I have done my best on Sag this time of year at evening. I usually sit on a reef or hump that goes from 30' plus in depth up to 6-10' and work the edges with slip bobbers or raps. Usually right before the sun sets my depth finder will go nuts as the fish come under the boat heading in shallow. I got my biggest fish 29" sitting right on the drop off and throwing a rap on top of the hump and pulling it back. One little secret I learned that hard way and through a tip from a guide up there. If you are slip bobbering deep water on Sag, have your bait off the bottom more than usual. If you are in 16', don't be afraid to have it up 2' from the bottom. Not sure if it is the boulders down there or what, but I learned the hard way to fish Sag off the bottom.
As for Sag and fishing, I am one of the people out there convinced through several bad years and chats with the locals that something has changed Sag and the walleye population. We use to get some awesome stringers full of eaters 5 years ago, and that has been harder and harder to do the last couple years. For that matter, we have not had a fish fry the last two years on Sag and that is with 6 guys fishing. We have caught and released some hawg walleyes and tons of bass. This is the first year I will not make it so Sag, and I am hoping for some reports that contradict what we have experienced up there. Good luck on your trip.

Could it be the proliferation of guides on Sag, and the daily customer limits they've been taking out? Ever try to find an open date with the established guides up there? They're booked solid! It adds up over time - the fish in these lakes grow slowly - gotta believe constant take-take-take by the guides and their customers creates size gaps in the walleye population over time. Throw in a couple bad spawns, and prrresto - where'd they go?

Just my opinion.

PS - A couple have pointed to the fires and blowdowns as potentially negative factors on the walleye population. Exactly how would this be? Fire and falling trees happen above water - walleyes live below water. Am I missing something here?

PS - A couple have pointed to the fires and blowdowns as potentially negative factors on the walleye population. Exactly how would this be? Fire and falling trees happen above water - walleyes live below water. Am I missing something here?

This was pointed out as a possibility for more permits being available. People go up to be in pristine wilderness setting not charred remains.

Go a couple posts earlier and read. Not necessarily the case. But I do agree with you - it's a different place after the fire.

I believe it has an awful lot to do with the explosion of the smallmouth bass population. Bass are very proficient and voracious predators. I still do not understand the reasoning behind the DNR's desire to place a size limit on these "rough" fish! Very few people keep them anyhow. Ever see a local keep a bass to eat? Not in my 30+ years of fishing the area. Sure bass are great fighters but so are carp and they get a lot bigger. But I do not see people clamboring over themselves to chase after them. Carp are ugly in relation to a bass. That is the only real reason people fish for them instead. Bass do not taste very good. Most times a rather muddy flavor. Please MN DNR remove the size restrictions so the southerners who come up here in the summer time can rem over these pests!

have eaten smallie many times in the B-dub. Never bigger than 16",, always very good. Not walleye, but not mud either.Smallies from a cold,deep lake like SAg are very nice to eat. And I'am not a southern boy, grew up in MN. Smallie is a gamefish to be respected, Wallys are hurtin on Sag because of overfishing, and the smallies are taking advantaged.
The lake has gotten hammered,,, maybe take motors away for 5 years???,, or restrict the quota of motor permits . It makes a difference when Sag kicks up ;, fishing outta of 16' foot Crestliner or a 16' Penobscot.

MUD

If Sag is getting hammered the rest of the lakes in the state are getting carpet bombed.

As for the blow down and fire affecting the water this is what I was told by a local who has been on the lake all of his life. First, he told me about a expert on water from a big college who did some water testing on Northern Lights and Sag and found the ph to be off, he thought that this was leading to low oxygen levels in the lake which supports the locals own speculation that all of the carbon left from the fire along with the rotting wood was washed into the lake the last couple of years. He specifically was referring to last year when the huge amounts of rain came, he said the water was discolored along the shoreline for quite awhile. He had also dropped cameras into schools of walleye that were staying out in the deep water when they usually are in shallow. He noted a lack of younger fish in the schools and they would not react to any type of lure brought through them. He thought they were acting lethargic. The last thing he commented to me on was that the fish he had caught were lacking body fat.
As for Sag being hammered, I haven't seen that. For the last three years all of the groups we have talked to have not been getting numbers. They all admit to catching hawgs, but not eaters. Back several years ago when Sag was producing wonderful stringers, I don't see how the limited amount of permits, and the amounts of fishermen we did see, could really affect a lake the size of Sag. I think the guides are very good about encouraging bigger fish being released. Even then if the guides boats and X amount of permitted boats allowed into Sag were taking daily limits, I don't see how those numbers could compare to the number of fish being taken out of a lake like Mille Lacs or Leach. So to be honest, from my observations, I really haven't seen anything that could allow me to say Sag has been overfished. Be it just a natural cycle of a lake, bass explosion, or something really is wrong with the water, I strongly believe that the young walleye population is way down, and I suspect the DNR feels the same if they are now stocking a historically strong naturally producing lake Like Sag.

