Vermillion Advice

[highbeeze24]

I’ll be taking a short trip to HooDoo point campground July 6-8 and was hoping to hear some advice as to how to approach this area of the lake. This will be my first time fishing on Vermillion and I will be primarily targeting walleye. Any advice and suggestions from more seasoned hands when it comes to this body of water is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score? Vince Lombardi

[F6firecat]

highbreeze24,

I was just up on Vermilion for a week with my family, it was all of our first time on the lake also. It is a great lake, lots of scenery, islands, structure, bays and more. It is a bit overwhelming.

We never caught a fish in Pike Bay, well, other than small Perch. But others at our resort caught some Walleye lindy-ing around HooDoo point, so that is a good place to start.

We had much better luck outside of the bay. Lots of islands and structure just outside the bay, and into Big Bay. But we had better luck to the East, in Stutz Bay and especially around Raspberry Island. But there were clouds of some kind of bug hatch all over the sonar, and we had trouble finding a consistent bite all week.

From post trip reports, it sounds like the bite is better, more consistent, in Big Bay in 26′-30′ of water, but the bigger fish are still more shallow in the morning and evening. Sounds like the fishing was decent around the entrance to Everett’s Bay as well, but that is a bit of a trip too.

Smallmouth were fun to catch casting up around the rocks on shorelines. A group at our resort also said Northern Pike in shallow bays (Stutz) were going good too, but we did not target them.

Its a great lake, take some time to just toodle around, you will enjoy it.

[highbeeze24]

Thanks for the advice F6!

If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score? Vince Lombardi

[highbeeze24]

I returned from a weekend on Vermillion Sunday evening. We headed up Thursday and arrived at Hoodoo point around 5:00 and set up camp. We dropped the boat in and tied up to the dock and I headed out Friday morning. I started pulling cranks around Cherry Island in 12 – 15 FOW and caught some smallies on the rocks and had a hit from something that I though was going to break my rod holder. I then moved out deeper water and started pulling crawler harnesses. I managed a handful of 13″ fish in 26 FOW before heading in to go and tour the Soudan mine which was a great experience. We went back out in the evening with dad and managed a couple and missed a couple others. I got my dad on a fish and that was the mission so I was plenty happy.

Saturday I went out in the morning and fished Raspberry Island on the north side in deep water thanks to F6’s advice. I only managed a single fish but it was the best fish of the weekend at 23″ out of 28 FOW. I headed back out to Cherry Island and managed a big white sucker out in 28 FOW which was a bit of a let down. I had fish marked suspended at 20 FOW over 30 FOW but left my reef runners back at the campsite. I still wonder what kind of success they may have had. The wind was howling and I went out with mom and my younger sister to attempt to find panfish which is far more challenging than finding walleye on Vermillion and after a couple of hours bouncing from spot to spot and fighting the wind we licked our wounds and headed in. Sunday morning the rain came and got in the tent. I headed to Ely for a couple hours and came back, packed up, loaded the boat and headed home. Not incredible fishing but certainly an amazingly scenic lake and a trip I will be making again. At $15 a night to tent you can’t go wrong.

If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score? Vince Lombardi

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