fishing reports 2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info

[cps2009]

Anybody doing anything in shallower? 15-25 feet? Realize it's a little early just thought I'd see if anyone has tried these depths.

[JakeJ_Mn]

Just returned from LOTW. Went by sled out to Knight/Bridges and back to Adrians road in about 23fow. Early morning was the best - I was fishing at daylight, but moved a few times to find fish. Very nice day with a limit by noon. Pink hooks with chubs and Forage minnow glow chub with a shiner head worked for me. Needed and extension for every hole.

Spent the afternoon just cruising around enjoying the day checking spots I have heard about but never could get to before I bought my sled.

[bltbowhunter]

Was the travel pretty easy going cross country from Adrian's road to knights and bridges?

[oleWalter]

Has anyone been using stinger's trailing their jigging spoons?

[JakeJ_Mn]

I had no trouble getting around with my sled.

[Judge]

Haven't seen much activity on this thread lately.. i'm heading up tomorrow wondering what to expect?

[srfishin15]

Fished out of babblers resort with portables and sleds all day saturday and sunday. 220 fish caught between four guys. 37 keeper walleye/saugers with no walleyes under 13" kept and no saugers under 12.5" kept. 17 on Saturday and 20 on Sunday. 8 out of every 10 fish were saugers/saugeyes. Biggest eye was 19". Lost a couple bigger ones at the bottom of the hole (of course). Also caught 5 pout with the smallest around 4 pounds and the biggest pushing 9 pounds, all kept. Also caught 10 tulibee and 3 large perch, smallest perch was 10". Depths between 28-31' were most productive. Any red jigging spoon worked very well. A red darter worked on the very aggressive fish. The deadstick produced majority of the bigger fish on sunday. Shiners on the deadstick and frozen heads on the jigging lures. It was a great trip. Wasn't a time period longer than 5 minutes where we weren't marking fish. Good Times.

Make sure you bring an extension, I have a 12 inch extension on my auger and with the hard packed snow a foot deep I was having to drill around the edges of the hole to clear snow so I could reach the bottom of the ice. Barley made it probably had 2-3 inches to spare. Would guess there is 40-44 inches of ice.

[pushbutton]

Am pretty close to where you were and night and day report.....and not saying yours was not legit All I can say so far is....ouch. If 7 inch saugers are considered countable, then I suppose we are doing ok. After 10 hours of hitting it hard the bucket consists of two nice eyeballs, a couple of belly hanging perch, and one tulllibe.....still looking for that pout

[graf703]

We fished the 14th to the 17th. It was very slow. 14th we fished out of zippel in 33 fow with 30" of ice. Caught a couple tullibee and no keeper walleye/sauger. 15th we fished adrian's road. There were two spots on the road with major slush issues. We fished as deep as 31 and shallow as 25 Ice was closer to 40". Maybe kept a couple small fish. 16th was back to zippel in 29 ft and kept a few with our first walleye. Tried four mile bay and caught a 25" walleye in a deeper part on a bobber.

Very underwhelming time. We caught some nice tullibee. Everyone else we spoke to had the same report. Srfishin must have been on the lone lucky spot.

[CANOPY SAM]

I don't doubt these reports at all. That really is this lake guys. I had a buddy out with Arneson's on Sunday. His group of 4 took home 16 nice walleyes and saugers after a half day of fishing, while the house just 30 yards away only caught 2 fish for the whole day!

It can be really spotty.

[eyeguy 54]

good luck on that pout pb...

[graf703]

I've never thought of LOW as a hole hopping lake. But, that might be what it takes right now.

We had four guys in a pop up. Drilling eight holes was exhausting. I couldn't imagine hopping very much with that many guys. Moving twice in a day just about finished me.

[CANOPY SAM]

I hear ya' graf! It's always something coming between us and great fishing! I actually wait every year for March ice-fishing, but 4 feet of ice this year is gonna make it tough!

Just be thankful we've had as much snow cover as we do! Without deep snow this year I can only imagine how thick the ice would've gotten up on the big lake!

Years back, when I was in college, a couple buddies and I went over to Devils Lake late season to ice fish. We could've drilled 4 holes each in NoDak, but we only had a hand auger, and 3 1/2 feet of ice to get thru. Needless to say, we were more then content with only four holes total for the three of us! And we stayed on the first place we drilled!!!

[pushbutton]

Well, headed back home as I type and a great morning bite salvaged our trip. We were in 27 ish feet, nearly straight out from Arnesons. Transition line maybe? ....the bite seemed patterned. Day bite was actually decent, but nothing, and I mean not one, was larger than 10 inches.....all saugers. About 4 o'clock each day was some perch action, was ready the second day with a chain dropper and got into them pretty good the short time they were there. The dusk bite brought a few bigger walleye, only 4 for the trip though, with more little saugers mixed in. As mentioned, the morning bite, where we were at anyway, was money. It did not last long, maybe an hour, but it at least filled our limit out with nice sized saugers. It was crazy fast, many multiples,but about the only thing they would hit were the dead sticks with smallish tungsten or plain hooks. Could jigs up small saugers, but not the keepers. The walleyes would hit something moving at least. First time at Arnesons and seemed to be well run, sweet equipment and houses, people were friendly, and nice not to have to travel 7 miles or so on the ice just to get to the fishing grounds. All in all an OK trip, a long ways to go for all the small fish though.......I suppose the memories of those few great trips up there that keep one headed back.

[srfishin15]

We had two houses and the first morning the one house hardly caught anything but small saugers. After moving that house to the location of the first house (that was catching fish) for the afternoon and the second day we really and I mean really caught fish. Not worth my time to type anything but the truth... I fish the lake once a year. We must have gotten lucky and found a honey hole because we had consistent action with about every 8-10th fish being 13" or so. (Yes we measured). Rather be lucky than good some days I guess.

