Where can I catch some eelpout?

[huntingislife]

I caught one of these yesterday and am very intrigued by them. I hear they taste very good and I want to catch some more. What are some good lakes for them? Do you target them just like walleyes? Any specific techniques, time of day, etc? Thanks

[Bobb-o]

basically you find them in the larger lakes north of mille lacs. yo are right aboot the taste, they are a cousin of cod, which i am sure you have tried if you have ever eaten fish in a restaurant. Most people catch them just like walleyes. but they will bite throughout the night. They have a tournament for them at the beginning of february in walker, the Eelpout festival, but it is more aboot drinking than catching fish. some of the top places to catch them would be Leech Lake, LOW, Mille Lacs, and i even saw one come out of Red Lake last year (that was a huge surprise to me) up here in bemidji they go onto the midlake humps near the middle of february to start spawning and thats when you can catch a lot of them using big jigs and big shiners.

[Deitz Dittrich]

As bob-o stated, the best time to catch them is late ice when they start spawning.. Then its just a matter of finding them on shallow bars usually not connected to shore. You can usually catch a few here and there, butthey are hard to target through most of the winter. But when they make their spawn run, you can really get into the numbers of them. Back in college we would go out in late season and it was not uncommon to catch 30 or more fish in an afternoon. Airplain jigs with minnows hanging everywhere seemed to be the best bait!

[Tyler Holm]

I've caught several on smelt and big flathead minnows. I've noticed they don't want any jigging movement. We've caught the most during the evening while walleye fishing.

[lipp_ripper]

Why would anyone target an eelpout? I don't care what they taste like. The fact that they curl around your arm when you pull them out of the hole is enough to make my sink crawl. You can have all the eelpout you want.

Hunt Are you done with finals yet?

[huntingislife]

Good, Me and all the men here will take care of the eelpout for you. We will maybe even get real lucky and get some with lampreys on them.

I finished finals monday and am headed to ND wednesday. Probably gonna go back and hunt some geese. I think I might go stick another deer too. The freezers full but its a long year.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I've caught them in the Mississippi (around the St. Cloud region), too, though I've never intentionally targeted them.

[Roughfisher]

Caught a bunch this weekend. They are the best-eating fish in the state, and hard fighters. I ate one whole 7 pounder during halftime of the vikings game and I wish I had a few more! Try the St. Louis River, they are running right now to migrate upriver for the spawn, and you can catch a lot of them from sundown to sunup. Check out the BWCA/Duluth/Ely forum, the guys on that forum really know what's up, especially Northlander. The run will be peaking in the next two weeks or so before they get up into the riffly water where you can't fish them. They don't have much meat on them so release the small ones under five pounds, to fight another day. They like glowing lures tipped with live bait. Put down a live shiner on a bobber rig and jig a large glowing buckshot spoon at the same time.