Grand Rapids Area Fishing Report

Grand Rapids, Minnesota fishing guide Jeff Johnson will be highlighting fishing tips, tactics, and locations every week. If you are enjoying the content you have seen, and you would like to connect with us, please feel free to send us an email at northerndriftoutfitters@gmail.com. If you have questions that you would like us to address in our weekly fishing report, please let us know, and we will do our best to answer. We would like to see this report page grow. Let others know, and we are always open to feedback.

Anglers were treated to an absolutely gorgeous weekend. The recent warm up has helped reduce the size of the drifts that have plagued most of the lakes in the Grand Rapids and Deer River areas. Four-wheelers, trucks, cars, snowmobiles are all finding ways to get out and maneuver around. I found myself reflecting this weekend on some of the harsh conditions we have faced over the past few years. It made this weekend feel pretty special. 

Cutfoot Sioux and Bowstring Lake are still providing anglers an opportunity at quality size crappies and decent numbers of fish. A lot of the smaller lakes in the area are struggling with good size distribution on crappies. A few observations that I made on Saturday, were that some fish are trending out of the deeper basins and holes they have been in. 

Taking this knowledge and applying it on Bowstring Lake on Sunday worked well. Every spot we stopped and checked had been drilled out. Most of the holes previous anglers had drilled were focused in the middle of these basin depressions. Staying to the outside of these depressions and focusing a little shallower provided enough bites to make for a good day.. Fish were not found everywhere, but when we did locate some, they bit. No coaxing needed. Staying outside of these highly pressured areas was the ticket for us.