[pushbutton]

Don't think anyone doubts you and glad you got into them! No doubt a small move can make a big difference ....heck sometimes one hole over the others put out way more. Also, sometimes skill does come into play and not just luck. I had my 80 year old stubborn and novice pops with me....he is a " stuck at the bottom of the hole quick release" professional and no way would he have would he have moved closer to the other house like your group did

[eyeguy 54]

hopefully Friday and Saturday they will be coming up thru the holes in my pop up.

[pushbutton]

Catch a pout for me Royce....never got one topside..speaking of the skill that I used popping off at the bottom of the hole

[WalleyeBIZ]

We got back monday morning, caught probably 80 , only 12 were walleyes! We had a blast, and brought home our limits! Released a lot of little ones! Chartrouse was the hottest color by far! we tried in 22 feet and caught 3, then moved to 27.5 on the south side of adriens road and got into em pretty good!!

[srfishin15]

I will attribute some skill to it I guess, but we did get lucky as far as finding them right away, as difficult as it was to drill holes. To anyone headed up I would focus on being as close to 28' as possible. And push button, sorry to hear no pout. Believe it or not all of our pout were marked as caught 4-8 feet off the bottom. It was very odd. Good luck to anyone headed out!

[JBMasterAngler]

Fished out of zipple bay on monday and tuesday. Monday was SLOW!!! Only 6 fish total! 2 walleye, 2 sauger, and 2 tullibee. Marked plenty of fish, but couldn't get them to bite.

2nd day was a little better. Were able to get a few more fish to bite. Things really picked up at about 6 o'clock. Marked a lot more fish, and were getting a lot of bites. Missed a ton though.

We caught 34 total for the trip. 16 walleye, 14 sauger, and 4 tullibee. We only kept the 4 tullibee. None of the walleyes were over 12 inches, and the biggest sauger was maybe 11 inches.

[nws6373]

Just wanted to post our report for Oak Island. Fished Mar. 11-13, caught my limit of Sauger/Walleye 2/3 days. First day only 4 keepers then guides moved us to a different house. Caught lots of fish and 4 slots between 4 of us. A 26" pike and 3 13" perch. Also a few Tulibees. Would go back. To Canopy Sam who I PM'd earlier this year, we had a good time and fishing was much better than last year. It's getting to the end of the season and guides are tired, but they did their best for us. We treated them like fellow fisherman and not hired servants.

[CANOPY SAM]

Great to hear nws!!! Thanks for recognizing how hard these folks work, and that they're no different then you and I. They get tired too! Ha ha ha!!!

I hope to get the boat up there this year. I'm always amazed how the same lake can look so different on the south end vs. the north end! Glad you had a good trip!

[cps2009]

Made a short trip last Wed and Thurs with the sleds and portable in 20' off adrian's. Fishing wed evening after 3:30 was pretty good, lots of dinks but left with a one man limit. Thought the morning bite would be even better following day, and set up in same holes with the spud bar (so we didn't have to drill again) and managed only about 10 dinks. Probably caught about 30-40 fish wed evening and not much thurs morning. Tried multiple lures, best being a pink glow gem n eye. The lake has been very finicky this year. Seems like what works one day is garbage the next. Time for the open water season...good luck to those who make it out over the next few weeks, about 38" of ice where we were at.

[PikePopper10]

Heading to the lake this weekend for Pike, any report on where they are biting out of Baudette, and what kind of bite to expect. Also are the roads all open for driving on?

[Big Jeff]

The river is looking like it is going to be frozen next weekend so we are looking at heading to the lake. Anything working better than others and thing to look for? I have been to LOW a couple times but never this time of year. We where hoping to haul the boat up but it seems the sleds will get one more weekend...

[LOTW_Outdoorsman]

Welcome back to this March 2014 edition of the Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman. Thank you for all whom have had the opportunity to come stay and fish with us this winter in the LOTW Outdoorsman Sleeper Ice Houses.

The cold weather the past month has kept us very busy in God's Country, we're almost done...this must be a praise for many. With being so busy I was only able to get out on a few adventures, which you're going to see right now.

The next few weeks might be up in the air for Spring Rainy River fishing out of Birchdale, MN...it's still been very cold and as of today there's 30 inches of ice in Birchdale. The Gaps' will start to heat up the next few weeks as we come to end of the Walleye fishing season. You might see me on a sled out in one of the Gaps' if you find yourselves on a Lake of the Woods adventure.

Happy Fishing and God Bless...

Lake of the Woods Outdoorsman

[magnum mike]

Fished Zipple yesterday. 26 FOW. Still need the extension on the ager. Lots of dinks and few box fish. The same story for weeks.

[MNfan]

Same report as magnum mike we also were at Zipple Friday - Sunday wanted to stay another day but did not want to get stuck in a blizzard either so we bailed. Definatly need an extension we were in 26' also mornings and evenings with lots of small fish and mostly walleye brought some home biggest was a 23". 3 afternoons we watched tip-ups in 10' and I mean watched as we never had a flag and didn't notice anybody else running either. Road was in great shape until yesterday afternoon it started getting a little sloppy but was still in nice shape. Hope to get one more pike trip before ice out.

Andy

[2thepointsetters]

Fished Saturday and Sunday on snowmobiles. We found decent pockets of fish in 30 to 32 feet of water. We traveled many miles to find a steady bite Saturday. Sunday we didn't go as far and caught less fish but hooked into bigger ones. Lots of ice left on the lake.