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2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info


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5 of us went out between zipple and morris pt. on sunday afternoon and caught 5 keeper sauger, 27 fow. monday same area 10 sauger, 5 eyes. monday late afternoon, moved to 33 fow out of adrian's on the word of a guide only to be shut out. 1 sauger on tuesday morning. Finally stopped listening to the experts and moved the house to 28 fow right off Adrians road after prefishing a few areas. had 10 fish in 2 hrs and even caught 3 (2- saugers, 1- 18.75" eye)on rattles over night. This morning(Wednesday) was another 16 in the bucket. most eyes running 16.5-18" and saugers 14+. hot lures were hot tamali, buckshot with gold and bloodline both tipped with a head, and the biggest surpise and most fish caught on the lindy darter in gold shiner or black and silver.

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Yesterdy was the first day that we were actually above freezing and that was only by a degree or two. See how warm it gets the next few days. Tlaking 30s thru Monday. Sucks! But the ice is till looking just fine. The Pressure ridges are heaving up really high.

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we were in 34 fow 8.2 miles out on Adrians road and had great success mid last week then it died off fast. We then moved 2.5 miles past the end of Adrians road which put us 12 miles out into 35 ft all by ourselves and Sunday afternoon we kept 22 saug/walleye and threw about 10 back. Woke up Monday morn and fished till 10 and kept 8. There were 4 of us and we had a 22" and some dandy 19" eyes. Nice big saugers as well. For the record we ate a good supper Sunday night. These depths are from the top of the ice.

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Our group of 5 fished out of Adrians Tues. N Wed. The 100 fish a day reports are a load of [PoorWordUsage]! Caught 22 fish during the two days 9 miles out. The 16 on Tuesday was the most they cleaned from any cabin.

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Our group of 5 fished out of Adrians Tues. N Wed. The 100 fish a day reports are a load of [PoorWordUsage]! Caught 22 fish during the two days 9 miles out. The 16 on Tuesday was the most they cleaned from any cabin.

While its highly unlikely and I totally agree with feelings of exageration of 100 fish catches, it is possible at the right time and day to get to 100 fish. This also depends on the size of your group. Although factor in that most of those fish are dinks I only consider the percentage catch to be about 30%-40% keepable.

If your gonna sit and wait out a bite chances are you gonna only see a handful of fish caught. Couple weeks ago our group of 4 had to really run and gun the 2nd day on a 3 day trip still came short of our 4 man keeper limit. And we caught about 50-60 fish total, most of those dinks. The most aggressive bite came right before sunset and lasted about 1 hour at the most. And we stationed ourselves all over depths of 15fow-30fow.

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New to the forum. Must say its a great forum with lots of great advice! Im coming up Feb 19-21. Im fairly green on lake of the woods. I have two idea's and would like some advice.

1st is to head out of Adrian's road with a wheeler or snowmobile depending on how much snow there is. I would like to maybe travel the snowmobile trail along the Canadian border to Eye Saddle just west of Big Island. I found a nice reef on my Navionic's. It looks to be about 17-18 miles out. Safety is big for me. We will have several different means of navigation. I would just like to know what Im getting into (pressure ridges and such) and if its a bad idea. How's the fishing there. I wanna get away from the crowd and make it feel like an adventure. Got to start somewhere right.

2nd would be Babblers road, and to head out to 12 or 16 mile. Maybe even Arnesen's reef. Its just that I have been there before and would like to try something different.

Any help would be great and I will have a full fishing report right when I get back.

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I was up last weekend took the sled and fishouse all the way to the NW angle with no problem. 45 miles one way trip. The LOW drifters do an amazing job staking and grooming that trail. You should not have a problem going any place you want. Pick up a trail map in town. Fishing was good on both the NW angle and the south end both Adrians and sportsmans road.

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Heading up Thurs to either Bablers or Morris Pt. How is the ice looking in those two areas? Safe for pickup travel or do I need the ATV?

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Just got back from Zippel after fishing for the last three days. 7 of us caught about 150 to 200 fish over those 3 days. Of course not all were keepers but fishing was a good time.

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Was out of Rocky Point over the weekend by Gull Rock. Babblers road should very good for truck travel. People were moving around that area pretty easily in trucks. The lake has has a light snow cover. Not sure about Morris Pt.

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Thanks ds,

I was up there Jan 26-30 with 9 other guys for there annual fishing trip out of Arnesen's. We fished 12 mile in there day houses. Look to be just south of the reef. Most of the guys averaged 15-20 fish per day. We had a couple 22 1/2, 21 1/2, couple 20, and about five nice Walleye keepers between 18-19 1/4. Fishing was great in about 28ft during the morning, but had to move out to 30+ to stay busy during the day. Every fish seemed to like something different. I fished in a two man house and the guy I fished with had poor luck while I hammered them with red or gold buckshot, pink or gold stop sign( Half minnow with belly guts hanging out) dead sticked with glow red lure that was hot! Also dead sticked with a gold lure (Hooked the the butt and out the side worked great!). Mainly followed the basic rules of lake of the woods. Just had to switch lures often. Headed back up Feb 17 and look forward to making it my own trip and less guided. By the way nice video's. I think I watched a few of your's.

