Smallmouth in Grand Rapids MN area

[Doctor J]

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone fishes smallies with regularity in the Grand Rapids area. I know Turtle is supposed to be good, and a guy could fish the river. Anyone target them on any other lakes? I got into them last year on the river and had a blast, would love to find a couple good lakes around home to fish.

Thanks.

[Craigums]

Hi all,

Wondering if anyone fishes smallies with regularity in the Grand Rapids area. I know Turtle is supposed to be good, and a guy could fish the river. Anyone target them on any other lakes? I got into them last year on the river and had a blast, would love to find a couple good lakes around home to fish.

Thanks.

Caught a couple on Pokegama last year

[Pherris]

Pokegema is pretty good for smallies from my experience. I consider it one of my top 4 smallies lakes.

Good Fishing!

[corncob]

Turtle rules according to a bass quide up there that I met.

[Basschaser]

Deer and Turtle gets my vote. Both are great sight fishing lakes.

[bassinator]

Pokegama can be great for size and numbers if you find them.

[Cecil]

Deer and Turtle for sure

[Raider4ever]

Someone brought this up last year and the locals went friggin' nuts. "Now you're gonna come up and empty our lakes." Yeah, cuz there aren't 460,000,000 lakes in Itasca County. Wabana is one of the best SMB lakes under 3000 acres I have ever been on. Take that.

[fishuhalik]

Trout by Coleraine is really underrated for smallies. I know of a couple 6+lbers from out of there. One 24" that was released, it was a SOW. Spider Lake's loaded with em, and you'll get a bunch of largies while you're chasing the smallies. Wabana's also good, never really fished Turtle. I know of a few guys that do well on Deer on cloudy days, but have only been out there 2x myself and didn't get much. Pokie can be really tough, there's alotta structure out there for 'em to hide in. And as you already stated, the river can be good. There's a small honey-hole lake that is absolutely loaded with em but it's really hard to get access to it. Smith Lake, the one on the north side of Smith Lake Road has a few, and North Star's got some nice ones too. Caribou's got a ton of little ones with a few decent fish. And Big Sand by Bowstring is reported to have them, but I've fished that lake a ton for eyes and never got one. Good luck wherever you do choose to go!