Heading to Iron lake this year. Does anyone have any spots to try for walleye? I am going up first week in June, as I do every year, but have never been to Iron.

In general, I assume I should be able to find them around the islands off points or wind blown areas. We usually do very well up there with jigs and leeches early in the year like this, but any tips on the lake would be fantastic and much appreciated. Also not opposed to targeting other species like smallies or pike. A few people in my group love fishing for those as well.

TIA and safe travels to everyone this year! Tight lines.

I'd suggest that you take fish/depth finder -- which I'm sure that you're going to take anyway. There are a lot of complex structures to hunt down walleyes depending on water temps, weather, hatches, etc.

I found a ridge just south of an island on the west end of the lake. The weather was awful but the walleye were still hitting the rap that I was trolling. The narrows between islands can be productive as well as the outflow from the falls on the east end.

Others with far more extensive experience fishing that lake can give you better advice.

Exclusively fished Iron late May/early June at least 7 times (more if you include Summer months) since 1999. There are obvious areas that hold fish all year, but some other areas are not so "known" and even better as the water warms up until (during) peak surface temp in late July. Early June this year should be typical "hot" for all species in Iron. Email me for additional info, pics from Iron.









(Crappie pic for some reason goes elsewhere- but was 15"+)

Iron Lake Crappie-

Fish current areas below the falls

White wolf helped me out on my trip to Iron last year. Also got some of those 15" crappie thanks to him. Your going to be up there pretty early so warm water and current should be holding walleye. Here is a map from an old post they will give you some areas to fish.

trailchief: "White wolf helped me out on my trip to Iron last year. Also got some of those 15" crappie thanks to him. Your going to be up there pretty early so warm water and current should be holding walleye. Here is a map from an old post they will give you some areas to fish. "

Trailchief, That's my map, I have several in my photos to assist in different areas Iron, Knife, Fraser, Kek. Feel free to use them

I would be very surprised if you don't do extremely well on fishing. That time of year on Iron is usually exceptional.

My advice is the following: you can try techniques like vertical jigging live bait, pitching jigs with bait, trolling leeches with TGO or lindy rig style methods, etc and you will catch good numbers on Iron with probably all of those methods. However, on Iron I have found one technique better than the others - slip bobbers.

Why do I say that?
A. Last year, roughly same time you are going up we caught a few walleye when we found a spot by pitching and jigging then we switched to using bobbers instead. Probably caught 40 walleye that day in just that one spot which happened to be only 5-10ft of water.

B. Iron is a numbers lake more than it is a size lake for walleye. So if you are looking for mondo walleyes, although I am sure they are in there, other lakes will serve you better for that. However, because the numbers are so exceptional, I think that the bobber situation plays off the numbers aspect of the fish even more so in Iron. It seems the fish all are down there looking at the bait and get extra aggressive and competitive for getting the bait because of how many fish there are looking at the bait. That is the main reason I have found slip bobbers to work so well on iron. Just my opinion could be wrong.

As for small mouth, in June, any back bay or nook and cranny will have a small mouth in it. Have seen people pull there personal best small mouth out of Iron as well. Great fishing lake.

If interested, shoot me an email and ill give you the location for where we pounded them last year.

Thank you so much for the info. I sent you an email
jvenjohn

Thanks for the great info. I sent you an email whitewolf

I was poking around at your pics and recognize some of your maps. My buddy, not sure what his username is on here as a few of them, halvorson, they have served us very well on previous trips and thank you for that, especially on knife and crooked! Just awesome stuff mcsweem

Thanks, I've gotten lazy over the last few trips I have all the stuff written on my maps but I have put it on my maps on line

We are going in to Stuart Lake on May 29 and considering a long haul up to Iron as well.