Auburn, Zumbra, Minnewashta, and Whaletail

[Moneymurphy]

Hi all, so I live in the metro area and I'm trying to find some new lakes to fish. I'm thinking about going to Auburn, Zumbra, Minnewashta, or Whaletail for bass and maybe northern. Was hopeing for some info on how the fishing is in those lakes and what big fish people have caught out of there.

[chief]

All lakes you mention have tremendous bass populations, and they all produce big fish. Five pounders are not uncommon.

I no longer fish Whaletail, so I can't speak to its recent fishing history.

On Minnewashta and Auburn you will encounter waterskiers, and other recreational users, in abundance. You'll encounter far fewer of these folks on Zumbra. Fishing on all of these lakes is very solid, but you'll have lots of company.

If you want fine fishing AND peace and quiet, my recommendation is Steiger. It has a 15mph speed limit, so pests are nonexistent, and it's loaded with good bass. It's a designated catch and release lake for bass.

Steiger and Auburn lie wholly within the Three Rivers Park District. If you park a vehicle with an attached trailer it'll cost you $5.00 a pop. You can, however, get a yearly trailer pass for, I believe, $18.00 at any Regional Park Office. A large percent of Zumbra is also in the park district, but there is no trailer fee.

All these lakes, with the exception of Minnewashta, feature modest launch sites. I can't see a problem launching/loading most "standard" fishing rigs, but you'll have trouble at some sites with large fiberglass runabouts.

Don't forget Pierson, Parley, Wasserman, and Bavaria. They're all minutes from each other.

There is great bass fishing in all these lakes. It's just a question of the overall experience you seek.

[Presco]

If you weren't already aware, the Minnesota state record largie came out of Auburn. Almost 9lbs if memory serves.

[bassfishin_83]

I have fished Zumbra and Steiger for a few years now and have alway had great catches out of both lakes! My largest "Mid-west" bass came out of Steiger! But I agree with chief don't forget to hit up the other area lakes they are all great bass/pike producers!!!

[Ctrl_Alt_Dlt]

I went to Steiger and Zumbra last year. We heard great reviews about them and we all were excited when we got to the lakes. We caught many 12inchers or smaller at Steiger. I think my friend caught one that was about 3lbs only. We used shads, frogs, and spinners. I did well with frogs. We fished the entire shoreline around the entire lake. We did not fish the deeps at all.

Zumbra looks more promising than Steiger. From the launch, we fished the left side slowly in the pads and had some strikes. There were times where we saw huge bass strike our frogs, but the pads were so thick it was hard for the bass to break through. Biggest I caught from Zumbra was 3lbs 14ounces. We tried fishing the 20 ft drop but caught a small bass only.

Zumbra is a weird lake IMO. There are days when the bass bite and days they dont bite anything. All three times that I went last year, i feel like I was skunked. Nothing really big attacked or was caught. The fish are really sensitive.

Overall, these lakes have good reputation for big fish, but I have not caught anything big or seen anything big pulled out. Zumbra seems harder to fish.

[bassfshin24]

Ive went to Steiger 3x this year and have done decent each time. Biggest fish went 19inchs and just over 4lbs. Had 3 others that have been over 3lbs. Most of the fish i did catch were right around 2.5lbs. There are some really good weed beds on that lake. I tried to put my boat into Zumbra last year but it was way too shallow. I would really like to get out there sometime though.

[Gekhang]

just got back fishing from zumbra and auburn, didnt have much luck at either. maybe it was wrong timing and place and wrong choice of baits. stieger on the other hand was disappointing until we hit the hotspot and started catching some pretty nice sized bass...