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Still slow??


Jim Panfish Uran

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Heading up there tomorrow to do some fishing, not sure where I'm going out of yet but I'll post a report when I get back. Any super secret tips you can give me? lol

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Well that sounds a little slow from what the lake can do but it sure is better than sitting at home!! We are heading over there in a bit, might have to set up in a little shallower water or something. Thanks for the report @Mnsetters. 

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Brother and sister in law are on Thier way home now.  They were out of Hillman in 10ft water.  They average like 12 walleye a day and missed more than they caught.  8-11pm seemed best for them.  Kept a good distance from anyone, quite around them.

Sister on law is NOT a fisherman, she seemed to enjoy herself.

 

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The dang wind kept me from going over there, took a short ride around Cass and realized we better not head up there on such a windy day with the hub. Tomorrow the wind will be manageable. Now the wait is on...again.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

13 to 29 up there friday.  not fun. hopefully you get out soon with the family

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10 to 15 is more manageable than 20-30 like today. I've been listening to the weather up here all day lol. 

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I'm on lake fishing too, 1 walleye at around 1, couple small perch so far.  The wind outside is nuts!!  I hope the evening bite is where it's at!

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I might abort mission and go to Winnie tomorrow if the bite is that dang slow, but it might be worth parking my big ass up there for a day lol. Couldn't hurt. Maybe I'll buy some big sucker minnows and try them out there for a day. It seems like the typical stuff just isn't working out. 

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Went out West  Winds today and had poor fishing in 8.5 fow with just 1 on a dead stick around 9am.  Moved out to 11 fow and caught 10 fish and missed 5 or 6 between noon and 2pm.  Noon to 1 pm were all on dead stick with the exception of the first that was caught on a jigging rap.  1pm to 1:30 or so were all on buck shot spoon or the same rap.  1:30 to 2 were on either but a little bit slower.  They went crazy for 30 minutes and i couldn't get the bail set on 2 drops before they were bighting.  I think the wind changed direction and picked up a bit right around Noon but it was also when i was driving to the deeper water so I'm not sure. The fish were all between 13 and 19 inches.

 

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10 hours ago, MNsetters said:

Has Winnie been putting out any fish this Winter?

Not sure, heard it's been a little slow out there too for walleyes but the perch and the pike have been producing. 

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I'll be up there in a few hours to spend the day in the Eskimo with my fam. It will beat sitting at home that's for sure. 

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Got here yesterday about 3. Pretty slow but about 8 this a.m. It picked up about 25 caught, kept enough for a meal so far. Most around 16 inches, one 20.5 the wife caught. Plain hook dead stick has been working the best.

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We went out of Westwinds about 10:30 or so, set up in 11' of water and marked a couple fish at noon, my son had one up to the hole at about 1 or so but it just got off at the bottom, nice little fat walleye lol. He bit a sucker on a pink lindy frostee. 

 

Lot's of folks pulling in as we were leaving at about 4. It was fun though, kids got plenty of fresh air and we gave it a shot anyways. 

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Went out of JR's Saturday morning.  2 wheelhouses with 3 guys each.  Went to Center Bar.  Set up by 11 am. By 9 pm had 35 fish, most by 6 pm.  Didn't fish overnite. Fished from 5:30 am to 9 am-no fish, marked a few, but not bites.  Headed home.

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Wow Kelly, I guess that’s what happens when the only place to drive tucks pulling wheelhouses is Red lake during the holiday week. I don’t know how they calculate angling hours, but I ran some calculations and the numbers are kind of scary. If there were 10,000 fish houses out there and I took the average of that house being out there at 36 hours. I know some people don’t fish at night but a lot of people stay for 3 or 4 days. If a house averages 2 people that would be 720,000 angling house. If the number of people would average 2.5 that would mean 900,000 angling hours and for 3 it would be 1,080,000 hours. I took your 2016 poundage number divided by the hours and came up with a factor of 0.10895 pounds per hour fish. I applied that to the angling hours and for 2 people = 78.444 pounds 2.5 people = 98,055 pounds, 3 people = 117,666 pounds. That’s a lot of fish. That could be over half the fish we took all of last year in 1 weekend. Wonder if they may close the season or change the limit in the near future?

