fishing reports 2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info

[Woodsman]

Fishing for us was steady. Gold, pink, and glow were all good. When we marked fish they were usually biters.

[LOTW_Outdoorsman]

Welcome back to another edition of the Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman. Before we go any further, we must say Merry Christmas to all. We have been so blessed this year and that has to do directly with the viewers of our humble little adventures...thank you a billion times over.

In this edition we catch up with my great friend "Little Jon" with Sportsman's Lodge to get the fishing report from the US/Canadian Line out of the Lighthouse Gap. Fishing was a bit tougher this week than last, but the fishing is still outstanding between 22-28 feet all along Pine Island from gap to gap.

Thank you once again...Merry Christmas and God Bless.

[Gonzo]

Thanks for all the updates! Heading up in a couple of weeks and really looking forward to it

[Trapper22]

I took my dad up to Fred's Beds for his first ever trip to LOTW. We arrived the evening of the 17th and left late afternoon on the 20th. We ended up with 213 walleyes and saugers, 2 perch, 2 tulibee, and 5 eel pout. We caught a lot of smaller fish, nut there were a decent amount of nice fish mixed in. The biggest fish of the trip was a 24 incher caught by my dad. He also caught the biggest sauger measuring 17". The best jigs we used were macho minnows, glow red caught the big fish and the ones with a hint of orange or a hint of green also worked very well. Had a bit of luck on the pink/gold charmer but it was nothing like the macho minnow. We caught a lot of fish on bobbers as well. Any medium sized glow demon seemed to work well for us. Shiners were quite bit better than chubs on bobbers, didn't seem to matter on the jigs. Good luck to all of you! If you are looking for a place to get into some good fishing, I recommend checking out Fred's Beds, Nels puts you on the fish and caters to your needs. His prices are very good as well.

[buck_eye_man]

Fished in 24 FOW out of Springsteel after navigating through 4-5 miles of their "plowed roads." Fishing was sloooow. Fished from 9:30-4:00 and kept 7 between three of us. Maybe caught a total of 35-40 fish. Mostly walleyes, a few saugers, and a couple tulibee. Biggest walleye was about 18" or so.

14-18" of ice with about 6-8" of snow on top. There were some houses out at Whiskey Jack Flats, but we were a mile or two closer to shore than that.

Lots of people pulling out their houses yesterday in what I assume was an effort to get everything set up before it got cold.

[fishwater]

Fishing was good off pine in 22' on 12/28 when the storm moved in. We had non-stop action 10am-4pm on fish that weren't very picky on what they wanted. Lots of smalleye with a few sauger mixed in. We got a pair of 22" and 24.5" slot fish.

[401TE]

Was in 31' off Adrians road on Saturday all day. Got 52 fish for 4 people in 2 portables, 42 in my house, 10 in the other 10' from ours...but had a couple rookies who lost another 30-40 fish, including some big ones. Brought home 13, caught 6 slot fish, 21, 22, 22, 23, 27, 27.

That was some nasty weather. Glad we made the decision to pull the plug before it got dark!

[iceman_44]

[j337usa]

Fished out of Bayview houses yesterday in 32.5 ft. with 4 guys. We ended up 8 shy of our limit with 24 fish. Fish were on the smaller side with only about 1/4 that were 16" to 17". Saugers kept were 12" and up. Overall not to bad but fishing was much slower that 2 weeks prior. We did throw back 4 walleyes over the slot. We probably threw back about 15-18 that were too small.

[driverjugs]

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[B-man715]

Just got back from fishing off of Adrian's road (32' fow). Arrived on Thursday afternoon, caught a dozen or so before dark, and landed a 26" at 9 pm!!

Friday the fishing was great. A few nice slot fish and a 19" that I caught 12 feet under the ice! We kept close to a 3 man limit (still had some fish left from the day before). Also caught and kept 10 nice whitefish for the smoker

This morning the bite was pretty slow, so with the extreme cold coming soon we decided to pull the plug early and get off as soon as we were plowed out.

Lots of black ice on the drive back.......... had to take our time, but arrived in one piece.

All in all a fun trip with the guys

[Mell]

Fished Wednesday through Friday in 25' of water. Caught tons of fish with average size around17-18"! Many over 20" with a couple lost at the hole worth putting on the wall. Brought home a couple limits of eyes from 16-19" with bonus saugers 13-16". Best quality eyes I've caught up there in years! Best part was that we were by ourselves. Red forage flyer is a must have! Red forage on dead sticks worked great as well. 23.5" eye at 7:15 pm was a surprise as well! The smoked whitefish is gonna taste great too! Good luck all that are braving the weather this weekend.

[YiGGiN4SLoBS]

Fished Wednesday through Friday in 25' of water. Caught tons of fish with average size around17-18"! Many over 20" with a couple lost at the hole worth putting on the wall. Brought home a couple limits of eyes from 16-19" with bonus saugers 13-16". Best quality eyes I've caught up there in years! Best part was that we were by ourselves. Red forage flyer is a must have! Red forage on dead sticks worked great as well. 23.5" eye at 7:15 pm was a surprise as well! The smoked whitefish is gonna taste great too! Good luck all that are braving the weather this weekend.

nice report! which road access did you use and how is it getting around on the lake?? heading up that way on wednesday and debating where to take the wheelhouse out from

[outkast7222]

Heading up Tuesday my self with the family and trying to figure out where to go also. Thinking either Adrian's or Cyrus unless the fishing is hot somewhere else?

[fishhook34]

Where and how deep out of Zippel BAy would you fish. First time up there in two weeks??

