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2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info


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"Cheating" too funny.

When the bite is really strong we usually call it combining!

Thanks for the reports guys.

JP, sad to hear of your Vancouvers passing man.

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We just got off the lake. The crawler bite this morning was slow so we switched to ctanks and that was the ticket smile We boated about 4 an hour after that (two of us). Our biggest was only 24 inches.

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Great time fishing this weekend! We launched out of Wheeler's Point. Fished Friday evening (3 hours) and all day Saturday. Used down riggers on Friday and caught 12 keepers and many slots. Hot lures were Red fire tiger shad raps (5s and 7s) and gold wally divers. Tried some bomber long As and xraps with little luck (many colors). After a big fish fry and a stomach ache, went back out Saturday morning, tried jigging and bottom bouncers (crawlers on gold spinners) due to nice drift speeds, but only caught a few in 3 hours (one 26"). Switched back to gold and reds and found the gold reef runner and gold wally diver to be hot (red was dead!). We limited out and headed in by 4. Sunday was totally different as we went out to catch and release with a big fish contest. We tried everything and found Blues and purples caught most with gold getting a few small ones. We did set up in 30 fow on Sunday. We were in 31 to 32 fow on Friday and Saturday. Tried to stay away from the pack of boats. I took up two friends that were new to LOW and a good friend who went last year for the first time. They said the same thing I did, "I can't believe there are fish everywhere with little to no structure." One friend caught his personal best, 24 1/4" and we told him he could easily beat that next year. I think he will be back sooner than that! I see an ice fishing trip in the near future...

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Fishing has been great the past week and a half for me. I've been out of Warroad 3 times in that span and the quantity and size has been great. All i've been doing is drifting pulling spinners in the general vicinity of some rocks. Doesn't seem to matter if you use leaches, crawlers or minnows, they all work about the same. Can't get much easier than that, nice way to relax after a day of work.

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We fished from 7/22 - 7/27 and had great luck pulling lead core catching large fish and keepers. My son was pretty excited to see this piggy surface.full-30605-22809-lowwalleye2012a.jpg

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We fished from 7/22 - 7/27 and had great luck pulling lead core catching large fish and keepers. My son was pretty excited to see this piggy surface.full-30605-22809-lowwalleye2012a.jpg

Awesome fish! Nice job. How big did it go?

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another good night of fishing last night on the little rock piles out of Warroad. Got out just ahead of the thunderstorm and the fish were hungry. Minnows and spinners this time.

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great fishing on saturday out of zipple bay in front of the fields. Lots of slot fish and nice eaters. Much slower on sunday. we were pulling spinners. leeches and crawlers did about the same. We put in at zipple bay resort both days. noticed another ramp further north closer to the gap. Is that another resort??? I am not framilier with this area (usually fish around rocky point).

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The Gap isn't north from there but if you are talking about towards the gap, there are Morris Point Resort, Cyrus Resort and they both shave ramps. I have never used them but believe you have to pay as they are private.

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my bad, by gap I meant where zipple bay meets the big lake. Is the "gap" that everybody talks about the opening between 4 mile bay and the big lake?

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In Zipple Bay there is the state park which if you put in at the resort is probably what you saw, it would have been on the right on the way out. There is also Winter Sett Estates on the west side of the bay but it is hard to see.

Yes, the gap that everyone talks about is where 4-mile meets the lake. It is actually called the Lighthouse Gap because there used to be a lighthouse on Sable Island a long time ago. There is also Morris Point gap on the west end of 4-mile.

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That would have been the state park I saw then. It looks really nice.

I am not sure which island Sable is. The 1 mile wide gap between the west end of pine island and morris point must be the morris point gap. I am still unsure where the lighthouse gap is???

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Lighthouse gap is just a bit further to the east where the people staying on Rainy River come out to the lake.

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Lighthouse gap is just a bit further to the east where the people staying on Rainy River come out to the lake.

