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Lake Darling Fishing Reports
Regions Covered: Click on the region name for region report, weather, maps, and more...
Grano Crossing - Thursday, July 14, 2011
By:
Jiggernaut
on 07/15/2011 09:29 AM
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Put the boat in at Grano and hit the west side by the bridge. Picked up a huge pike on the first cast with a crank bait. No more hits after that and moved the east side, again no more fish. Went under the bridge and started on the east side. Fished with crawlers and were catching a lot of small eyes. Started switching to minnows and leeches. Nothing on minnows, but the leeches were the bait of choice. Caught some real nice eyes in 12-14 FOW, using spinners and bottom bouncers. |
Lake Darling - Monday, July 11, 2011 | |
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Fished Darling Satuday, July 9th with one other guy, started out by the Grano crossing, one keeper walleye. went under the bridge the norther side, snagged a sucker, got one northern. went back under the bridge, fished the east shore, got a few northerns and small walleyes, headed south to another spot and got three more keeper walleyes. ened the day with 4 walleyes. pulling shadraps.
Sunday tried the same thing and ended up with 4 walleyes again. didn't catch any northerns Sunday, i like it that way. they mess up crankbaits bad. |
Grano Crossing - Saturday, July 9, 2011 | |
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Hit up Grano Saturday for some walleye/pike action. Picked up three real nice walleyes in the first 15 minutes and then it complety died. Started catching pike after pike with a few small walleyes and perch mixed in. Water temps were around the 75 degree mark. Water is very stained with limited visibility. Ended the day with 6 keeper walleyes and tossed back about 15 or more pike. Should start throwing them on shore as there are way too many pike in that lake right now.
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Lake Darling - Sunday, July 10, 2011 | |
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walked out on the tracks today fished the south side. had bites all day lots of little eyes and perch. about 4 30 the bigger one started to bite managed to land a few nice ones but ran out of bait . lots of fun nice day 4 fishing..
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Lake Darling - Thursday, July 7, 2011 | |
What a Sweetie
If this is normal, I’ve been fishing in the wrong places for too long. We hoped to make another trip up here before conditions changed. Water levels have been dropping and with decreased flows and less current things can turn around fast. Lake Darling has seen some dramatic conditions this year. Unprecedented releases of incredible volume both in and out. Changes like this can play havoc with fishing. It seems this year at least, the biggest problems have been roads and ramps, not the bite. With lower levels all the ramps are open again and in good condition. The only exception at this time is landing 3, which remains closed. Shore fishing is looking good as well, and the only closure is the outlet area where picnic tables are just beginning to show their tops. I have been putting in at headquarters ramp but decided at the last minute to put in at Grano. Good ramp, great parking and if you don’t mind going under the bridge you have easy access to miles of great fishing. From Grano we motored north to the railroad bridge. A short run and great fishing area with only one boat this morning. A quick pull with cranks in 10 feet left us empty handed so off to the gravel pit for a short pull before ducking under the Grano bridge and heading south. Not ideal conditions today for walleye. Dead calm, very hot, bugs in the face and fish seem hot tub lazy. The few hook ups we get are all on the back hook. Several don’t stay on long enough to make the trip back to the boat. Pulling the east shore in 10 feet into the current has been the secret to success last couple of trips up here. Today it ain’t gonna happen. Often with calm conditions I will go shallow and kick up speed, way up into the 3 plus range. Today deeper and slow won out. Downstream a ways and into 12 feet. With flows in at 7,600 and out at 9,600 the area still has pretty strong current. Bomber 24’s are gett’n all of the action. Once we put the pattern together it didn’t take long to find some Darling walleyes even with the flat water conditions. Ever wonder how deep your cranks are running? For years my guess work left me buying cranks to replace the ones I thought were not on the bottom. It may cost some money but you will get it back in saved cranks plus the bonus of more fish. Precision Trolling is a great resource for determining how deep you’re running. It covers almost every crank used for walleyes as well as the effects of different lines. I use Fireline 10-4 in Crystal and find the information critical to cranking success. I even go so far as to transfer the depths to my crank boxes. By writing in the depth and feet back it is easy to hook up a crank, check the depth finder, let out line and be right on the money. I go strictly by the book, no more guessing. The only time this changes measurably is in current which affects drag on the line. Other than that, speed has very little