One last thing that I thought about. If those 10,000 fish houses average $20,000 in gear inside them that would be $200 million. That’s not including the truck. Add in an average $30,000 truck and that’s a HALF OF A BILLION dollars on the lake.

Edited by Jmlsmp
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It would interesting to see if there was  any attempt to get some kind of somewhat "official" count of houses but I doubt that the DNR would have flown the lake on a holiday to film it and count the houses later. 10,000 seems almost impossible but it sounds like the lake was really packed with houses.

It is unbelievable just how much winter fishing has changed in just 5 years. I do not think anybody could have guessed what this weekend would be like.

 

"being out there at 36 hours."

From the 2015 season with the numbers rounded off.

Day trips                        27,000

Sleeper trips                  38,000

Mean day trip length            6.5 hours

Mean sleeper trip length       41 hours

Day trip hours                173,000

Sleeper trip hours          1,580,000

 

So if I look at it right already in 2015 day trips were less then 10% of the fishing pressure. Another thought. We have more then doubled the winter fishing pressure in just 4 years from 2012. If we had the fishing pressure now that we had in 2012 could the daily walleye limit be 7 or 8 fish now?

 

 

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A friend was leaving the lake this morning at about 10:30.  Thought there was close to 5 miles of trucks and wheel houses, bumper to bumper leaving about that time.  They estimated 5K houses on the lake. 

 

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kelly-p, ever see any #'s for what they think is spent "locally" per trip or per angler hour? Just curious about how good they are about supporting the lake. 

Edited by gunner55
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2 of those had separate crashes near Deer River yesterday about 2 miles apart. Not good!! Drive safe boys.

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Kelly-P, thank you. Those are some breathtaking numbers and more importantly, numbers that thousands of people ignore... I'm having a similar discussion in the LOTW forum and while I've kept track of my experiences for over 20yrs, I wish I had the figures you have here. I'm certain they would be just as mind numbing.

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Yep the days of setting up near the first break and catching 30+ fish a day are over.  It won't be long before the DNR shuts down the lake.  If the DNR doesn't do it the fisherman will stop coming as the fishing will be so slow.   I have witnessed the slow down over the last 5 years or so.  I just hope the resorts and outfitters that make a living off of the lake are saving some cash as this will not last much longer.  Not blaming anybody or saying that we need to change, as I believe the lake will make the change for us.  Just hope it doesn't came as a surprise to anybody when it happens.  Plan ahead if you make a living off the lake!

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This was my first time ever going to red lake, drove up Saturday, got set-up at noon.  Tried my 1/2" drill to auger holes that didn't work out the way I had hope finished drilling holes by hand. Good 18+ inches of ice after 4 holes done in my house for wife and I, wasn't up for moving. Traffic was crazy, more guys leaving then coming out, we were 50 yards from road. We went out of Rogers on Red, 1.7 miles out, 15ft used everything from shiners to crappie minnows on red glow demons, gold maxi, jigging spoons, jigging minnows.  I caught one 18" walleye saturday night at 9:30 on red frosty jig and large fathead.  Sunday afternoon, I caught and released a nice 6lb pike demon and fathead.  I was jigging a salmo perch with rattles to try calling fish in, when the pike hit. We stayed until 9:30 Monday morning before leaving.  Not sure if I'll go back, Red lake left me wondering with more questions. 

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
    • leech~~
      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
    • jim curlee
      I had a guy hit me with a lightly used 1969 BAR, he wanted $1650 with an older Leupold scope. More than I think they are worth, I made an offer, he declined end of story.   You know if you look at the old brochures, a grade II BAR sold for $250 in the late 60s, $1650 would be a good return on your investment.    Why would anybody want a 50 year old gun, they are heavy, have wood stocks, and blued metal.  I guess mainly to keep their gun safes glued to the floor. lol   You can probably buy a stainless rifle that you never have to clean, with a synthetic stock you never have to refinish, is as light as a feather, and for half as much money, perfect.   I'm too old for a youth gun, although I've shrunk enough that it would probably fit. lol   No Ruger 10/44s.   Jim      
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