Has anybody been to Lake Kabetogama recently? If so, what are some good areas to fish for walleyes in the first week of June?.

Walleyeman. SCREAMIN DRAGS TO ALL!!!

Start looking shallow and work your way out deeper. Some fish will be shallow and others will be moving out. Thats about all I can give.
Spencer, www.MnFishing.org

going up to Kab second week of Sept. for the first time,  we are planning on nightcrawlers and possibly some minnows as we get up there, has anyone tried the gulp alive stuff up there yet?  looking to catch a mixed bag, and planing on doing a lot of jigging  near drop offs and island rubble, but are set up to troll the flats if the walleyes have not started the move to shallower shelves by then.   Any info for that time of year would be great,  I am assuming at this time of year the walleyes are moving from the flats to the shelves in 15-25 fow but may be a transition that may be on or off on a day to day basis depending on cloud cover, wind direction etc. I appreciate any feedback as I am coming from far enough away that I am not even sure of general weather conditions during this time of year up there,  Winging it and hoping for the best,  should be fine as long as we do not get blown off the lake.

Kab is fairly close to International Falls....so here's the NOAA webpage that will give you the 7-day forecast.

 

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClic...62&e=0

 

Fishing Hot Spots has a pretty decent map of this lake....

 

https://www.fishinghotspots.com/e1/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=7&idproduct=265

Life Member David BB Linkmeister US Army '78-'85 West Central Wisconsin

thanks for the Info,

I picked up the hotspots map and also the St. louis county  lake book, and there are a lot of pretty fishy looking spots near where we are staying, I can't wait to get up there, it may take a day or two to figure out the pattern, but I am sure we will get on them eventually.

Back from Kabetogama on the 20th and reporting on how we did.  First off  we had odds stacked against us, we were seeing temps of 85 almost every day last week, the water surface temp was 74 degrees, the lake surface was like glass the first half of the week and on top of that there was a mayfly hatch on some of the clay, mud bottom bays.   Being our first year there we were not too worried about catching fish as much as finding info on the lake and making sure the hazards did not swallow our boat whole.  This being the case, we did great.  We found walleyes in back bays from 5 ft in weeds down to nearly 70 ft between martin and little martin islands.  seemed the best concentration of fish was between 25-30 ft on points and rock outcroppings.  we caught a few walleyes rooting for mayflys in the bay by day marker 37. with hit or miss results, all were stuffed with mayflies.  the last two days we fished Nebraska bay drifting with bottom bouncers over the two jutting out points with a lot of success, jigged and bottom bounced the center reef these two days and had similar results, also jigged rocked piles from 5 ft to 40 ft and caught northern, walleye, perch, rock bass, small mouth bass, saugers, suckers all cogregated along the same breaks, as for bait we used minnows, leeches, and night crawlers, with the crawlers only slightly outproducing rest. the real key was to get contact with the bottom and maintaining it as long as possible, often dragging a jig worked great.  Caught a lot fo northerns on worms, none on minnows or spoons, seemed to be keyed into the leeches we saw throughout the lake swimming some as large as 15inches,  the Martin Islands seemed to hold a lot of problem northerns with about every 4th or 5th walleye you brought up was hit on the way up, and several northerns were taking jigs and worms on the way down.  One big northern was brought to the boat by our group before snapping the line, which was well over 40 inches. again on a worm and jig.  hope this helps someone, will bring a more detailed info in a week or so,  I reccomend staying at Pokorny's resort, the cabins had hot and cold running water, plenty of freezer space, comfortable furniture, kitchens with utinsels and all the cooking equipment you would need. linens were provided with the exceptioon of personal towels and kitchen towels.  The resort also has camp sites with on site honey wagon service. Fire wood is provided for free, there is a boat included with the cabin price or campsite I believe,   the docks are in a protected inlet and the docks have power running to them for battery recharge. it was very affordable, and was in a great location. right next to gappas landing they have a web site: http://www.pokornysresort.com/  if anyone is interested.

talk to you guys soon, hopefully next time with some picture from last weeks fun.

Yah we were like 15-20 dgrs. above average this lasrt week. Now it'ld probably be real good. It's 60 out here now and drizzley. IT's a nice break.

isn't it always the way,   should have been here last week, or now that your gone wow is the fishing good.  for the first time on the lake we had a good enough experience on the lake to make a return trip next year, ( probably a week later though) for many reasons.  Keep the posts for Kabetogama coming.  I am very interested in this lake and am a good reader, any info even area history is interesting to me. Good luck fishing, catch some of those fish above the slot for me that I know have to be in there.  We have only been back for 2 days and already I am wanting to go back, if for nothing else, its beauty.  I bet you in a couple of weeks when you have the color change up there it has to be like fireworks.  Keep me informed on the tricks that make them bite too, the more tricks I figure out the better off I will be,  I am new to walleye fishing as that was my first trip I actually tried for them all week.

Post to you all soon.

Beautiful area....happy to hear you had a good trip...and thanks for the feedback!

 

If you decide to go back...go here to the DNR sebsite....and download the maps. Crop them in Paint...and then mark them with your successes / observations....for future reference.

 

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind...apid=B0208

 

Life Member David BB Linkmeister US Army '78-'85 West Central Wisconsin

thanks for the tip on the DNR maps, I have the St. Louis county lake map book and added comments to that as you suggested.

well no reply yet from the resort we stayed at for next fall but it is early yet, figuring on a response late november if not it will be a phone call, would like to get up there again, great lake with lots of beauty, and plenty of places to fish, explore, etc anyway hope to post soon on when we are going, maybe I will see some of you up there next year,  Anyone going to the Governers opener on Kab this up-coming may 2010? 

