Arvid’s Fishing Report

The Bosch Boys put in some long days at their cold weather testing site here in Baudette and some of them find that doing a little ice fishing is a nice way to wind down at the end of the day. They don’t always get to fish at the most desirable times and as a result the catching isn’t always that great, but when they do catch a few fish that’s just bonus. They have some fish houses on the river near the airport and they can be fishing in minutes from the testing site. If the weather is nice some will sit outside on the ice which was the case on Thursday evening When Ken, Kevin and George were trying to find a walleye in late February. They had a good evening, Ken caught three, George caught one and Kevin got one for the wall.
Kevin with his 31″, 11 lb walleye

My friend, Terry, called over the weekend and said that there was a good perch bite on Lake Bemidji. On Monday, I was scheduled to make a trip to the Bemidji airport to pick up some Bosch associates in the afternoon so at Terry’s invitation I went down early and fished for a couple hours in the morning. The fish house was warm, the holes were drilled, all I had to do was step in and start fishing. The action was steady and I fished with only one rod using a small swedish pimple and a crappie minnow. I must have caught between 30 and 40 perch and one small walleye. I was only going to keep 10, but ended up with 13 in the pail. The walleye was 11″, but I had perch that were bigger so I released it.

Lake Bemidji Perch

Wednesday morning, Bill M. and I went to Bemidji to get the pontoon boat for our Senior Fishing & Boating Program. It felt a bit strange pulling a boat north with temperatures below zero and knowing there is two foot of ice on the river, probably three foot or more on the lake. We got a few looks. We are now going to have a full top put on the boat locally and it’ll be ready to go when the water isn’t quite so hard.
Bill has his fish house on the river close to the airport and on our way home he invited me to fish with him for the late afternoon bite if there was going to be one. I met him on the river shortly after 4:00 and we fish for a little over an hour. We each caught a nice walleye. Fishing on the river remains slow, but occasionally you hear of someone catching a big fish in the 10-12 lb range. Reports from the lake are mixed, anywhere from fair to good, with fish being caught in various depths.

Winter activities like snowmobiling are almost nil. We have very little snow and the trails have yet to be groomed. Some are riding the river and lake, but it’s not ideal.

Bill with a nice 18-1/2″ walleye