Arcadia Lodge
Big Turtle Lake – Bigfork, MN
June 19-26, 2022
Hosts: The Jones – Steve, Casey, & Kylie

Stacey, Joshua, and I made our fifth family vacation/fishing trip together to Arcadia Lodge up on Big Turtle Lake. This was probably by far our best fishing trip to Arcadia Lodge! We stayed in the Rustic cabin for the third time.

We all had fun participated in creating our own tye dye t-shirts! Stacey and Joshua’s shirts turned out better than mine. Joshua and Stacey spent a considerable amount of time in the water swimming, paddle boarding, venturing from one water toy to the other in an obstacle course fashion. The lodge made and served fresh donuts. We ended up ordering 3 bags of donuts which kept us happy for days. Ice cream in the lodge was again our treat! We all played foosball, billiards, and air hockey that kept us entertained for hours.

Weather was hot and humid the first three days and cooled off a little bit. A couple of strong severe storms came through in the late evening and overnight causing power outages to all of the cabins. With the late ice out and the extreme hot temps that brought the lake temp up about 10 degrees, the smallmouth moved shallow to begin the spawn process and the fishing was fast and furious! I caught too many to count, but most fish were in the 3-8 feet ranging from 16″ to 18.5″. Everything seemed to work but majority of the fish were caught on the Clackin’ Crank, Pop-R, blade bait, jig & craw, and Ned rig.

Check video below for the full action!

We really enjoyed our stay, rebooked again for next year before we left. Counting the days until 2023…