A LOT of places won't start confirming reservations until after Jan 1st.

 

That said...I hope you get what you'd like...wish I could go there...but at this point in time...totaly out of the question

Life Member David BB Linkmeister US Army '78-'85 West Central Wisconsin

Davesett2000, you just have to get you foot healed up and get things squared away this winter, by next year, you will be tugging fish lips again.  Just save some for us less experienced guys, LOL,

Maybe I will see you around, until then I will keep you posted.  Hope all continues to get better for you.  It is now time to get ready for Ice season down in Madison wisconsin.  Have time yet before freeze over , but it never hurts to be prepared.  I suppose hunting is next on the list, but it would be nice to have some hard water around by the second week of deer season, I am itching to get out, we had a little one 2 years ago and it has been hard to get out since then, but this year he will be able to come along even for short sits in the mobile ice shanty, better than sitting on the couch. ( no offense intended to your condition.)

I just got confirmation for this years trip to Kabetogama, we are going a week later, ( 18th-25th of sept.) hopefully we avoid the warm weather that we had last year,  now with a week on this lake behind us we will at least have a few spots to try out,  If we can improve on an already great trip last year we will be sick of eating fish by the end of the week, ( not a problem you get too upset about.)

Hope all you guys up there in Minnesota are having a good hard water season, maybe I will bump into some of ya in Sept.

Just hang a sign on my computer that I am gone fishing. I may be at work, but you can't make me think of work.

a couple of pics from Sept. 2009 trip.

Just hang a sign on my computer that I am gone fishing. I may be at work, but you can't make me think of work.

For some reason the pics are blank on my end. I was lookin forward to seeing them.

let me try again, I will put the links in.

<a href="http://s760.photobucket.com/albums/xx247/domkaaj/?action=view&current=AndysMNFishingTripbass.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx247/domkaaj/AndysMNFishingTripbass.jpg" border="0" alt="Sept. 2009 kabetogama smallmouth"></a>

and the second

<a href="http://s760.photobucket.com/albums/xx247/domkaaj/?action=view&current=AndysMNFishingTripSept2009walleye.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx247/domkaaj/AndysMNFishingTripSept2009walleye.jpg" border="0" alt="Sept. 2009 Kabetogama walleye"></a>

try that out, if it still does not work, let me know so I can try another way.

My body may be at the computer, but my mind is "gone fishin".

Happy to hear that you got confirmed resv for this coming fall

 

Foot is still healing slowly...hope to be walking fairly normal by June or so...good Lord williing 

 

Still unemployed after 22 months...so any trips like to Kab are definitely out of the question

 

BUT...I can still be jealous and envious of your trip  

 

Wish you could make it to the La Crosse Meet...such a varied area...I have several good maps of it.....good people....no pressure...beautiful campground...group meals at breakfast and dinner...NO ONE talks about politics....we just hang out together 

Life Member David BB Linkmeister US Army '78-'85 West Central Wisconsin

the lacrosse meet sounds cool, I will see if I can fit it in my schedule and look it up in the meets section of the forum.  maybe I will get to see you there.
My body may be at the computer, but my mind is "gone fishin".

well it is time for the yearly pilgramage to Kab.
I have heard through the grape vine that the heat retained in the lakes this year has been causing havoc on catch rates in northern MN. Has anyone seen this and how have you gotten around it. I was recently in northern wisconsin and we saw a major heat wave when it came to surface temp. registering at 84 degrees. Not only surface temp of 84 degrees but the first thermocline and change of temp at almost 7 feet down!
it seemed the fish were doggy at best and definitely could not be found above the thermocline like they normally are in that lake. Just seeing if we have to switch tactics when we get up there in a few weeks to go for more reaction bites than the slow approach, it does seem to be cooling more rapidly up there though than down here, so maybe we will hit is just right to where the fish will finally feel comfortable enough to go on a feeding frenzy. one can always hope,
Heres me with my fingers crossed.. I am sure we will have a blast regardless.
I will report on my finding when I come back after the 25th.

well we are back from Kab, and I have to say it was an experience this year
we had limited succss but most of it was due to the weather, we saw 2- 4 foot waves most of the week, and it seemed as it built as the week went on. it seemed if you found them it wa**** or miss to get them to bite, ( again as last year, the fish for some reason were full to the brim with mayflies). Still can not figure out the mayfly thing. next year I am going to see if I can find some to take as bait. Thursday and Friday the storm built up some more where we were getting strong gusts of wind large waves and inches of rain per hour. left on Friday to travel home and find out that the mid Wisconsin area wa**** pretty hard with the same weather and actually had people in our fishing party not able to reach their house due to washed out roads and flooded areas. At least we can look at it in the future and say to ourselves ( this is not so bad, remember fishing in 2010!!
( just for an idea of how bad it got, coming back on Friday the 24th, we would have been better off with less wind and waves if we would have fished lake superior, than Kabetogama). Still had a great time, saw lots of wildlife, and enjoyed ourselves by playing cards and hanging around the cabin when it got to bad to be out on the boat.
If you are heading northwest in Wisconsin, be advised, the water levels are really high and in most places along highway 53 and 29 there is flooding. The flooding has not reached the road, but be vigalant, the water has driven deer and all other sort of wildlife to the travel corridor. Many deer were seen just standing on the highways just because the woods were so flooded there was no where else to go for them. anyway if anyone gets a chance I still reccomend the lake and the resort ( Pokorny's). They are making improvements all the time, in fact they just completed a fish cleaning house that will make it very nice indeed to clean your catch. www.pokornysresort.com.