My fourteen year old son and I are planning a trip through Knife for ten days beginning on May 24. The last two years, we have gone west of Moose Lake on Wood, Indiana, Good and Basswood. We have done very well fishing mainly for bass and pike, catching a lot of them on topwater.

Can anyone attest to the bass fishing up that direction this early? My fear is those deeper lakes will be colder and less productive. Just trying to make memories!

I have OK luck on Knife, most of it in the south arm, for bass. That being said, you can catch bass almost anywhere along the shoreline, may not be huge, but you can catch them! My best luck in that area has been on day trips to lakes 1-2 portages in from Knife.

Look at the Voyageur maps website, lots of free info for depth, etc that you can print off.

South Arm fish are good, plenty of them and can get a huge one. May lose a few lures casting back to where they are. If there is "too much" cover...wood, rocks, whatever, I fall back on small hook, bobber, and live bait. There are some big ones back in the timber.

Good luck!

Voyageur maps Knife Lake

Knife lake is an outstanding fishery, smallies will be back in the bays , a lot depends on the weather in late may. but water temps can be in low 50's main body of the lake and in the 60's back in the bays. this is an early june map. I have been to knife many times and I prefer the north arm but both are outstanding .

mcsweem: " "

Ha! I actually have a print out of this from a few years back and used it as a reference. Lots of good info!

it's basically an early june map

At the top of your map you have a site marked "great campsite", is this the toilet with a view campsite?

campnfish: "At the top of your map you have a site marked "great campsite", is this the toilet with a view campsite?"

Yes one of them. We stayed there last year for 2 nights. We pulled in on a windy afternoon and thought the dot was in the bay that faces south. Paddled around until we figured the map was wrong and it's on the north side of the point. (it is)

Mcsween you are a great guy for sharing your fishing maps with the board the way you do. Thanks.

I still use the map of Iron Lake you shared a while back.

Of course, a guy still has to catch their own fish.

campnfish: "At the top of your map you have a site marked "great campsite", is this the toilet with a view campsite?"

YES

UPBoy: "Mcsween you are a great guy for sharing your fishing maps with the board the way you do. Thanks.


I still use the map of Iron Lake you shared a while back.


Of course, a guy still got a catch their own fish."

Thanks Dick that's kind of how I feel about it. you still got to do the work to get there and to catch the fish, if they want to bite

me and my group have done very well for smallies on many knife lake opener trips ,(many 4 pounders) we target the wood piles with smaller shallow running crankbaits (one must use stealth when targeting these fish) also rock piles that have a wide range size of boulders are a great spot for deeper diving crankbaits and literally puppossly banging them off the rocks/boulders.

Senor McSweem,

Want to thank you for sharing your map with me and all the information you have noted on it over the years. I am looking to change where i was originally going to camp and target fishing areas. Will let you now how it goes, and thanks again.

There is a nice depth map for Knife on the Minnesota DNR website.