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2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info


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Got back yesterday. Fished Saturday 2am (when we got up there) until Sunday 9am. First fish of the weekend was a keeper sauger on a rattle reel after 2am while I was setting up the inside of my portable. Between the 4 of us we caught over 100 fish. Only 14 keepers. Keepers were a mix of saugers and walleyes. We were fishing 16 mile. Also kept 2 tulibee.

Got stuck multiple times. Offload travel is not easy. After this weekend it will be near impossible to drive off road with anything but a snow mobile or track machine.

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broman,

If I give you $100 will you buy me some lottery tickets!? Cuz apparently you are the luckiest person I know at the current moment...

Over 100 fish for four guys! WHAT!?!

I am amazed you were fishing the same lake I was on... cuz we didnt get anywhere near those numbers.

GOOD JOB!

For us fishing was slow. We caught fish and had a great time... just slow going.

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100+ fish with 14 being keepers. Lotsa fun, but the bigger fish will start biting soon.

Glad you had some action at least Broman! It's always a bit more fun to see the bobbers going down, then not!

Give it a couple more weeks and the fish you're seeing on your electronics that won't bite, they'll start biting! wink

There are actually a number of fairly good reports coming off the lake from this weekend. Not stellar, but better!

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broman,

If I give you $100 will you buy me some lottery tickets!? Cuz apparently you are the luckiest person I know at the current moment...

Over 100 fish for four guys! WHAT!?!

I am amazed you were fishing the same lake I was on... cuz we didnt get anywhere near those numbers.

GOOD JOB!

For us fishing was slow. We caught fish and had a great time... just slow going.

I shouldn't be the one you should ask to buy you lottery tickets as I was the one in our group having the worst fishing, although I was happy with the numbers I got. I know that I personally went over 20 fish Saturday as I was counting them, then had another 10 from 6am to 8am Sunday before packing up. Everyone else in my group was smoking me and caught more than me.

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EPIC.. I am jelous.

We caught fish.. dont get me wrong. it was fun.

Heck i got a 29.5 inch eelpout that is gonna be delicious and we had a 13.5 inch perch with a 10 inch girth!!

But you guys slayed fish compared to us..

we were slower than most of my brian cells...

guess thats why I had a headache the whole time grin

You guys did great.

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I plan on heading up this weekend. Any reports on Adrians road and if the bite has picked up? Bringing my boys....10 and 12 so some bobbers going down would be nice. Need something to keep the kids occupied.

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I plan on heading up this weekend. Any reports on Adrians road and if the bite has picked up? Bringing my boys....10 and 12 so some bobbers going down would be nice. Need something to keep the kids occupied.

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It has been a great ice fishing season. Just wanted to let everyone know that we have plenty of ice and snow and we will be ice fishing for another 3 more weeks safely. We currently have about 24 inches of snow and 14-16 inches of ice. Here are a few walleyes we caught yesterday.

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I was up there Saturday from 7am-7pm. Fished the third road from the end of Adrians. I had a consistent bite all day. I do not think I went over 30 minutes without a bite. Most of them were small saugers. I did manage to pull in two walleyes a 8", and a 14". It was fun and I caught most of my fish on live shiners. I picked them up on my way at the Winnie bait shop that is just south of Squaw Lake. I'd post a pick or two but I managed to drop my phone down the hole. I was using a medium sized variation of the demon with a blue tip.

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A guy at work told me that the lake cleared up enough to see fairly well with a camera near the bottom. His brother said the bottom was covered in crayfish in multiple spots that he checked and that is why the bigger fish are not biting.

Any truth to this "rumor"

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anyone seeing preference between shiners and fatheads? also heard that rosie reds have been working well

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Was up last wknd and 4 of us got approx 75 fish.. fished garden is reefs. Most of the fish we caught were spitting back up hellgrammite larvae. We even put in a couple on deadsticks n caught a couple of fish.. biggest eye was 21.5, 2 perch over 13.. good trip overall:-)

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Got back last night from a three day trip. 4 guys fishing 13.5 miles out on adrains road in 34 ft of water. We finished with somewhere around 200 fish. Lots of small sauger. Friday was lights out but no walleye. We ended up having to put a lot of 13 to 15 in saugers back as our limit filled up. Saturday we picked up more eye action with a 24.5, 2 22s and a 20 in the slot including a few nice eaters. Also took home 9 11 to 13 in perch. Another successful trip to say the least.

