

What is happening? By looking at the lake and the vast areas of moon ice (ice that was broken and stacked by big winds after freeze up) we can tell that there was some stirring of the water affecting the water clarity. The good news is that the clarity is not even close to being as bad as it was a couple of years ago. The downside is that there is enough sediment in the water to make the fishing unpredictable.

We are finding a couple of things different this year. First, the consistent morning and afternoon bites that we had last year, just aren’t there. It’s a “high sun” bite from 11:00 am to 2 pm (sometimes 10:30 am to 2:30 pm) because of the low light levels down there. Secondly, we are also finding the fish in shallower waters than we normally do. We have been finding fish in 20’ – 28’ feet of water instead of the 28’ – 32’ feet that we usually fish at this time of year. Third, the bite is low to the bottom. The majority of the fish seem to be riding the bottom and feeding on the may fly larva. We are seeing the may flies in the stomachs of the hundreds of fish we clean each night. We are seeing some minnows in the fish but these are our minnows. My guess would be that the darker water gives the wild minnows the edge. The fish swim into your bait but they are not aggressively grabbing and bursting ahead to feed. They are lightly taking a hold of the minnow, sitting with it, and slowly eating it. The LED cameras are backing this up.

Presentation: Low and slow seems to be the way to go right now. The dead stick with a small jig or bare hook, lightly hooked minnow, and a small bobber seems to be the way to go. Some experienced anglers are pounding the bigger spoons. The best jigging technique lately has been to slowly lift the spoon up while watching the flasher to see if you have one following off from the bottom. If you get one to follow, then slowly lift the dead stick as well. Three fish (of five) that I caught on a day off, followed the jig up three feet, and then would drop back down again. They repeated this several times before striking! Crazy!!

As the water continues to clear, the fishing will continue to get better. We are now fishing from Twin Islands, to Gull Rock, to Cooker’s and Mark’s reefs, and then out to 12 mile, and then all the way out to Archie’s reef. We are covering a lot of area. We have seen some really nice fish. There have been several walleyes released in the 26inch to 29 inch range and we have had a few in the 29 inch to 31 inch range brought in for mounting and we have had quite a few northerns that have been released that have been in the 37 inch to 41 inch range.

That is all for the fishing report. Watch for the big red blip on the flasher and I’ll see you on the Landing!