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2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info


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Was up for 3 days last week out of wig wam fishing was slow for lotw. Averaged about 30 fish a day between me and my gf. Bobber fishing worked best with pink colors. Was slow for everyone I talked to.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

I was up from last Friday noon through Monday. Slow for me as well and I tried about 12 spots on the sled and porty. Only caught about 25 fish and kept 4. Tried Fat heads for two days and only pulled small eye's. Tried to find some Shinners but all bait stores were out so ended up with some bigger Rainbows which worked better on dead stick. It seemed like they would run if I jigged to much? My son-in-law were in a sleeper out of Sportsmans and from Sat noon until Monday noon they pulled in over a 100 fish for 4 guys. I know this because they kepted a sheet for each fish and size to see who would win biggest fish, and most inch's of fish caught! wink

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Went out of Zipple Friday and Saturday. Good Friday afternoon bite and we were picky and kept a dozen between 2 of us. Same spot Sat. and it was sloooow. We tried 3 or 4 different spots at Zipple and only kept 2 fish. Sunday at Long Point we only kept 1 fish. Slowest weekend on LOW for me in a very long time. 1 good fish fry and 3 fish brought home and the Vikings won so still a great weekend.

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Hi JP! Thanks for your 'on the spot' advice last Friday!

I was in the group of porty's in 28 ft. We moved shallower for the afternoon as you recommended and we did better than the guys in my group who stayed out deep.

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Fished out of Adrian's this weekend with a group of 8 in 2 different houses Saturday through Monday. We fished on our own on Saturday and set up in about 27" of water and fished from 10am to 5pm. We caught a fair share of small sauger. Plenty of action but nothing of size.

Sunday we fished in Adrian's houses and both groups did really well pretty consistently all day from sun up to sundown. We were in 29" of water and the other house was in 30" of water. We caught a lot of keeper sauger a couple eyes.....biggest eye being 18". We missing one 19" at the hole and another guy in our group missed two nice slot fish.

Monday we fished all day out of Adrian's again and used the same two houses. THe house set up in 30" of water did really well all day. They caught one nice 24" eye and lots of solid 17-20 inch range. Our house, on the other hand, hand a really solid early morning and found about 6 nice keep eyes. But, after the morning bite died....the entire bite died. Only managed a handful of small fish the rest of the day. We were set up about 100 yards away from the other group of guys we were with. The people at Adrian's were great all weekend. We still all had a blast and are pretty eager to get up there again so give it another go.

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We fished along the south shore Dec 29 - 31, and ended up with our limits of walleye / sauger in combination as well as enough for a couple fish fries. Saugers dominated the catch, and we did catch one 29" pike as well as several tullabie.

Fish were found anywhere from 15 fow (evening bite) to 30 - 33 fow for day time action. We tried in between depths (18, 20, 25, 27), but found the better daytime action in that 29-33 foot range.

A variety of lures and colors worked, and nothing stood out as a particular favorite. Colors included gold, pink/white, green/chartreuse, among others.

Northland buckshot rattle spoons, JR-spoons, and Pink Charmers all worked.

We did equally well on dead sticks / bobber rigs as we did actively jigging, and all were caught on either whole or cut-up fatheads.

The lake is forming some nice ice, so I'd imagine it won't be long before it's all truck accessible providing no major snow accumulation. We opted for the ATV this time around as I like a solid 18" of ice before driving a truck off the beaten path.

Good luck up there!

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There are about 6-8" in most spots. However, the ice is very rough and hard to maneuver where not plowed. We highly recommend staying on a plowed resort road. Wandering off can be done, but will be slow going. Please be very careful of cracks and heaves if you decide to head out on your own.

Stay safe and happy fishing!

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There are about 6-8" in most spots. However, the ice is very rough and hard to maneuver where not plowed. We highly recommend staying on a plowed resort road. Wandering off can be done, but will be slow going. Please be very careful of cracks and heaves if you decide to head out on your own.

Stay safe and happy fishing!

Didn't you mean 16"-18" of ice?

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All I'm going to say is the last two days were some tough fishing. Talked with a few other groups and they were not have the best of luck either, hope it gets better.

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I will be up at Adrian's Wednesday morning. Can any body give me a recent report from there? Thanks.

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Just got back. Like the previous post to yours said - VEEERRRYYY!!! SLOW right now unless you can get up north. Measured 16" - 20" of ice but some places are still thinner than this. Highlight of the weekend was watching the Vikes get their hind ends handed to them again. Could hear the howling coming from the lodge like someone was beating a dog. laugh

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Just got back from 12 mile for the last couple days, and fishing was slow. We had a few good fish and a lot of smaller fish, but at least we caught fish. Headed back up on friday sure hope the bite picks up. We also got stopped by the DNR and from what he said we were doing better than most and we weren't doing that great.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Builders

at Adrians also wed to fri in Cabin # 1. well, at night antways...

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I'm up thru Saturday. Not sure what cabin. I have done very good out of there the last 3 years. Hoping this year is no different.

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Fished friday on Adrians road and saturday out of Zipple and fishing was very tough. Moved 3 times both days from 26-34 FOW and only caught a few saugers and some tullibees. Tried lots of different tackle and bait but didnt even mark much for fish. Talked to lots of other people that had very similar results.

