Clearwater/Pipestone chain

[superbee]

I have not been fishing Clearwater, but I know that the guests at True North have been catching lots of walleyes on Clearwater. All the lakes are around are good right now.

[MinDak Hunter]

We'll be heading up on Tue. or Wed. this week. I'll try to post results when we get back. Anyone been on Clearwater recently?

[smalliehunter]

i was there last thursday the 4th from 5am till about noon. bass fishing, but all the deep water structer we tried produced only walleyes. They are everywhere in that lake. the deepest humps we could find produced the most eyes. so my question is where do the bass hang out? is there anywhere deep that you can find them or is it best just to go fish the slop and reed beds?

[MinDak Hunter]

Fishing from the dock was slow for us, no smallmouth caught at all, and we (the kids) usually catch a doz. or so. We found walleyes under BIG schools of perch in 18-22 FOW. 1/8oz. glow Northland jig with a minnow about a foot off the bottom was the best. The schools of perch were huge. One school that we found was about 200 yards long and 50 yards wide, I've never seen 'em like that on clearwater before. The swimming and rock jumping was great even if the fishing wasn't the best.

[Ridgerunnr]

Just got back...cold weather and rain and wind. Walleye bite a bit tough. Graph em and vertical jig em w crawlers was the ticket. Smallie bite in Pipe n South end was great. Trout .didn't fish em...musky fishn was ugly. One 40 caught.. several seen but not interested in bites. My son is still there and they boated 4 yesterday so obviously something changed lol.

[Mike Wallace]

Was on Pipestone with Superbee's Gateway North Outfitters at their Watson Bay Outpost July 27-Aug 1.

3 of us muskie fished about 99.5% of the time.

Weather was in the 70's, partly/mostly sunny. We had wind 1 day.

Fished reefs/points didn't seen any. When we fished the weeds we saw 7. Now I know that Pipestone isn't even a moderate density lake, but only 7 showed.

Tried rubber, blades, cranks, gliders and the blades had the most action.

Caught as much pike as we wanted. There is a 27.5-34.5 slot, but we only caught one in the slot. All others were 22-26".

Great multi-species lake and location with Gateway North. There are better muskie lakes, but will return for the experience.

[dented boat guy]

Mr. Wallace you have a message.

[NoWiser]

I wouldn't feel too bad, Mike. I was up at the beginning of July and in a week of fishing raised exactly 0 muskies. My buddy who was in the boat with me raised two and caught a nice one. It seems the lake is VERY weather dependent. We've had years where we see multiple fish every time out, and years where nothing seems to work. As hard as I tried this year, I just couldn't figure anything out. Rocks, weeds, points, reefs, walls, open water......it didn't matter where I was or what I threw, I just couldn't find any. We had dead calm and sunny weather, though, and the one fish we caught was right as the only storm of the week came rolling in. It's a frustrating lake for sure, but I love it! Plus, it seems like there are always walleyes, smallmouth, largemouth, and trout to be caught.

I sure wish I could spend a day in a boat with a guy who is consistently successful on that lake. I feel like I am so close, but just have a few more pieces of the puzzle to put together to figure out the muskies in there!

Can't beat Gateway North's location on the lake! I really like that part of the lake.

[Mike Wallace]

Yes, last two times for me was mostly clear and calm. The poor weather/windier days SEEMED to have more action.

Yeah, there is something about it that makes me want to go back again. It definitely isn't how many fish we saw, there is just something about the lake...

[Ridgerunnr]

My Buddy there said they musky action has picked up. 15 fish seen in pipe and several decent 40+ caught. The water temps slid backwards the end of July - first part of Aug quite drastically. Now thst temps are steady and up a bit the bites on. One 50 1/8 pig boated by his son as well.

[MinDak Hunter]

Just got back from Clearwater, the fishing report is about the same as the one I posted on July 14th. 18-20 FOW, mark fish on graph, drop 1/8oz. jig n minnow, catch fish... the only color that worked for us was green; because thats all we tried. We had several 20-40 fish in an hour morning/evenings on Fri-Sun.

My 6 year old son caught a 19+ inch smallie too, right at 19 1/8 inch without the tail pinched.

[MinDak Hunter]

[MinDak Hunter]

Tough fishing this weekend, water was at about 47 degrees and we had trouble finding schools of walleyes. 1 fish at about 25inches was the biggest in the boat, green 1/8th oz. jig and a whole minnow did the best, 20 feet of water.

[computerboy]

Heading up tomorrow morning and just curious what the road conditions are like with all the rain/flooding. Is 615 open all the way to Sportsmans Landing?

Thanks in advance!

[walt501]

I just drove out the 615 from Sportsman's two days ago. There is water over the road in various places, but nothing that you can't get around. Because of all the rain, the bugs are the worst that I have seen in 56 years of being on Clearwater. The water level on Clearwater is also very high and still on the cool side with all the rain but with some warmer temperatures in the forecast that should change fairly quickly. Last Monday evening my oldest Son was standing on the dock in the evening talking on the phone when a approximately 15 pound Muskie followed closely by a 4 pound Muskie slid into less than a foot of water along side the dock. I can only assume they were spawning, which is a concern that spawning is still taking place so close to the Muskie opener, which is today.

I did portage into a smaller, shallower lake off of the Clearwater / Pipestone chain two weeks ago with a friend who lives on the lake. In six hours of fishing we boated about 20 walleyes and 40 northerns with almost all fish being released. The largest walleye went 4 pounds and the largest northern was 6 pounds, both released. We also netted a northern that had clamped down on a 1 pound walleye that was hooked. I thought the northern would let go when he saw the net, but he didn't. I netted both fish. All fish we're caught on red fire crawdad Rattlin Rapalas.

[computerboy]

I just got back on Wednesday and figured I would post my findings as well. This was a split trip between Off Lake and Lake of the Woods. Roads were exactly as walt501 described, as were the mosquitoes. 615 had a few spots of standing water, but very passable. 71 to Sioux Narrows had some portions of washout on the road that had been repaired. Aside from having to slow down here and there, the roads were in surprisingly good condition. The mosquitoes on the other hand were absolutely awful.

The water on Off Lake was very high, but certainly not as high as it's been historically (at least from what I've been told). It appeared to have dropped a few inches prior to our arrival based on the debris line in the yard. Fishing was decent. Seems like we are about 2-3 weeks behind schedule though. Looking forward to getting up there again soon.