Arneson's-Gull Rock Area 3/7&8

[TNFL]

First off, everyone had a good time. The first day started out pretty rough though. It was rumored to be around -20 for a low and they told us to be at the "landing" at 7am. Well, our group and about another 50 or so guys stood there freezing our behinds off for maybe 30-45 minutes before they took us out. It looked like one of the trucks wasn't working but the other 5 were just sitting htere not moving, I didn't get it. But it happens and we weren't gonna let it ruin the trip. The fishing started out really slow, with only a few smalll saugers the first few hours. We started out in 24 FOW which also confused me because all the reports recently were saying 30 FOW. Dino came by and gave us the standard "just be patient" line, but another 1/2 hour later he showed up and said "pack up, your moving". He moved us to surprise, 30 FOW, and our 2 groups did pretty decent the rest of the day. We were catching mostly perch though, but they had some size, many in the 12-14 inch range. I didn't keep track of all the fish number, but it was ok. What worked? None of the expensive jigs and spoons I bought in preperation for huge walleye, that's for sure. The most effective set-ups were:

gem-n-eye jig in gold color with a fathead

split-shot a foot above a plain red or orange #4 hook w/FatHead

Genz bug in white or gold w/fathead

the guides sugestion was to be a beer can(on its side) off the bottom. and that seemed to work the best. if you stopper got pushed even a few inches down by your rod guides you catch rates were limited until you reset with a depth checker. 2 of 3 guys in each house had flasher, they helped very little. the fish that showed up were right on the bottom, showing little of no seperation on my LX-3.

The second day we had the presentations figured out and we did a noticably better. Here is a pic of our kept fish, some runts would go back down(air bladder) so we kept them. The pout was 25 inches. We were gonna have the lodge cook it for us just to try it, but ran out of time and energy, the the catchee brought it home. Dang, I wanted to try pout.

[WingDing2]

A bad day of fishing on Lake of the Woods is still better than a good day of fishing anywhere else!!

[Cody Lubeley]

good to here you caught fish im headed up to Arnesons this weekend

[noworkletsfish]

Thanks for the report tnfl- we are heading to morris this weekend- I'll give the full report next week when we get back.

[Korns]

Glad to hear you caught some fish, we're heading up to Arneson's this weekend!

[fish-n-fool]

Heading there tomorrow. Thanks for the info on depth/set-ups.

Will be cabining it at a friends and probably be going to gull rock out of Bablers. Will be in an Otter II(purple one) in the close vicinity of a green & white permanent. (If anyone knows the Sullivans, that's who we're fishing with this weekend) Anyone know a guy by the name of Ugg??

[Mike Sertich]

he is one of the guides at Arneson's. Retired Hwy patrol from No Dak.

[browning1]

Went up to LOW on the night of the 7th and came back on the 9th. Fishing was a steady however the bottle bass went crazy. I recommend anywhere on the ice that you can drink. Didn't seem to mater if you fished in 22ft of water or 32ft. I love it when you can catch them anywhere you go. Make sure to pack a garbage bag for all the empties.

Good luck!

[browning1]

Blue and pink frosties worked well. However our set lines out produced most of the time. Seemed kind of weird. Plain hook or a glow jig seemed to work pretty good. Staying sober seemed to work the best.