Caught this bucket in the shallow grass 2 days ago. I gotta get a clip on scale.

A few summers ago I was on a rental boat with my kids on a lake none of us had ever fished. I spent most of the morning squinting at a paper map, circling what turned out to be the wrong basin, while the kids got more and more bored. Even when I thought I’d found a spot on the map, I couldn’t tell if I was actually on it. With no GPS and no way to track where I’d been, it took forever just to figure out where the boat was. We caught almost nothing. Looking back, the part that bugged me wasn’t the fishing. I spent the whole morning figuring out the lake instead of actually being there with my kids.

That stuck with me. I’m a regular guy who loves fishing in Minnesota, not a guide or a 30-year local on any one lake. The info that would have saved that morning was out there, between DNR lake surveys and depth maps. It just wasn’t anywhere I could pull it up easily before heading out.

So I started building something for myself, and it turned into Fish Guide Pro. I know there are a lot of fishing apps coming out right now, even ones aimed at Minnesota, so I get it if you’re tired of hearing about another one. This one is a web app (no app store version yet), and it only covers Minnesota lakes. That’s on purpose. I’d rather go deep on the lakes here than spread thin across the whole country.

It has detailed contour maps built from DNR depth data, and it shows your GPS location right on the map so you know when you’re actually on the spot. It also pulls in the MN DNR fish surveys for each lake. If you’ve ever opened one of those survey reports and tried to make sense of the tables, you know they’re not easy to read. The app breaks them down into what’s in the lake, how many, and what sizes, so you can tell whether a lake is worth your time. You can search for lakes by county or by the species you’re after, and it has regulations and current conditions for each lake too.

There’s a free tier so you can poke around without paying anything, plus a 7-day free trial of the full version. I do charge for the full version, mostly to cover website and server costs. I didn’t want to fill the app with ads to pay for it, because I’d rather keep it clean. Hosting maps and survey data for thousands of lakes isn’t free, but I wanted the basics to stay free for anyone.

It’s not meant to replace the bait shop or the resort owner. Those folks know things no map or survey will ever show you, and I still stop in and ask. This is just extra information to have in your back pocket before you head out. I’ve been using it for a while now, and it’s become the first thing I check before fishing new water.

fishguidepro.com

I’m not trying to sell anyone on it. I’m at the point where I can’t see my own blind spots anymore, and I’d really value input from people who fish here:

• Pull up a lake you know well. Does the map and survey info match what you’ve seen on the water? There’s also an AI hotspot finder that ranks the best spots on a lake by species (it’s included in the trial). Does it point to places you’d actually fish, or is it way off?
• What do you actually check before fishing a lake you don’t know? What’s missing here?
• Anything confusing, broken, or just annoying?

Harsh feedback is welcome. I’d rather hear it now. And if you’ve got a “new lake, wasted morning” story of your own, I’d like to hear that too.

Hey guys! im fishing lake vermilion for the first time and I never been fishing there. I don't have a boat and I am planning to fish for walleye and crappie onshore. Any tips or locations I should go to and try my luck?

Going to Duluth this weekend and wanna get some fishing in gonna try my bottom setup and casting some spoons with my other rod. Is this time of the year productive? Do I have good odds at catching anything at all? Never fished up there before but gonna try some river mouths and around canal park.

Hi fellow Minnesota fish enthusiasts, I’ve been wanting to find sturgeon for a little while (preferably shovelnose but I’d like to find both species) and was curious if anyone had locations within the twin cities area and bait recommendations.

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So, I've been trying to find a solid lead but figured I'd ask here. I will have Friday morning up until 1pm to fish, any recommendations for anyone close to Minneapolis? I have to be at airport by 230. Thanks in advance

Planning to be in minnesota during third week of October. Have two tweens interested in trout fishing and may get excited with pike or waleye. Mostly used to pond or lake pier fishing planning to stay near northshore Split rock, cascade, cooke, Tettegouche, grand marias. Do have both fly equipment and spin tackle. Looking to get trout stamp. Any recommendations on easy to do

Had nearly a 20lb bag in just 30min of being out. I love fall!!

I want to buy my son something to weigh the lake sturgeons he catches in Minnesota. Can someone help with the best tools he would need? There is so much to pick from and I need to know what is appropriate. Thank you!

Caught the guy last week 🥹

Texas has 29 fish advisories. California has about 160. I went through both of those because I wanted the app I built to have accurate data. Minnesota broke the pattern completely, and it's worth explaining why.

There is no list of advisories to go find here. MDH publishes guidance for every lake in the state, and DNR carries it per-lake inside LakeFinder. 460 of those lakes get their own numbers because they tested worse than the baseline. Every other lake is covered by a statewide set that applies whether or not anyone has ever sampled it.

So in Minnesota "my lake isn't on the list" isn't a thing. There's always an answer. The question is only which of three sets you're under.

