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2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info


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1.16.17 Sunset Lodge Fishing Report

Hello once again from the Northwest Angle!

We're back with another fishing report this week. It was another cold week out on the ice with temperatures below zero for most of the week. We should be out of the cold stretch for a while now and the weather for the next couple weeks is looking really good!

On the Minnesota side, we have our houses on Rabbit Ears, Four Blocks and Little Oak. All have been producing fish. Out at Little Oak, we are fishing in 24-28 feet of water off of structure and out in the mud. At Four Blocks, we are fishing in 22-27 feet of water and have found some very nice slot fish coming up the holes. At Rabbit Ears, we are still in 21-26 and it is still producing buckets of fish consistently. Best colors have been pink and gold tipped with a minnow.

On the Canadian side, the crappie and walleye bite has been very good. Limits of nice crappies have been coming back every day with some being in that 15-16" range. We are fishing in 27-33 feet for those, with small tungsten jigs tipped with a minnow or plastic. Walleyes have been very consistent in 25-30 feet of water on the Canadian side, also. Same jig colors as the US side, gold and pink tipped with a minnow.

Until next week everyone, stay warm and tight lines!

Forrest Huset

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I wondered if I had stepped thru a time warp and  was back in 1997............really fun day today about 5.5 miles off the south shore. LOTS of action and some nice fish. Two overs and 2 nice keepers at 17" with 6 very nice saugers to fill the bucket, plus 1 sumo perch. Quite a few littles but the action from 10 to 2:30 was much like it used to be. Also several tullibees and they were the biggest I've seen here in a while. Zero fish jigging but glow pink Geminis and glow red Northland forage things were working very well.

Wow, is that snow hard.......if it rains at all on Saturday, the snowpack will be like cement.

 

Good luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

1.30.17 Sunset Lodge Fishing Report

 

The weather is finally cooperating and it feels like January! Last week's sloppy conditions have frozen over and all trails have been groomed.

Fishing on the Minnesota side has slowed in the morning but a mid-day to afternoon bite is still strong anywhere between 17 and 28ft. Fishing the dead stick has been most productive with many limits produced and a fair amount of slot fish being released.

Canada is still pumping out the crappies, the magic number seems to be right around 30 ft., Deep water Bay has seen a lot of action for both the walleye and crappie bite.

Have a great week!
Sunset Lodge Ice Team

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fished out of Zippel bay Friday, Tried 28ft first, bust...Then tried 32ft didn't hardly mark a thing...Went into 24ft and caught a couple keepers, 24ft was by far the best....Saturday went out of Adrian's out 14 miles and got 25 fish kept 11.

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2.13.17 Sunset Lodge Fishing Report

Hello from the NW Angle!

On the Minnesota side, fishing has really picked up this week! The ice is thick and temps are nice, making for a much more pleasurable hard-water experience. Less turbidity has really allowed for more natural colors to work. Using the dead stick is still producing the most fish with depths under a foot off of the bottom. Lots fish in the slot, as well as, multiple over 28!

On the Canadian side, walleyes are being caught in transition zones, with gold and pink and whites being the hot colors. The crappie bite is at 30ft plus in the mud with Tungstens topped with plastic. Jigging spoons with a minnow head are also producing fish.

Until next week,

Sunset Lodge Ice Team

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  • 2 months later...

I am getting ready for the opener by trapping minnows out of my backyard pond.  Had one the other day, be it must have swam out when I went to get my floating bait bucket.  Planning to relocate the trap to another spot to see if can get more action.  

 

What are you all doing to get ready?

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On 5/4/2017 at 4:48 PM, Hoey said:

 

 

What are you all doing to get ready?

 

Just counting down the days.:D

 

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Geez! Other than Curts usual great video.....no reports?  We caught fish from 6 to 20 feet. A pretty good bite in the bay on Saturday with several overs. Some were fishing to 25 or deeper in the lake but most were 12 - 18. A cool, nasty blow on Sunday until evening thw wind laid down and fishing was very good. A gorgeous morning today and we are just heading out.

 

Good luck

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We did decent on Saturday, moved from shallow to deep.  6'-20'.  Caught fish by Morris Pt and in front of the island.  Talked to several other groups and there were good reports from the river and every where on the lake.  Went out again Sunday morning and did good then too.  A little windy but definitely fishable. 

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Saturday we were on the water by 10am and fished til 430pm.  Our bite was spotty except for the larger ones.  We were not keeping 15 and under.  Started of mid-depth rocks (15 to 21ft), moved to sand (8 to 14ft), out to reef (15 to 23ft), and back to sand.  The rollers were going on the west end.  IMG_3506.thumb.JPG.d455b66b904e1ce524e5a0e500622717.JPGIMG_3507.thumb.JPG.b108aec15fc966c1782d0db595413b9b.JPGIMG_3510.thumb.JPG.8e8542252a54f0d79131de80419c221f.JPG

 

 

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Fished all around Morris Gap area at all depths. Did best in 16'. Released a 27.5 and a 27. Monday and today have been very slow for us.