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We went out of morris PT. RD, using Freds Beds Jan 1st-3rd and we caught a ton of fish...But there was just no size, a lot of saugers, I think our biggest was 16in...I think we ended up keeping over 30...Midday was definately the best bite in 29FOW where we were...I tried going into about 20FOW for the night bite, but it was much of the same, saugers....As far as Freds Beds I will definately be going back to him, Nels was a really nice guy very down to earth o and we caught a butt load of fish smile...Thanks Nels

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We were up at Zippel and fished the 4th & 5th out of their houses. The 4th was very slow, between 4 guys caught about 15 fish, with 4 keeper saugers, in about 21 ft of water. We moved deeper to around 28ft on the 5th, and fishing was better. Probably caugt 30 fish for the four of us. Only caught 2 walleys, the rest saugers, plus 8 Tulli's. Ended up keeping 13 walters/saugers total. On the 4th they only hit the deadstick, and on the 5th they would only hit the jigging rod. We pretty much threw every lure in the book at them, nothing stood out.

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Fished from 9-4 on 1-5-13 and 3 of us filled out in 34' of water out of Babbler's. Not fast and furious but all fish were over 15" and even had to throw back 5 fish between 20-25".

Trick was to get away from everyone, closest people were about 1/4 mile away.

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Fished 32' on Sunday by myself and was all filled out by 11:30am. I think I just had 2 keepers by 10:30am then it was game on for an hour. Threw back one 20" eye, kept 4 eyes 16-19.25" and 4 saugers. Only had to throw two small eyes back, pretty much everything I caught was a keeper. Based on the reports I guess I just got lucky!

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Four of us fished off Adrian's rd in 30 feet over the weekend, Fri-Sunday noon. Like the others said it was slow. The hot set up was a JR's Holy Angel- Pink. Problem was, only one guy had one. Lots of small saugers with a few eyes mixed in. The Holy Angel hooked into a fat 26 inch Walter on sat. Managed to bring home an ok bucket and a nice pile of rough fish. Chubs a bit better than shiners and dead stick to jigging was 50-50.

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3 of us fished off Mission Pt in 34 ft of water. Caught a 28 1/4 inch Walleye in 12 ft of water. Mostly slow with a few Sauger. Chartreuse was a good color. Jigging could get plenty of attenion but they wouldnt bite.

Used fatheads and shiners. fathead seemed better.

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My brother dad and i stayed at Wheeler's Point Sunday and Monday and fished Tuesday. Hats off to John and Mike! They were diligent on putting us on fish. Fishing was real tough on Sunday and Monday but after they moved the houses and put us in a new one on Tuesday it was lights out!!! from 8:00 to about 2:00 we had a 22 two 21.5 a 19 two 17.5 and a 17 in the bucket. along with 8 Saugers and one 14 perch. The eyes were coming in huge schools. When they hit there were multiple bobbers going down. We missed more then we caught, we had some real nice fish on that got off half way up the hole. It was my dads first trip up to LOW and very memorable.

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Fished Monday and Tuesday with the daughter out of Slims. Caught 44 spread pretty evenly over the two days. Fish were on the vex constantly except for about a 15-20 minute span on Tuesday. Pink jigs with a chub caught all the keepers. Lost three very nice fish, one took my jig and I got it up about three feet from the bottom and it spooled all my line out and never stopped. Don't know what they were. Active jigging would attract fish to the hooks but they would not touch the jig. Leave the jig dead stick and they would take it down.

brought in one very large pout. Great bonus meal.

Spoke with several other groups who did not do half as well as we did but they were stuck on using gold all the time.

For some reason the tullibee were moving through constantly mid-day. I thought it was a little early in the season for that.

All in all was a great two days of fishing and bonding time for father daughter.

OD

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Heading up north right now to the Northwest Angle to shoot next weeks episode! Enjoy the video and as always, Happy Fishing and God Bless.

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Nothing from the Rentals, but I talked to Deanna today and it sounds like roads are getting cleaned this morning out to 30 fow. Coming up tomorrow with the family for a couple days in the ice castle, had to pull the oldest out of school for a day smile.

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Fished Zippel through the weekend storm and it was slow. Everything was an absolute mess thursday through friday night until it froze up. Travel on the lake is still fair. Avoid the bigger drifts and youll be fine. Some of the bigger drifts still had slush under them sunday morning. A lot of the zippel houses were way out north west in 28-30 fow. We fished in 27 and as people left for deeper water, our fishing picked up some. Still slow by LOW Standards. Back for more in a couple weeks.

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Fished the 14th & 15th out of Adrians. 14th we were 7.3 miles out over Pine, only 7 fish in the bucket for 4 guys biggest being 17inch EYE. Tuesday we went out a bit farther and still didnt have alot of luck.We only put 3 in the bucket. Didnt mark a ton of fish this trip, but the weather was so up and down for the last few weeks that everyone I talked to did about the same. If weather ever stays the same for a few days the fish are going to go NUTS. Going back in a few weeks and hope we get on some then. Still hade a great time on the Best lake in the State!!!

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Welcome back to another edition of the Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman. In this episode I had the opportunity to visit my good friends with the Red Fox Ice Fishing Company out of the Angle Outpost, Minnesota's North West Angle, and head to Canada for a day of Crappie fishing.

We caught more Walleye and Sauger than you can shake a stick at, but only found about 15 small crappies throughout the trip...I guess that's just fishing. The smaller the better on this fine January day was the ticket...Pink and Gold, 1/8 oz and under. They were acting very finicky as they have been on the south end of the lake. Maybe the good Lord is just saving a few for summer fishing...

The scenic views from the trip are amazing in itself. I hope everyone gets the chance to do this one day, it's simply exhilarating.

Happy Fishing and God Bless.

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