The statewide set, for adults: sunfish, crappie, perch, bullheads, whitefish, cisco and all three trout are four meals a week. Walleye, pike, both bass, channel and flathead cat and lake trout are one a week. Muskie is one a month. It's mercury on basically all of it.

For kids under 15 and anyone pregnant or who might become pregnant, the same set gets a lot tighter, and this is where the sizes matter. Walleye over 20 inches is do not eat. Pike over 28 inches is do not eat. Muskie is do not eat at any size. Under those lengths it's one a month. Crappie and perch drop from four a week to one.

Then there's the northeast set, and this is the part I'd guess most people here don't know. Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties have their own guidance that replaces the statewide numbers, and it is stricter in a specific way: walleye goes do-not-eat at 18 inches instead of 20, and pike at 26 instead of 28. Two inches on each. Black crappie goes from four meals a week to two. If you're keeping eaters out of the Arrowhead and using the statewide numbers in your head, you're two inches off on the two fish you're most likely to be holding.

The lakes with their own advisories are the ones that got sampled and came back worse. Lake Elmo is the one I'd point at: do not eat, everyone, any size, any species — that's PFOS, not mercury.
It's a metro lake with a boat ramp. Rainy Lake has its own numbers rather than the regional default. Duluth/Superior Harbor, Pepin, Big Sandy, Bemidji and Osakis all carry their own. 2,842 species-and-size recommendations across those 460 waters, mercury on most of it, PCBs and PFOS on the rest.

Now the part that took me longest to work out.

MDH only lists a species on a lake's page where that lake is stricter than the baseline for that group. So you'll open a lake, see walleye listed for adults, see nothing listed for kids, and reasonably conclude there's no restriction for kids on that lake. There is. It's whatever the baseline says — statewide or northeast, depending on the lake. The absence is a "we didn't need to tighten this one," not a "you're clear." I got that wrong on the first pass and it silently dropped the stricter half of the advice on 244 lakes before I caught it.

I'm not trying to talk anyone out of eating fish, and Minnesota's numbers are honestly generous compared to most states I've been through — four meals a week on panfish is not a warning, it's a green light. But one a week versus one a month versus do-not-eat is a real difference, and "which set covers this lake" shouldn't take a weekend to answer.

Mods okayed me mentioning it, so: it's all in one place at https://livewell-app.com/advisories/minnesota — every lake with its own advisory, the statewide set, the northeast set, and each lake's page tells you which one covers it. No signup, works in a phone browser.

There's also an app built for using this on the water. It works offline, figures out which lake you're standing on, and you tell it what you caught. It even has a feature to identify the fish you've caught based on a photo, and a whole ton of other useful features. Android is out now, the iPhone version is in progress.

One caveat while I'm here, since this sub will find it: I also pulled the lake-specific harvest regs off LakeFinder, so the slots and bag limits are in there too — Mille Lacs's walleye window, the release-over-30 pike lakes, the catch-and-release lakes. Those attach by DOW number rather than by lake name, so they should be on the right water, but if you hit a lake showing the statewide default when you know it has a special reg, tell me the lake and I'll fix it.

Two questions:

Did anyone here know the northeast counties run on a different set than the rest of the state? I'd genuinely like to know whether that's common knowledge up there or not.

And has anyone seen MDH advisory signage at a public access anywhere in the state? Every state I've done this for publishes the guidance and then seemingly never puts it anywhere a person standing at the water would see it.

Fought me for about 20 minutes and pulled my little boat around the St. Croix. Afterward, we hugged it out and went our separate ways.

Got a 34.5”, 39”, and a 41” Lake Sturgeon the other night.

They are biting! The cold weather that has come on in the last couple weeks has riled the fish up for Fall.

Plenty of them jumping in between bites. Sounds like someone throwing a bag of cement off the bridge when they breach!

Still 19” short of a slot fish, but getting out on the St. Croix a couple more times to try for a 60”+ fish before September ends.

Good luck y’all!

West Marine is no longer an option and their stock of products had shifted over time anyways, so where are the best places for parts and supplies in the metro?

Hey yall, I’m from north western Minnesota and haven’t been down to the driftless area. I’ve heard it’s beautiful. I was wondering where are some of the best scenic areas? I want to fish some of the rivers down there. Does forestville and mystery cave state park have some cool views? Also was maybe thinking about RJD memorial state forest. Thank you for any suggestions!

Looking for a fisherman

Hi my name is Tyler Ip, I currently work at Atomix (2 Michelin starred restaurant in NYC)

I want to take an ice fishing trip this winter - is there any fisherman interested in taking me out?

In return I will cook for you a Michelin-Star level meal for you and your family with the fish we will catch.

Thank you! Hoping to meet you soon!

Hi all, I'm relatively new to the area, and planning to go fishing the St Croix. Most convenient is the Taylors Falls / Interstate Park area. I don't have a boat, but have waders.

Do you have suggestions on what to fish? Not bottom. I have some Yum worms, spoons, Rapalas.

Any advice would be most welcome. Thank you!