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5/22/17  Flag Island Resort Fishing Report Lake of the Woods NW Angle

Greetings fishermen and women! Its great being back in the swing of things and better yet in the boat! Both the MN and Ontario season is now open and fishing has been great! Staffers here at Flag Island Resort have been busy getting ready for the upcoming summer months with some deep cleaning, window washing, grounds work and remodeling!

 

On the Minnesota side anglers have been catching nice saugers, walleyes and perch. Soon the crappies should be finding their way into the shallows around Angle Inlet and other small creeks and the walleyes have spawned out over the past couple of weeks. With the warmer temps that started out last week anglers were finding fish in shallower water between 5-17 feet now, with the cooler temps, rain and winds most of the fish have been pushed deeper into the 16-26 foot range. Points and reefs close to large land masses adjacent to sand and rubble have been hot locations. Anglers have found fish near Soldier’s, Little Oak, Oak Island and NW Point. The water surface temp has been in that 50-55 degree range. Right now it seems like everything is working from ¼ to 3/8 jigs to slow trolling with raps in the shallows as well as trolling spinners keeping on the move at 0.9 mph.

 

Over in Ontario, the walleye, sauger, crappie, perch and pike have been hungry. Perch and crappie should be spawning soon. Crappies are being caught around the 20 foot mark . Sandy bays and points have been best for the walleye and crappie bite while the perch are still caught in the rocks. Many pike have been caught in areas with current. There have been reports of a lot of smallmouth mixed in with the walleyes.  Jigging with a ¼-3/8 ounce jig has been the ticket and the water temp has been around 49-52 degrees.

 

We hope to see you up here soon!

Until next week, good luck fishing!

Guides Dan Schmidt, Jeremy Glessing and Cale Albers

Flag Island Resort

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On 5/18/2017 at 10:01 PM, slammer said:

Whats going on here?

Rebuilding the shoreline.

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Was up at Long Point with 5 guys last Thursday PM through Sunday AM. Thursday evening after the wind went down a bit the fishing was great. Ended up getting our limit for the 6 of us that evening. Ate fish that night. Friday and Saturday were slower but still pretty good. A LOT of little ones so we had to sort through them to get some keeper fish. Ended up getting our limits to take home by Saturday afternoon and then the rain started. Very few slot fish, which was a bit of a surprise. Only 4 over 19.5", with 2 at 20, one 22 and the biggest being 25. Jig and a frozen shiner/fathead worked well. No real preference between the two minnows. Jig color didn't seem to matter that much but we had best luck on gold, pink, chartreuse and glow white. Depths we fished were 21-26 feet, pretty much all those depths worked fine. Really fun trip and I look forward to the next one.  

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The weather this weekend kept people on their toes.  Some where looking for areas to get out of the wind, some went out under calm conditions only to find the wind switched and picked up steam, while some came in to avoid the winds that later settled down.  It was good that the rain stayed away for the most part.

 

Our bite was good with jigging.  We actually got our limit on Friday and only needed to replace what we ate for Friday night dinner on Saturday.  

 

Some folks are starting to pull spinners, but most are still in jigging mode.  

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My wife and I were up Friday and trolled cranks with snap weights in 23-25 ft. just out from Pine Island, catching 30 to 40 walleyes and saugers from about 9:30 to 1:30.  We caught nothing huge, but kept two decent limits of walleyes and saugers.  We had a lot of action and marked a lot of fish.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A group of guys and myself fished last Thurs-Sat and stayed at Linder's Hideaway Cabins.  Nice place, cheaper rates and within walking distance to Cyrus.  Fishing was decent for us.  Fished outside of Pine mostly.  Some snuck over to Zippel with similar results.  Went from hot and minimal wind on Thurs-Fri to being winded out Saturday.  Anything with gold jig and a frozen shiner seemed to produce the best in my boat.  Mixed livewell of sauger and walleye each day.  There seems to be a strong sauger class in that 10-12" range.  10-13' seemed to be the better depths for us.  Tried pulling spinners with the trolling motor too for a while with minimal success.  Also tried pulling cranks with leadcore anywhere from 20-28' with some success.  I graphed a lot of fish in those depths but just couldn't really get dialed in on them.    We got the shallow report (8-9') after when we stopped up at Morris Pt. resort for some food and a drink.  Oh well.  Can't complain.  We had a fish fry one night and were able to bring some fish home too.  Another great trip up to the big pond.   

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We fished Fri to Sun.  Our success was good, not as great as it should be for this time of the year.  Found the spinner bite to be tough as they were taking the tails off the crawlers resulting in a lot of misses.  The guys jigging did much better.  Like jiggin9 indicated, there was also a good bite shallow, in 4 to 6 fotw using 2 oz bottom bouncers.  

 

FIL with a 26 incher.

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BIL with a 27.59495590ebc02_IMG_354927Inch.thumb.JPG.3c9dcebfd47539571ac37b6084b9744f.JPG

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  • 3 weeks later...