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jay83196,

Fatheads and shiners have both been working for us this winter on LOW and the baitshops up there sell them.

Good luck and have fun!

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most times....it's also a technique that uses a "noodle" tipped rod (search deadsticking icefishing), but most times it's referring to a rod not being jigged IE: bobber or deadstick rod.

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The fishing has been excellent for us all year and that continues to hold true. The fish are moving north and we are following them! We are staying on top of the fish, but that means we are moving our houses about every 4-5 days.

We are still seeing a good mix of walleye and sauger in the buckets, with the sauger’s coming in with awesome quality (14-16 inch fish). The hot bait this past week was the Northland Buckshot Rattle in 1/8-1/4 oz. sizes. The best colors in those baits have been pink glow and gold or red glow and black. Make sure you have a good mix of bait, one day chubs are the ticket and the next day shiners will be the trick.

The fish are generally holding tight to the bottom, but don’t forget your flasher, as there are a fair amount of fishing coming in suspended and those suspended fish usually turn out to be nice walleye. We have plenty of ice on the lake and travel is solid as long as you stick close to the roads or have 4wd.

We have plenty of the hard water season left and fishing continues to be really good, so don’t waste any time and book your trips!

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The fishing has been excellent for us all year and that continues to hold true. The fish are moving north and we are following them! We are staying on top of the fish, but that means we are moving our houses about every 4-5 days.

We are still seeing a good mix of walleye and sauger in the buckets, with the sauger’s coming in with awesome quality (14-16 inch fish). The hot bait this past week was the Northland Buckshot Rattle in 1/8-1/4 oz. sizes. The best colors in those baits have been pink glow and gold or red glow and black. Make sure you have a good mix of bait, one day chubs are the ticket and the next day shiners will be the trick.

The fish are generally holding tight to the bottom, but don’t forget your flasher, as there are a fair amount of fishing coming in suspended and those suspended fish usually turn out to be nice walleye. We have plenty of ice on the lake and travel is solid as long as you stick close to the roads or have 4wd.

We have plenty of the hard water season left and fishing continues to be really good, so don’t waste any time and book your trips!

Hey Steve its nice to see you on the fourms.

Sifty / Chris Siegler

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Fished out of 16 Mile today. Set up in the mud about 150 yards away from the main ring around the reef. It was a "work for them" kind of day, but we ended up with our walleye limit 15-19", 4 sauger and 3 jumbos, one just shy of 13".

I was suprised on the amount of walleye we caught. Nothing in or over the slot, but 75% of our fish today were walleye. I've recently had the opposite ratio, mostly sauger and a few walleye mixed in. We actually had a hard time catching sauger, which again, for this time of year and depth seemed odd.

Talked with a guy who fished in a group of 6 near Twin Islands. They kept 24 sauger and 15 walleye for the day in the deepest water (35') they could find.

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Started fishing about 6 in my sleeper at South Tip. Managed to pail one 15" sauger with a couple dinks to throw back. While I was on the phone I caught a nice size pout, then nothing. About 11am I grabbed my buddy and we headed for Gull Rock. Went east...one perch. Went west...one sauger. We blasted out to 16 and got set up about 3 on the north side of the big ring. Lookers, lookers, lookers, dink, lookers, dink. Called it a day. Headed back to the sleepers. SLOW day!

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The ice sure hasn't come close to thicknesses we've had it past years, but the 2ft (plus a little in spots) has been good ice. Not much snow to even speak of. Enough snow to keep the snowmobiles lubed yet not enough to impede traffic. Springsteel still battles with the breaker but the cold snap this weekend should help things a lot. Another thing that would help is some common sense. Traffic may be down this year, but I think I've seen more bumper to bumper traffic heading in than ever. The ice at shore really takes a beating. SLOW DOWN PEOPLE!

Fishing was slow across the south shore today from people I talked to, but that just means tomorrow has to be better!! grin

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I was out about ten miles from the island in 32 fow and we had a struggle to get even a mans limit, however we did have a great time, and beings I make the journey there every week from Iowa, and knowing the weather and barometric pressure had them on closed lips, the week prior it was not stop action with alot of fish caught well over the slot and released and kept 6 man limits for 5 days, with a different group each day...Jumbos were in this Friday and SAT manged to get 12 of em before they exited the scene, a few sauger and my wheelehouse gang caught 7 walleyes and 4 saugers all in all not to bad considering the elements...All the houses are rented for the next month and the rest of this month too, only have two days open, we are on the fish no doubt just waiting for the bite to pick back up, my key engrediant is get away from the crowd, do not be afraid to try different things, GLOW WHITE was the ticket for this weekend...tight lines till the next time...

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The cold and high pressure took a toll on our weekend trip. We fished 12.4 miles over Pine Island with Adrians. We marked fish all day with very few takers. Our tullibee count was almost as high as the sauger / walleye total. Saturday we had 14 keepers and Sunday added a few more but we quit early for a long ride home. The $1000 pull tab at the Wigwam took some of the sting out of the trip. I've never seen a $5 box before.

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