fishing reports 2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info

[lakowoods]

Fished in front of Lighthouse gap last evening in 12 ft of water and faired out well, we were using small shiners and frozen shiners and fatheads, I also have larger emerald shiners but seems like you have a better catch ratio with the smaller minnows and jigging, the fish can get more of the hook in their mouth with a smaller shiner. biggest was a fat 27" and several 16"-18" few small saugers too. could'nt get shallower because of a fresh crack and pressure ridge in the gap. I know its not allways bigger minnows catch more and bigger fish! alot of our locals like the smaller baits for the eaters. Steve @logcabinbait

[mamohr686]

We could drive fairly easily once we got off the road. There was some drifting at the plowed road edges, but once you got past that you could get almost anywhere you wanted in 4X4. Just pack a shovel and you will be fine.

I like the smaller shinners for for jigging raps and darters because you get better action out of them. When we were fishing with a bobber rod or spoon with minnow head combo, the big bait was the way to go for the 14-19" walleyes. I'm not a big fan of the frozen bait because they break apart easily, and you wind up fishing without bait a lot of the time if your jiggin' hard. When you pinch the tail off a fresh shinner they stay alive for a long time and give off more scent.

I bought bait at border bait, log cabin and outdoors again. Like I said in my first post, outdoors again has good sized shinners that were just taken out of the river. I also got very liberal scoops that had all sizes in it, so that is my recomendation for the upcomming week.

-Mark

[tbirath]

686 how far out from Pine is the 15-18 feet depth, 1 mile?

[fishwater]

less than that in most places, I'd say 600yds.

My dad just called, he just got up this morning and is setup off pine island. Got a few nice walleye and a perch in 30' already. Sooo jealous..

[Beast26]

less than that in most places, I'd say 600yds.

My dad just called, he just got up this morning and is setup off pine island. Got a few nice walleye and a perch in 30' already. Sooo jealous..

SO AM I!

[herefish101]

8 more days, i'm jacked, i cant wait, aggggh, time goes to slow. Going out of walleyeretreat, i hope all the rest of you leave me some fish(LOL).

[Big A]

herefish101 -

I have used Walleye retreat a few times. Nice people. Always had a good time.

We switched over to Cyrus just cuz it was easier for our group to get the meal plan and not have to worry about cooking every morning/night.

We are leaving tomorrow morning. Hope the fish keep up with the #'s everyone keeps reporting.

and no worries.... with me behind the line.. there will definately be fish left for you

[tipupsonly]

Fishing has been good out deep from Pine Island. The warm weather has turned them on for sure. I got out for the afternoon today and did well. Guessing 10 walleye and 20 saugers. A few small end slot walleye, otherwise just good eaters. Some of the saugers were really nice...in the 15" range. Caught a few eyes suspended over halfway up the water column...so don't forget about those! Fished out of Border View's houses. They have been hot the past few days.

[morgan7c]

Heading up to Cyrus Resort in the morning. We usually fish the river about 3 miles upstream from 4 mile bay but we're trying a resort this time and fishing the big lake instead. Should be fun, we're really looking forward to it. Any word on how the rivers been this winter? Sounds like the shiner run was really light to pretty much non existent this fall.

[mamohr686]

tbirath,

Not very far at all. If you take a look the picture of my big walleye on page 23 of this thread, you will see a cream colored perm. house on the right side. When we were fishing, this was the first house off of pine island on the west side of the road. We were on the west side of the road about 300 yards closer to the island than that house. Lakemaster maps in a handheld gps make the guesswork a lot easier.

[CRK]

Headed up tomorrow.

Does Pine Island seem to be the hot spot?

I also was thinking about going out of morris or long?

Bringing up a sleeper, don't plan on moving around much going to be a lazy beer drinking weekend. Also only have a 2 wheel drive truck which access seems to be the best one plowed and taken care of, don;t want to get stuck!! Let me know I'll write a good piece when I get back!

[Ray1]

Just got back from Pine Island. My dad and i set up in 33.5 fow and managed 85 fish in just about 2 days. You can get around good up there. Out of those 85 fish roughly 60 were caught 10-18 feet off the bottom. Most fish were over 14 inches with one 28+ lost at the hole. We had a heck of a time catching our limmit of saugers.

[Dry_Fly]

Just got back from two days of fishing caught about 40 fish between two of us the first day in 30 ft of water. Lots of sml saugers with four nice eyes & 4 jumbo pearch kept us busy throwing a lot back. 2nd day 33' about 20 fish caught four nice eyes 3/16 & 1/19 all caught suspended around 8 to 10 ft range brought your lure up and they would smack it right now. Saugers most were sml and on the bottom with a real light bite had to work hard to get them to bite. lures were stop sign red and gold chubs, red jigging rap smal with chub on center hook and dead sticks were demon jigs pink and white with chubs worked best. Tried shinners but chubs worked best for us. road was in great condition off pine island

[ZacAttack0201]

Went out of Morris point Monday and Tuesday in a permanent near the farthest fish houses out. Fishing wasn't bad, small saugers all day, there was 6 of us and we caught 12 walleye between the 6 of us in two days, some decent keeper saugers and had a 21" eye, and two 23" eyes, nothing bigger. We were in 2 seperate fish houses 3 people per house, used pretty much every lure imaginable, most of the fish hit on gold and red for sauger and blue for the walleye; had to be about an inch off of bottom with deadstick to really get any bite. Ultimtately, compared to the rest of the reports was a little dissappointed, but still the best ice trip this year. Next time, we won't rent out a shack, we will go portable. Thanks to the ships wheel for the excellent cabin!