Expecting a light NW breeze yesterday, I was quite surprised to see the rollers as I headed out thru the Morris Gap. It did lighten up in the afternoon. The good thing was the large bunch of fish off the south shore starting around 29 feet and out. There were a couple boats shallower too. The fish ignored my live bait but bit fairly well on cranks using leadcore. A few charters were running downriggers here and there also. The water was quite clear and 69 degrees. I hope a good number of fish stay south this summer.

Good luck.........and where are all the old posters?

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I fished Sunday and Monday. Sunday was totally flat and Monday was quite windy in the morning. I was marking lots of fish but I had trouble getting them to bite. I used jig/frozen shinners, leeches and used downriggers to try and find active fish. There were lots of floating mayflies along with clouds of them that were showing on the graph. I tried different depths along with reefs. I caught 12 on Sunday. I kept 3. The rest were small and a 21".   On Monday I only caught small fish and not a lot of them. Several of them were coughing up mayflies. Hopefully the mayflies are done soon!

Edited by ifishwalleye
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I really enjoy Quesnell's video's and hope he keeps that up for a long time.  But for the average guy running up there only occasionally it is a bit harder.  I got up there and fished Thursday and Friday after the wind and rain of Tues-Wed.  A gentleman I talked to at the resort I was staying at said they had been on a charter on Wednesday and 6 people caught 16 fish all day.  Thursday was a tough bite out of the gap for me.  Jigged for a couple hours moving around, drug crawlers a couple hours, nothing.  Started to pull cranks and caught 6, found a lot of fish on sonar at around 31 ft but the water was so chocolate colored I think it threw the bite off.  Went back to crawlers and got a couple more. Later in the day the wind died and was able to go out to a small reef and caught two over 21".  I think I got 10 for the day

    Friday went out of Long Point, found some fish off a reef, anchored up and sat there and caught around 20 by 1:30.  Loaded up and went home.  The water was about 2 shades clearer than the day before.  Good luck all.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What a treat THursday and Friday....little wind! Two days in a row, almost unheard of this year. Lots of fish being caught all over. The most fish I've seen in the south half of the basin in quite a while. Scattered schools in many locations and some of them huge. Boats scattered around from about 30' to about the middle, all seemed to be catching. Mostly driggers or lead core but some jigging and a few pulling spinners. Further north, there were few boats on Bridges and Knight reefs which was a bit of a surprise.

But one thing that really surprised me was the number of fish on large areas of shallow flats (15 -17) north of traverse bay. Must be good eating as there are lots of fish a long way from deeper water including nice saugers.

Really a fun, pleasant couple days.

Good luck.

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Curt said it right in his report, 'the fish were angry"! With the terrific forecast for Sunday/Monday, I headed back to the cabin early Sunday. Sunny, hot, humid and little wind, eventually no wind. Perfect. I headed north rock hopping and there were few rocks that didn't have fish.....and they acted pizzed. Most of the time they slammed the spinner/crawler. Hard. First couple I didn't thing were eyes, but they were. Oddly I didn't catch any saugers. Big fish, nice fish but very few small fish. Also very few boats. Those I could see were netting quite a bit it seemed. Glad I had my ugly flats hat and long sleeved white shirt. It was seriously warm. For me, the best bite of the year for big fish and numbers. Surface temp got to 79 during the day.

 

Monday the wind was up early out of the SW and the troll bite is still going well off the south shore. 30' and deeper there are various schools, some very large. There seem to be fish all across the basin as there were boats spread out from about 3 miles off shore to the middle of the lake. Even a fair number of charters staying south. Good to see.

 

Good luck

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  • 4 weeks later...

This last Thursday and Friday Mother Nature got back to this years normal-----wind. Not bad, but sure not calm. There are still some big girls on the rocks but not all rocks were good. If you saw them, you caught them. Spinners/crawlers. Afternoons we pulled plugs NE of Long Point. A good bite but as Curt mentioned, the massive schools seem to be dispersed. Still good numbers scattered around, just much smaller bunches. Nice sized fish too.

Looking at the long range forecast, it is calling for NW wins from Saturday on  for 8 days or so. Should be a pretty big cool down. Water temp was upper 60's Friday.

Lets hope for a good fall bite.

Good luck

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  • 2 months later...

My single word to describe this past season is "wind."  And it has not let up.  Seems to be blowing like crazy, every day.  Two weeks ago the surface water temp was 48F and as one guy I talked to said, "the lake will turnover soon."  If this is the case, then we have dirty water that needs calm to re-settle.  Looks like near single digit temps mid-next week.  That will help.  We need that wind to move on.

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  • 4 weeks later...

First ice fishing trip today out of morson ontario .  Fishing  was a little slow got a few walleyes and a couple of crappies . Lost what little  snow we had today made the ice really  slippery. Found 9 to 11 inches of ice.20171124_161703.thumb.jpg.9c6ca8860116aea1752177b3795b1ba4.jpg

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