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Just returned from LOW. Fished Sun out of Cyrus in 31 ft, lots of cigars. Kept 2. Yesterday made the long trip out of Adrians. Fished 24 miles out. (From land)Caught about 20 Saugers, 13 keepers. My brother in law was also out there and had non-stop action the last hour and a half. I left for shore @ 6:00 because I was with my 2 kids. The bridge at the end of the main rd is in rough shape. cones were placed across 1 side while we were out fishing. the other side was filling with water.

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Fished Sat and sunday morning out of cyrus in 29 ft. 0nly 15 SMALL walleye between 4 people, none kept. Friends wife managed a 26" walleye at midnight.

Tullibee's where non-stop with wax worms, caught 175+ between us. nice filler of time(there was plenty of it) between walleye bites.

Fished sunday afternoon and mon morning out of zipple in 18ft, one walleye. Fished afair amount of time for northerns in 7-11 ft of water, 10 flags but only one 30" fish. lots of dropped bait.

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I managed to talk my dad into going up to Lake of the Woods for a overnight trip. We went out of Long point and decided to set the wheel house up in an area we caught fish 2 weekends ago and again we did very well. We put 75 fish top side with a 27 1/2'' being our biggest eye along with a 26 1/4",and a 24" as well as a jumbo perch. We took home our 2 man limit, along with 12 tullibee for the smoker. We had fish on the graph pretty much the whole time until it got dark than she shut down, 8-10am and 3-6pm was our best flurries. Gold Northland forage minnows on the dead sticks, and jigging a Lindy jigging frostee (gold)was our two main producers. The fish definately preferred small shiners on the set lines, jigging it didn't seem to matter, if you caught a fish jigging they would smack it. We were set up in 35 Ft of water, the majority of the fish were caught within 2 ft of the bottom and the fish were spitting up larvae.

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Welcome back to another edition of the Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman. In this episode, I have the pleasure of showing you a few of the last guests of the year and discuss the hot spots for the last few weeks of ice fishing on Lake of the Woods. Thank you to everyone that has watched and promoted these humble fishing reports...it is because of you that I have this opportunity and that never will be forgotten.

It was -10 this morning and we could hit -25 with the windchill tomorrow morning...what this means is we'll be ice fishing out there for the next few weeks for sure. There are still plenty of resorts taking people ice fishing and for now the roads are all open. I will be running portable ice fishing trips for the rest of the hard water season, my sleepers are off the lake.

If you're coming up and only have a vehicle with a wheel house or portable, call Adrian's Resort! The word on the street is that they are absolutely crushing fish at the end of their east road, which runs towards Knight Island out in the mud. If you have a sled and portable, then hit the rock piles up and down the US/Canadian line, Long Point and Rocky Point...stick to the deep water around the rock during the day and then move onto the rock later during the day. When 4 PM hits I'd work your way back into the Gaps and along Pine Island. It hasn't been a sure thing every night, but when it's on, IT'S ON!

If you're looking at the open water/Rainy River Walleye and Sturgeon fishing and want to have the Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman show you the way this spring, please contact Janelle Fish for all reservations at (218) 280-1674.

Thank you all again for making my first year of business on my own, one to remember...Happy Fishing and God Bless!

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Fished out of Babblers 14th-16th. We did alright. Deffinately need an extension. Off road travel not to likely without a snowmobile. Close to 70 eyes/saugs for 2 us. We kept 15. No slot fish. dozens of tulibee. we took 18 for the smoker. Also kept 1 jumbo perch, 13 1/2", 10" girth. We did a lot of jumping around. different depths, different locations. We did our best by 12 mile in 32-33 FOW. 16 mile was very slow. Arneson's was ok, but the tulibee were thick there. Overall a good trip for the last one of the year. Now the wait till late december to start over. CAN'T WAIT!!!

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Tip up fished out on Four Mile Bay today with a friend. Fished from 11am to 3 pm and we got 5 of 6 flags with one very fat 33 inch slot and some nice keepers to pickle. Even kept one to fry for supper. Was very good. Lots of ice yet. Not fast and furious but we had a good time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fished yesterday afternoon along the Ontario border, started at 3PM.