to do with the depth diving cranks run. It does seem going exceptionally slow with deep diving cranks will put them deeper than the chart. Even then I still go by the book. We are set up on a flat next to the old river channel where it makes a turn close to shoreline on the east side of the lake. Easy fishing with no need to be right on the money for structure. It did seem the closer I stayed to the contour lines of the channel the better the bite. The longer we fished the better the action. How good is Darling? With water temps high in the upper 70’s, no wind and fish in a lazy mood, we still caught 3 limits of great walleyes and that in the middle of the day. If you get here when conditions are just right be sure to count your fish. There is a limit you know. GPS Google Earth Locations, Video and Pictures of this report please visit: www.ndlive.com |
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Grano Crossing - Friday, July 1, 2011 | |
Took the chance and drove to Grano, road is open and water levels have dropped about 3-4 feet from originally where they were at before the major flooding began. Fished for Northerns and it was hot. My daughter and I caught 8, kept 5. All were 25-27 inches/3-4lbs. Hitting on smelt and spoons. |
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Lake Darling - Thursday, June 30, 2011 | |
Has anyone been out to Grano since the major flooding started last week? I did see a pic on KXMC facebook showing the bridge last Sunday/Monday and the road on both side of the bridge was covered by around a foot of water. Is it still that way?
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Grano Crossing - Saturday, June 18, 2011 | |
Fished Grano this morning, 6am-1130am, with my daughter and the Northerns are still biting good. Caught 6 kept 4, each were 4lbs, 2 were about 1/4 mile down the road facing the SW side. Saw a few folks pull up some eyes on the bridge as well. Daughter wasn't keeping an eye on her pole and the northern took the pole right into the water, so I had to jump into about 3-4 feet of water.... got her pole and also land the sucker as well. It was a great day to fish and her and I will never forget the day that Dad jumped into Lake Darling for a 4lb Northern and a pole. LOL!!
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Grano Crossing - Sunday, June 12, 2011 | |
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Took the boat up to Grano on Sunday night as finding a place on the bridge is near impossible unless you get there at sunrise!! Man for people....Water is still very stained and was only 64 degrees still. People on the bridge were having decent luck despite the numbers and current. Saw a few nice fish caught and odd to see people netting fish off the bridge as normally it is a pretty good drop to the water. I managed to put together a nice 5 fish limit after sorting through about 20 pike!! It was all a guy could do to keep them off. Water was rolling pretty good too for Lake Darling standards.
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Greene Crossing - Monday, June 13, 2011 | |
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Went out to Greene around 2pm today and immediately hooked up with 2 nice walleye. After that it was dead, except the Northerns were anything you through in the water. Grano looked like a combat zone with all those people fishing.
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Lake Darling - Saturday, June 11, 2011 | |
Went Out Today and caught 2 very small walleye (threw them back). We also caught 2 3-5lb northerns. It was quite windy today and a little cold, but we tried everything from using spinners to crankbaiting. Very few bites and from the boats around us looked like no one really was having luck. Hopefully the bite has not ended. |
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Lake Darling - Friday, June 10, 2011 | |
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Any boat ramps open on the south side by the dam or at landings1-3?
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Lake Darling - Thursday, June 9, 2011 | |
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Did good on northerns yesterday. nice size to them. Had lots of bites and a few small eyes. should be some good fishing if the wqater temps went up. looks odd seeing boats on the south side of the bridge cant wait to get the old mans out there and fish some new spots!!!
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Lake Darling - Thursday, June 2, 2011 | |
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Anybody been or heard how the fishing is at Lake Darling? I am renting a boat for the weekend and want to gived it a try. I have been doing pretty well fishing up at Grano off the bridge for walleyes, so I figured I would give it a try on the main lake. Also does anybody know if the boat ramps are even open with the high water. I plan on trolling bottom bouncers with spinners and maybe some jiging. Any suggestion or information would be great.
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Grano Crossing - Monday, May 30, 2011 | |
Fished grano crossing on 5/29/11 and caught 4 walleye from 15 to 24 inches on leeches all from 6 a.m. till 8:30 a.m. then not another bite until i quit at 3:30 p.m.
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