Jump to content
  • GUESTS

    If You  want access  to member only forums on FM, You will need to Sign-in or  Sign-Up now .

    This box will disappear once you are signed in as a member.

Report from Spirit Island 2-17


addict

Recommended Posts

WEll i've been lurking around here for a while and finally got registered. here is my report from this past weekend.

Got to the lake around 4:30am, set up west of spirit island in 26fow. Light brought one eye to sniff the chubby darter. Sunrise brought a 12.5 inch perch, then lots of smaller oones. moved northwest into 30fow, nothing. rocky reef produced a few small perch in 25 fow. worked reef down to anderson reef and back out to spirit. drilled lots and lots of holes, about 2 hrs worth. one 15 inch eye mid day. more small perch. circled spirit on the west northwest side. nothing for jumbos. Most holes were jigged from 5 to 15 minutes, pounding bottom, lots of perch, lots of small perch. moved to the south side of 4 mile reef for evening. mistake, should have stuck out anderson area. confused.gif one perch, one small eye. fish were agressive all day, biting big bait.

I've traveled to mill lacs about 8 times now and a meesly 15 inch walleye is my best. It has been pretty frustrating, but stories of huge fish keep me coming back. What am i doing wrong? I really want to catch a mill lacs monster, but it just seems whenever i fish there is not much for walleyes. got into jumbos a couple of times, and that was very fun, but nothing for eyes. Any suggestions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To be honest with you, I would just keep doing what your doing, but my opinion you might have some better luck during the day drilling 2 hours woth of holes on the flats during the day; this time of year. Then twords night either stay on the flats depending on the bite or head to the reefs. Earlier in January I caught a 27, 26 and 24 in 13 ft of water in sunset bay. All those fish hit between midnight and 5 in the morning though. I hope some of this helps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

addict,Welcome to HSO & FM. Thanks for the fishing report and glad to have you aboard. smile.gif Keep working and the big one will come. I had just a ok winter season with my biggest going 25. I will be back there this spring as I know there are some sumo eyes in there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My brother in-law and I showed up at spirt around 3:30.

a little cluster of porties (2-3) 20 yards north west of

isle. We were north west of island about 100-150 yards. We

were clustered with two trailers (one with small gen.).

We had same results you report. We braved it out till about

7:30 p.m.. We packed up or gear and headed for isle. During

that 4 hour period, we saw not one fish on cam and even

locator. Just before setting up camp, we ran over to sloppy

joes and drill some hole. We saw about 4-jumbo's when we

dropped the cam. Should of stayed there, but went to spirit

island and caught nothing. Try sloppies if your going back

up.

see ya up their,

SHACKBASH tongue.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your best bet is to go slip bobbering in and around spirit Island and sloppy joe's in mid june. With a slight wind and small red hook, you will hammer some nice walleye. My only other comment would be try the week between Christmas and New Year's. I have caught 28 inch walleyes in each of the last two years through the ice on a shiner on a rockpile. From my experience, the bites just sags after January 15th until it really warms up in late February or early March.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What you all say is encouraging, sounds like my best be will be to hit'er hard next season for walleyes, I'll be up in the mud come March looking for jumbos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also have been lucking around for awhile.

Hope this isn’t too long.

Started out of Garrison on Fri about 2:30pm hit a few spots on our way to the middle of the lake. After about 30 holes with some lookers and no takers, its 5:00 and time to stay put, we’re somewhere on 8 mile with one fat 26 incher, 12” perch for two of us.

Sat we were in the water by 7:30am off the SE side of Mir Mar where the last time out in the pm I caught a 24, 19, 18 and two perch. Had a hit when I was on the phone with the people we were meeting around 10:00, of coarse I missed the only bite of the morning!

Sent one house out somewhere around Greg’s flat they got 4 perch and no eyes on Sat pm in 32’.

Another house to Boot flat they went home with 4 eyes. They said that it should have been a lot more but, all they would say “If it could go wrong it did”

My brother and I must of cut at least 75 holes on a few different flats as far N as the N tip of Matten all we had was lookers all afternoon. Met up with the first house and I set up on the middle of the flat in 26 fow got 1 perch and a 19.5 eye. Boy was it nice to be in somewhere warm. The rattle reels only went off a few times that night, only hooked a small pout and 10” eye. But for some reason we were missing 5 of the 6 minnows that morning. Must have been the Jack? We moved up to the middle of the reef on a sharp drop with nobody around for a ½ mile or more. Cooked up some ribs on the BBQ, finger licken good! Now for 6 people I got 4 nice perch. We had a 24 and another perch.

Sun night the rattle reels never went off till 5:00 missed 3 got up about 6:30 and started jigging by 7:00 I had two keepers AND a 271/2 the biggest one of the year, others in this house 0. My brothers house a 26 and two perch

Off to the Boot for the rest of the day, 2 perch, a pout in the afternoon 2 monsters lost at the bottom of the hole 1 lost ½ way up. I got over ½ of the fish, what fun!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.


  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • 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
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.