Were they gonna stock fry or fingerlings? How have the water levels on the sea gull river been during the spawn? That would have an affect as well. I like the theory about the lack of oxygen, etc, from the fire. Has there been an increase in smelt numbers in the last few years? They would have much more of a negative affect on walleye numbers than an "explosion" in bass numbers.

tkettel, thanks for the post.


"If Sag is getting hammered the rest of the lakes in the state are getting carpet bombed."
Thanks for the chuckle Mark.

Mudcutter, with all due respect I have to disagree that Sag is getting hammered. Probably less pressure on this lake now and we're a time of one eye 20".

I Have no experience with sag, but lots of experience with the dnr, and what I have found is the dnr really has no clue whatsoever. It could be walleyes, wolves, or wolverines, and the dnr is just another over funded government organization that hires citiots from the U of M that have no local or really any true outdoor knowledge because they are just extreme environmentalist and not true conservationalists. In my opinion the dnr is doing little for outdoorsmen but makeing them spend more money, ask anyone elder then you how the hunting and fishing was years ago and you will be astonished that it doesn't exist today. Like any other gov organization, its all about the benjamins for the dnr. All I need to say is the new walleye stamp. If your stocked walley lake is not producing its because it wasn't ment to be a walleye lake. I am not a 100 percent sure, but i dont think the dnr stocks lake of the woods and its some of the worlds best walleye fishin and its natural. The dnr just needs to let nature be, as well as all the greedy fishermen who need to keep their limit every day, when they fish every day.

Not sure where to start with that one Chad, so I'll let it lay where it is.

Invasive smelt and spiny water flea, increasing smallmouth bass numbers, a bad cycle of poor reproduction or young fish survival that has had trickle down effects on the entire population...there are many good explanations and some that may have contributed synergistically. Don't give the guides too much credit...I don't buy that angling has whacked that many fish; it's still a pretty darn remote lake. Looking at a map of the lake, there are a lot of places to go looking for walleye, is a couple hundred feet of gillnet really going to sample that monstrous of a lake with its diversity of habitat? Lots of people want blood from the DNR office, what were they going to do? Change the regs? Limit access? Those are their only real options and a reg change is only going to have an effect if fishing is lights out and the lake doesn't need any further limits on access.

I think they are doing the right thing. 4.5 million fry have a shot if they don't get gobbled up by smelt and they won't all get eaten. Fry stocking is pretty cheap, about 45K for the walleye fry. Check the lake in 4-6 years when they are reaching a pound, hopefully the state marked the fish to compare success of naturally reproduced fish to stocked fish. Maybe give the lake a nudge in the right direction and see if it can come back around.

Im a big believer that fishing pressure did NOT cause the poor numbers of walleyes or size discrepancy in Northern Lights or Sag. They are too big of bodies of water and get fairly little fishing pressure compared to many other smaller lakes that still produce good walleye numbers and get hit harder. Especially when you compare by # of fisherman per acre of water daily.
The St. Louis River gets fished as hard as any body of water in the state and it still puts out great numbers of walleyes in all types of sizes so I doubt Northern Lights or Sag are "Overfished" or the guides are to blame.

Well, here are some ideas.
1.Bass. No,they have been there for years.

2.Smelt. They maybe making it tough catching them. But you wouldn't also get the low test net numbers.

3. Fire ash run-off. Doubtful, the lake is 17,000 acres and walleyes live in way muddier and lower oxygen areas in S.MN.

4.Fishermen-Guides. I don't know. Has the pressure inreased that much? Are there that many guides that are that good? I can't say. I only fish it for a short time of the year. Does Canada commercial fish any of it?

5. Fire Retardant. I don't know. Some of the locals up there claim all the chemical fire retardant that was dropped on the forest fire has caused some kind of problem. No sceintific eitology that would say it has done something but none saying otherwise.

6. Low water. maybe a little. I think the walleyes could spawn on wind blown shallows if the Sea gull river was too low back in the drought years.

7.THE CORRECT ANSWER- I don't know and everything I would come up with is a guess and based on my tilted view of the world.

I was probably wrong with my idea of overfishing of SAg. But how many times was it even an option after the lottery to get over night motor permit?? After May, a guy going on his own was outta luck. ALOT of big fish have come outta that lake, alot more than I can think of compared to simialr size lakes, at least that we here off. Whatever it is, the DNR needs to cut back the # of OMP. (Overnight motor permits) It certainly is not going to hurt for a couple years. Most canoes are not anchored in 35' FOW jigging in 2-3' waves over a reef in AUG.
Giving the lake a break from motors a for little while, is not going to hurt the lake.