So where the river meets fourmile bay, by wheelers point. I'll get this lake figured out yet!

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Sable Island is the island on the Canadian side that mirrors Pine Island and the Lighthouse gap is inbetween. The border runs right through the middle of it.

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Sable Island is the island on the Canadian side that mirrors Pine Island and the Lighthouse gap is inbetween. The border runs right through the middle of it.

I see it now. on google earth the border line is off just a bit which was confusing me. thanks!

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we fished tues and wed out of arnesens n arnesens was pretty quiet headed to 16 and caught a bunch of nice fish 4 slots and some dandy eaters. wed went to 12 mile and did veery well when the wind was blowing slowed down when the lake went flat.gold with a little green spinner on bouncer in 30 to 33 fow . downrigging was a little slow for us but only did some on tues afternoon.was alot of fun with my Dad and Son!!Headed back next friday thru sunday~~

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Thanks for all the great information. Is there any musky fishing in this area in the fall? I think we are going the second week of October. From what I have been finding the walleyes follow the shiners into the river in the fall?

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No real musky fishing on the south end. You need to get around the islands. If you had all the paperwork you could get to some up around Bigsby/Dawson island area but that is about a 15 mi run across open water to get there.

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Scott, muskie reports that I have seen here over the years have been farther north than the south side Wheeler Point area. Some big northerns call the south side home though.

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The only Musky fishing I have heard of is across the lake up by Oak Island and beyond. I have stayed at a lot of places along the river and never really had a bad expierience. Pick one that looks like it suits your needs and give it a try. Its hard to go wrong on LOW.

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The AIM tourney should be interesting. Sure a lot of fast, pretty and well lettered boats running around today. And the tow vehicles.....there are a couple that don't hardly have a spot left to put advertising. If it blows from the NW at 25 tomorrow, speeds will be down a bunch. Still some big fish on selected rocks but wow are there a lot of fish biting in the mud. Bait, downriggers, leadcore, everything is working.

Good luck to all.

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Just returned from 3 days of fishing on LOW. Fished out of Warroad the first day and caught fish around the reefs with lead core and spinners. The next 2 days we fished the south shore out in the mud and caught fish with lead core,spinners and jiging. The fish were spread out and spinners produced more and bigger fish. If you come across a pod of fish anchoring up and jiging also worked well but most of the fish were saugers but some nice size ones. Biggest fish was a very fat 29 incher with a piece of the tail missing that was caught on a spinner and crawler and was CPR.

full-27870-23600-001.jpg

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Had a group of 5 go out of Adrians on charters this Tue and Wed. We got a killer deal on a radio station for 3 night and 2 charter trips. 3 of us ventured out with a 19ft boat Monday evening and first set up in 29ft, fishing was slow. Moved out to 32ft and did well with 3/8oz jigs and frozen shiners. The lake was glass Monday evening.

Tuesday the 5 of us chartered with Dallas, an excellent captain. We went out to about 32ft but out towards Zippel. We fished until 2pm with limits of eyes and saugers. My father got the three biggest with fish going 26, 27.5, and 30 inches.

Wednesday on the charter, with Dallas again it was slower but still decent fishing. We first tried the same spot as Tue but with very little wind the captain moved us to the East several miles. We anchored for a while and did ok and finally got the captain talked into pulling anchor and drifting which did get us more fish per hour. We got in around 4pm ate another meal and 3 of us went back out, fishing picked up towards sun down a little.

Thursday morning at 6:30 my buddy and I went out back to the same area as Tue. The waves were even bigger than Tue! We did pretty good and filled out the bag limit in less than 2 hours.

In the time we were up there we ate 3 meals of fish, brought back our limit and ended up landing 8 fish from 25-30 inches. The one thing that was much different from past August charters is we never downrigged once on this trip and caught a lot of saugers and cigar sized fish. To guess would have to say over 200 fish caught in our group.

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BTW,

In the wind we did well with heavy sinkers and lindys with worms.

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