[bturck]

Got an email from Charlie at Riverbend this morning. He said they are out a long ways and fishing has been good. Lots of fish suspending, so watch that Vexie for the high flyers. I've always found those suspended fish to be pretty aggressive. Headed up Monday, hope its still good then.

[catchphoto_filet]

Was up a few days ago at the end of adrians roads. For my standards fishing was pretty poor. Caught a lot of little ones kept 4wallyes around 16" and released a 26" 7lb walleye and about a 10lb Pout!

I have a buddy who has one of his own bombardier type things im sure you have seen them. He was way way out by the angle and had excellent fishing for what that is worth to anyone

[icefishingdude]

Fished this past Monday off Pine in 24' of water and had a good evening rush. Managed 8 keepers b/t 2 of us. Fished 27' Tuesday w/ similar results...more action throughout the day and again managed 8 keepers. Threw back a ton of small saugers and only kept fish larger than 12". Lost a pig at the bottom of the hole and caught 1 huge pout...flashed alot of fish both days and wished we could have stayed for Wednesday...

[heartattack22]

Fished towards the end of Morris Point's Rd yesterday. Between four of us we managed 29 keepers including two jumbos. Probably threw back 40 smaller saugers. Pretty much steady all day. Glad fishing is on right now. May run back up there again tomorrow...we'll see!!

[The_King48]

Had a very good 2 day trip over Pine Island... 25' of water and pounded the walleye with a few saugers and ugly pout mixed in.... Only 2 slot fish a 22" and 27". Only negative was some real smart guy (local) that thinks he and his buddies own the road. They parked there trucks in the middle of the road so you had to go IN the snow bank to get around them. Oh well another great trip to the POND.

GO VIKINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dry_Fly]

red and gold stop sign works great and the red sml jigging shad from rapala works great look for the suspended fish they are usually eyes and aggressive anywhere in the 6 to 15 ft range. good luck

[eurolarva]

Fished out of Riverbend today and managed to bucket 4 sauger and 2 walleye in about four hours. Hit one 25 inch walleye. Hook and minnow was working for the sauger and the Walleye were slamming the golden eye with a minnow. One walleye was suspended and I would have missed it without a flasher. Rumor has it the bite is slowing down. Hope it waits a couple more days. Found out this week Riverbend is Wifi. Works good for me cause my phone dont work up here.

[bturck]

eurolarvae: How deep does Charlie have the houses? Leaving at 1pm tomorrow and fish for two days. Hold unto that bite for us. I'll post thursday when I get back.

[fishwater]

Riverbend has most of their shacks in 33' from what we saw. They were moving them out further a bit today. We were fishing the fringes of riverbend's and snobes shacks and did amazing the past two days. Got 8 fish over 20, lots of nice ones to eat too. I'll post some more pics tomorrow.

[Beast26]

Just got back last night and the trip was outstanding. We, three guys, fished out of Pine in about 31' and caught a ton (190 total) of fish between noon Friday and noon Sunday. When we got up there the resort we stayed at moved the sleeper house out deep for us as soon as we asked! It was the right choice. We did only manage one slot fish but the fish we brough home were between 14-18 1/2".

I myself did manage to snag two pout 6 lbs and 10 lbs...ick. I have never seen a fish that was head first in the hole contort itself and push it's tail up the hole next to it's head. The smaller pout had a 10" white fish in it that I pulled out with the hook out because I had to see what it was. The tail was in the bottom of it's throat sticking out when I pulled the hook out. I managed to pulled it out about half way before realizing what it was and letting go. The only thing worse than a slimy pout is one of those smelly white fish!

[bturck]

Beast26/fishwater: Thanks for the updates, leaving in a couple of hours for Tues and Wed fishing. 2nd trip this year so hopefully the bite is still active. Will post our results on Thursday.

[Beast26]

Beast26/fishwater: Thanks for the updates, leaving in a couple of hours for Tues and Wed fishing. 2nd trip this year so hopefully the bite is still active. Will post our results on Thursday.

Good luck! Have fun! We have been going up there for years and this year was by far the best trip. We may even try and make it up there again this year!

[fishwater]

Here's some pics from our 1/16-17 fishing. We were split-up most the 2nd day, so some of the pics are kinda bad.

[fishwater]

Here's a couple more. Hot baits were glow pink jigging shad, white jigging rap, pink glow drop gem, stopsign, pink/gold buckshot and pearl jigging shad. We were setup in 33+' both days. My buddy pulled the 30" pout out on 3lb line, I've got a video of the catch that is pretty funny. I'll have to try that later.

[Beast26]

Here's a couple more. Hot baits were glow pink jigging shad, white jigging rap, pink glow drop gem, stopsign, pink/gold buckshot and pearl jigging shad. We were setup in 33+' both days. My buddy pulled the 30" pout out on 3lb line, I've got a video of the catch that is pretty funny. I'll have to try that later.

Yeah, pink was far an away the best color for us also. I used a holographic pink/white jigging spoon made by Jr's most of the weekend. I even took the treble hook off and replaced it with a glow in the dark long shank pink hook. Once I settled on that lure there was no need to switch because everything that looked at it hit it. On the dead stick I used a pink gama hook all weekend (jigging spoon out fished dead stick 3 to 1). Live shiners and fatheads both worked well but for some reason I couldn't get the fish to hit forzen shiners. I used the entire minnow most of the weekend. The fish were very aggressive and willing to chase the bait 2-5 feet off the bottom before hitting.

[Tully]

Awesome pictures fishwater! I am hoping to get up Sat morning for the first time of the year. What road did you guys go out of? I have only been up there a couple times and not real sure where to go. Thanks,

Tully