Drilled first holes in 27' and caught 1 small walleye. Moved to 25' and didn't catch a fish. Moved to 13' at about 6PM and didn't mark a fish until 6:40. Ended up throwing 6 nice walleye and 2 sauger on the ice before it shut down. Missed a few eaters, and had a big one on.

Quite a few groups were spread out East from Adrian's old ice road to the border in 13-20'. Heard some reports of flurries on the river in 4 mile bay and the normal river spots, again from 630 to dark. One group kept 5 on Friday night. 18' seemed like the ticket on the river.

Knew of a few groups on the Rainy near Birchdale with dismal reports. Only a few walleye per boat all day. Sounded like some caught more sturgeon than walleye, and the wait at the ramp was a minimum of 2 hours.

Also knew of a few groups pike tip up fishing this weekend. One group was in 4 mile bay and caught some fish, but nothing in or above the slot. A group near Zipple Bay had 3 fish in the upper 30's and one at 40. The third group I knew out iced 7 fish out of Warroad, the biggest being a 37 and 38".

Ice hasn't deteriated one bit, and there is still about 1' of hard snow on top. No slush where we were by Pine Island. Snowmobiles are still the way to go as ATV's and SXS didn't have much luck staying on top of the crust. There were a number of trucks using the old plowed roads. No big melt downs predicted up here in the forseeable future - looks like we might hit 40 on Friday.

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Sounds like we shoulda headed west after all. We went after pike this weekend as well but didn't want to go to Four Mile for fear of running into crowds so we picked a lone piece of structure on the south shore and stuck it out fishing 9-14 feet. One small pike during the day then some sauger moved in just before dark.

We decided to try shallower and headed over toward "The Wash". We worked the channel as best we could this morning and did even worse for fish but did have a "First" for us in tip up fishing.

We about got spooled on a tip up but I stopped the line just before it ran out. The circle hook pulled free of the dead bait and the line went limp. While re-winding the tip up and talking about what it could've been, an otter came up the hole! What?! Yeah, an otter!

He took off as soon as he saw us, but WOW.

It was my first time there so I don't know if the otters are regulars or not but we did find some breather and diving holes out and about when we looked around. They're well hidden so if you wind up in that area, be safe. We were aware the ice could be sketchy so we were prepared with our ice safety gear. I knocked one of the holes open with my ice scoop handle and it got plenty big enough for a full size adult to go through. We were measuring over 20 inches of ice in the holes we augered and one of the breathers was pretty darn close.

By the way, the general consensus is the fish are still in the winter pattern, not staging or pushing into the rivers just yet. wink

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Fished Friday Saturday...If you guys want to go after decent fish, go up to the reefs. Four of us went up Saturday and followed the trail up to oak island. I thought the trail was in great shape. We all got up there around 11 am and fished in 28-32 f.o.w. off to west and northwest off Bridges area. We packed up at 2:30 we had our limits of saugers and eyes with a dozen perch mixed in. Fisheed the south end from Zipple to Pine Island with poor results...all 6-10 inch fish...

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We up here have plenty of ice and you can use your 4-wheeler or snow machine. You can fish pike, walleye, crappies, whitefish or lake trout.

Fish LOTW, Whitefish Bay or Crow Lake. I will be going out fishing here in a bit and I will write a fishing report this evening. See you on the ice.

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32-34" of ice out of Warroad. Landing is breaking up a little but still in decent shape. Snow machines are ideal. Some guys are driving trucks but they tend to be shoveling while we're fishing smile. Pike are biting decent up shallow.

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I heard a 4 wheeler went through the ice in 4mile bay over the weekend. Got too close to the channel. The river is open almost to the resorts, probably by end of day will be there. Were a few open holes off Wheelers point on Saturday. Ice on lake is still solid, just be careful when getting close to there there is current. The landing off the point in Warroad was starting to get a little sloppy also.

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You heard correct, I was with. Wasn't the channel that was the problem, come to find out there is a spring there that goes quick. Very scary couple of seconds, but thank god we were only in 3 feet of water. very big thanks to Brian at Adrians and Todd for helping us get my buddies 4 wheeler and trailer out.

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the ice on 4 mile bay sure took a hit today. What was white this morning turned dark this afternoon and there is twice the open water as there was this morning. The ice on the lake is getting worse, the plowed roads are rotting. As of yesterday on the West side of the lake it was still fairly solid.

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