Report Upper Red Lake

[Lee Borgersen]

                                     Upper Red Lake

 .........
Anglers also got an early start to the season at Upper Red Lake, although the snow has limited people from traveling anywhere they want on the fishery.
Fortunately, they haven’t had to go real far from shore to experience good walleye fishing at this stage of the game.
In a nutshell, Upper Red is full of walleyes and they’ll come through augured holes in a variety of sizes again this winter. Fish over 24 inches are less abundant, but there shouldn’t be any issues catching walleyes between 12 and 18 inches.

There’s a four-fish walleye limit on Upper Red and all fish between 20 and 26 inches have to be released. Most of the walleyes kept will fall between 15 and 17 inches, the result of a dominant 2009-year class.
“We’ve experienced a lot of back-to-back-to-back strong year classes, so the lake is very healthy,” said Gary Barnard, DNR fisheries supervisor in Bemidji. “They’re biting very well and there shouldn’t be any trouble catching fish to keep.”

Barnard added that anglers should encounter the trophy-caliber northern pike on occasion as well. Although the number of pike per acre isn’t outstanding, the average size of those fish is good, with upper 30-inch to low 40-inch pike common.
Test netting also has revealed some new recruitment of crappies in Upper Red. Although crappie numbers are nowhere close to what the 1995-year class produced and they probably never will be, Barnard said they are seeing more of them in nets than in past years.

[cookie]

now that's a good report