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2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info


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You will get a lot of opinions both ways but the fact is that none of us really know. Typically yes, last year no, this year well it looks like it but only the guys who own the access know that and I don't think they will tell you this far in advance. Ask again next Thur.

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Updated Fishing Report! The fishing is good! Really good. 50 plus fish per house common. Strong numbers of walleyes and saugers being caught. Ice is thickening, but please make sure to use a marked resort trail. Like many years, the ice moved around while it was forming, there are spots that still need time to thicken and are too thin to travel on. 12" of ice in many areas, but 4" in others. Areas where resorts are fishing are good. Don't stray off the trails without info from a resort or outfitter.

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Today was the reason I come up for early ice. Action was absolutely fantastic. I was in my own house fishing solo off pine island and fell one short of 80 for the day. It was a banner day and something we all strive for as fishermen. I decided to stay another day smile I fished in 23' of water. Action was craziest the fist few hours, but had decent flurries all day long. Fish number fifty was a huge pout!

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There is just enough snow to provide traction. The best option would be atv but a sled could work also. It's not as crazy so far today, but have still managed to get a dozen fish in the first 90 minutes.

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walleye 977,

how do you tip your dead stick demon? just back hook a minnow and let it flutter down there? also, do you use a head or a tail on your jigging flutter spoon?

thanks

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On the demon I was hooking a hole minnow through the back near the tail and like you said just left it flutter down there. On the jigging spoon id hooking it more to towards the front and was jigging it quick like 2 or 3 shorts pumps got the more active fish that way and if they came up off the bottom and did it hit it right away i would start to raise it and and if they followed up to 2 or 3 feet i would give a quick drop and 9 out 10 times they would hit hard. Hope that helps. Plus it was just a good day fishing.

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Well, the fishing wasn't bad at all this past weekend. Between 4 guys(2 rookies) we pulled up 150-160 walleyes/sauger. The average size was smaller than I would like at 8-10", but it was action. We caught the majority of our fish in 18 FOW during prime times(morning and evening) on glow red flyer spoons, glow red/gold buckshots, and the new foo flyer jigs(awesome action). We also caught a lot of finicky fish on dead sticks with either plain glow red hooks or grub style jigs in glow red of course. The best bite was in the evening from 3:30 till dark with the majority of our bigger fish, 19-21", coming in very aggressive after dark 2-4 feet off the bottom. On another note, the hot ticket during the midday was 24-26 FOW and a small gold chubby darter. Even the finicky sauger were crushing the darter!

Current ice conditions were 10-13" on the main lake with one hole coming in at around 24"!(We were fishing almost on top of an ice heave and there were two sheets of ice stacked up) We(I) felt a little risky, so our best spot we found was an inside corner in 18 FOW amongst a field of ice heaves. We had to cross 3 of them to get there and fished in between a 4th pile of 8 inch thick slabs of ice piled 3 feet high. Needless to say, we didn't have many neighbors fishing within 100 yards, but on Saturday evening, we landed 35 walleyes in 45 minutes in my house alone! Keeping one rod down was challenging enough and keeping 2 down was dam near impossible!

All in all, it was a good trip even though I lost 2nd,3rd, and 4th gear on my wheeler somewhere along the way. I would rather have been on the observing end of seeing two guys on a wheeler pulling a portable going 5mph in 1st gear with the engine screaming, then quick throwing the wheeler into 5th, jumping off, Fred Flintstoning it to get the wheeler up to 6-8mph, then jumping back on and hoping the wheeler was going fast enough for 5th gear to have enough power to get the wheeler going faster. Good times!

Good luck to everyone any stay safe!

full-21151-27838-low21incher1.jpg

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How much snow are we looking at on the lake, I'm bringing my sled up with me this friday, it has a studded track just don't want to have melted plastic falling off the sled like I did last year smile

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I’m heading up on the 29th for my first trip ever to LOW. I will be bringing my pull behind up. Since I’ve never been there before I have no knowledge of bait shops or resorts to drive out of propane? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, Areas to try and such. I’ll be coming up from the west metro area so I’m not even sure which would be the best route up. I’m not looking for any secret spots or anything like that. Thanks again Hookie

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Welcome back to another edition of the Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman. I just wanted to start this off by thanking everyone that has made this transition in my life possible. We have the ice cabins/sleepers on the big body of water and they are catching fish!

I started off in close to 18' of water, but have settled in 25' just off Adrian's Road, which is about 2 miles past Pine Island. The glow colors have been working great, but with this light bite many have seen success on the plain hook with a bobber on a dead stick. I have talked with resort workers all over the lake and the bite is steady everywhere right now.

Only snowmobile, ATV and resort Tracker traffic are being allowed on the ice roads at this time. I spoke with Brian Ney with Adrian's yesterday, and he said we need some colder weather before they will start letting full size rigs on the ice...he thought it could be a week away, but that is only speculation...pray for cold weather!

Thank you all for paying attention to these humble reports, and as always, Happy Fishing and God Bless!

Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman

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JP -

Are you running Salem Ice Cabins out there? I'm curious since we own one. If so, I may have a few questions and perhaps I can share a few of my own experiences with ours.

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JP built his own skid houses. He is just calling them ice cabins because they are sleeper houses. Nice sleeper houses by the looks of them! Nice job JP!

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It was a slow day out of zipple today. Went through a resort house and was able to manage a 21", 17", 6 14" to 16" saugers, 5 whitefish and a ton of tiny eyes and saugers between 3 guys. It was the 2nd day the resort had houses in 22 FOW. The bite was off seemingly for everyone else too. It did sound like the groups that got there at the break of dawn with a line in the water did marginally better though. All I know is that they had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them today!

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Our house was sitting on 11", they were running small vehicles carrying guys back and forth, but still short of the break. And didn't see any traffic out much deeper

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Does anyone know what the ice conditions off Gracton Beach are like?, Is the landing good, is the ice smooth ? can ya get a wheel house and a 4 wheeler out there ?

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Landing is smooth. Shouldn't have any trouble getting out there. There is some thinner ice a little ways out from there. Would be a good idea to touch base with Tim Lyons with the sleepers there and get a current ice condition report or call him ahead of time. He goes in and out of there all day long so he is the one to talk to.

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Was out of Rocky on thursday. Four of us kept 21 in about 29 ft. Ice is about 14 inches whered we were at. The resort trackers were staking out a road towards gull rock reef but must have found some skinny ice where the crack was because they stopped and put a few x's out. Shouldn't be long though. Talked to three guys that were out there yesterday that only iced three keepers.

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HOLY SH ITE! Thats a true monster if Ive ever seen one how long on the 6 lb did it take? Did u get a measurment? Congratulations!

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HOLY SH ITE! Thats a true monster if Ive ever seen one how long on the 6 lb did it take? Did u get a measurment? Congratulations!

I put a tape on it quick, 57" from the front to tail but the fish was not completely straight or tail pinched. It took 30 minutes to land. Here is short video I took of the rod bending. We told him it was a fish of a lifetime and then next day he hooked into another one that was probably a little smaller but the line broke when we tried to pull it out of the hole.

http://www.hotspotoutdoors.com/forum/ubb..._ge#Post2977297

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