[maxpower17]

Check with the resort. They'll put you on fish. A lot can happen in 2 weeks.

[Walleye185g]

Looking to come up to the lake of the woods with 8-10 guys and looking for sleeper houses and want to know where the best place to rent from and where the best place to fish late season like end of feb or march.

[Rube in a Cube]

Fished Friday & Saturday out of Adrian's with mixed results in their resort shacks. Friday was decent, about 30 fish/guy, 17 wen't in the bucket for the 3 of us with 4 slot fish over 20". Fish were definitely finicky and had to play around with your lures a bunch to get some of the fish to go. When an active school came in you knew it though and it didn't matter you had tied on. Saturday was very slow for LOTW. We moved out a bit further, still in a resort shack, hoping to find a little better bite but it didn't pan out as we'd hoped. We caught around 20-25 for the 3 of us with 4 slot fish. Only were able to put 8 in the bucket. Watching all the fish chasing my lure up n down & up n down on my Vexi but shying away from actually hitting my bait was driving me nuts! Caught more fish jigging then on the set lines, most of the bigger fish came on the set lines.

[Reedo7]

Fished on Friday saturday and half day sunday out of Morris Point. Two of us caught 80 walleye/sauger 4 tullibees and one GIANT L.O.W. perch. Fishing was good friday, slow saturday and good on sunday am, wish we could have stayed all day on Sunday. Gold and Glow pink worked best. 4 walleyes over 20" came off a bare hook and a shiner, and one big walleye came on a lindy darter about ten feet off the bottom. Jig on a dead stick worked best for saugers. Also, fatheads greatly outproduced live shiners for us. Lindy Darter fished next to a deadstick worked well, especially on saturday when fishing was slow, almost all fish on saturday came on either the deadstick next to the hole with the darter, or on the darter itself. Gold and glow pink darters.

[GSP4ME]

Excellent reports thanks guys

[GSP4ME]

The link you posted does not work just so you know

[trev07]

We are going out of Adrians road this upcoming weekend and wondering about the use of a four wheeler with chains off the main plowed road. Is the snow to deep to do so or would you be able to plow through? We are driving the trucks out but would unload out in the lake and mainly just use the ATV to move around during the day to try some different spots....

[lungdeflator]

We fished out of Cyrus road Thursday-Sunday morning. We set up on a lonely road off main road in 31 fow. Closest house was a resort house 300 yards away. We averaged 30-40 fish each day. 3-4 slot fish per day biggest was 26". 90% were under 12". It was a struggle to get keeper fish. Pink/silver, orange/glow, and small jigs with good fluttering action worked best. Like the smallest size Lindy flyr. Best fishing was from 830-430 not many fish coming before light and after dark.

[lungdeflator]

Snow was deep. With all the roads and ice ridges it would be a struggle to get around on a wheeler if your making your own tracks.

[Reedo7]

Three of us fished this weekend out in the 32' mud. Fishing was definitely slow. On Saturday we managed 31 and Sunday a half day we managed a dozen. Size of fish was also smaller overall than last weekend. The girlfriend did get the biggest slot fish of the weekend right as we were packing up. She said it made her whole trip. Also the game warden stopped by on Saturday afternoon and said it was slow everywhere he had checked. Also had a few other visitors stop by that were also having slow fishing. All in all it was still fun and we'll be back up to try again this weekend.

[tbash]

Eight of us stayed up in 3 sleepers at Arnesen's Rocky Point from 1/9-1/12. We were on the inner row of shacks so were in 23-24 foot of water. Fairly steady action the 3 days for at least one shack at a time (the hot shack changed day-day). We caught 3 big walleyes (25, 26, and 28.5). The 26 was at about 11:00pm on a rattle wheel so that was unexpected. A couple 18-19 but mostly smaller walleyes. A lot of ones that were too small but we ate on the ice and took 35 total home with 7 of those being good sized perch. One perch looked like a large mouth bass in size. Some of the fish were with jigs but many on a bare red hook tipped with a minnow. Arnesen's took great care of us.

[maxpower17]

Eight of us stayed up in 3 sleepers at Arnesen's Rocky Point from 1/9-1/12. We were on the inner row of shacks so were in 23-24 foot of water. Fairly steady action the 3 days for at least one shack at a time (the hot shack changed day-day). We caught 3 big walleyes (25, 26, and 28.5). The 26 was at about 11:00pm on a rattle wheel so that was unexpected. A couple 18-19 but mostly smaller walleyes. A lot of ones that were too small but we ate on the ice and took 35 total home with 7 of those being good sized perch. One perch looked like a large mouth bass in size. Some of the fish were with jigs but many on a bare red hook tipped with a minnow. Arnesen's took great care of us.

You took 35 home? Hold on, calculating the math...

You're good! You shouldn't get too many negative replies.

[icefishermen]

35-7 perch=28 your good-good job.

[CropDuster301]

Let's see... 8 people fishing with an 8 fish limit ( no more then 4 walleye per limit) = 64 fish total ( no more then 32 walleye),,, so where is the issue with brining home 35 fish total? Of which 7 were perch thus leaving 28 fish. If all the non perch( remember our original # of 35 fish total minus 7 perch= 28 non perch) were walleye they are still with in their walleye limit...8 people x 4 walleye = 32 walleye.

You right maxpower... He shouldn't get to many negative replies because he was well with in the limits,,,maybe the recent solar flare screwed up your calculating device??

[maxpower17]

I've just learned to NEVER post quantities kept of fear of citizen arrest. Too many people assuming or miscalculating.

I done good didn't i?