fishing reports 2020 Lake of the Woods Fishing Reports & Info

[Royal Dutchman]

Had the best run of nice eyes so far. Fished in 26-27' over Pine Is. yesterday. Moved out from 24' and got lines down about 11AM. Hardly a fish marked until about 2PM, then it went crazy. Carl & I had close to 50 fish in 3 hours; 7 eyes 14-18, a 19.51" eye, 2 13-14" sauger, and a couple pout. Lost 1 heavy and had some great marks we would have liked to see.

We both had gold Gem-N-Eyes with live shiner on bobber. Carl jigged with a red Frosty/whole shiner and me with a red Rattle Varmit/shiner head. Carl got hot first but I caught up in a big way!

One nice suspended eye and lots cruising around 2-3' off the bottom. Had to lift many up 5-6' to get them to hit.

[toddb]

Yesterday was quite possibly my best day ever on the pond. They ate the sticker off the front of my Red flyer. Bunches of 'eyes from 13"- 22" and plenty of saugers mixed in. Lost several nice bites on the way up also. No big fish, but 5 low slots (20 to 22"). 30 FOW fairly close to rocks. Bite was good from 8:30 to 4 when I left.

later,

toddb

[LOTW_Outdoorsman]

Daily Fishing Report 1/7/10: Today will be variably cloudy with light snow flurries possible, cold, dangerous wind chills may approach -25F, high 1F with winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Tonight we should have considerable cloudiness, low -14F with winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Tomorrow we should see sun and a few passing clouds, high 1F with winds light and variable. Tomorrow night should be partly cloudy, low -22F with winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Saturday we should see a few clouds, highs in the mid single digits and lows in the low single digits. Sunday should be cloudy, highs in the mid teens and lows in the low single digits. Monday should be partly cloudy, highs in the low teens and lows in the upper single digits. I was able to get out and fish for the past few days, so now you will get a first had account of what I experienced. All the action is still taking place, west of Pine Island and north of Morris Point Gap. From 7 to 9 am you will want to be fishing in 12-16 feet of water and then after that move to 24 to 30 feet of water till 3 pm and then move back in to the shallows for the last evening bite. Another place to keep on the radar is Lighthouse Gap, right on the US/Canadian line in 22 to 28 feet of water. The lures showing the greatest success rates are the “Stop Sign”, “Disco Ball” & “Chubby Darter” (all can be purchased at the Log Cabin Bait store approximately ¾ of a mile before the Wigwam on 172). Yesterday the bite was steady, be sure to be patient when you’re fishing. The fish are on the move and hopefully they are nice and hungry this morning…we anticipate it to pick up here in the next few days. You will want to get anything that glows right now, whether it is white, pink or green. Also give the plain gold jigs and disco balls a try. The ice thickness out there is currently 20-21 inches and growing everyday with these sub zero temps. Adrian’s road is open for business…trucks are going out everyday. Just a little reminder though, if you want to fish by the Wigwam’s houses, you have to come with us. The only types of transportation that will get you out to our houses are track vehicles and snowmobiles…no trucks. Don’t miss out on this great fishing that we’re having on Lake of the Woods…come visit us today at the Wigwam Resort on Lake of the Woods!

Happy Fishing to all, and to all a good day.

Jean-Paul Tessier aka Wigwam Fisherman

[rcatcherman]

Nice report J.P.

[srj]

Sounds like the fish had the feed bag on yesterday in many locations. There was a good bite going at Long Pt in 28'. More sauger than walleye, but nice fish of both species. Still lots of little sauger too--lots of bait needed. The only lull was from 1 - 2 P:M. Red buckshot and shiner head was the top producer of good ones---fathead on a deadstick was kept busy by the smaller sauger and walleyes. No perch or pout this time.

[manderson]

Just returned from 10 days on the ice in a wheeled house, off Wheeler's Point. 2 miles out from Pine island in 30 FOW. Caught more slot sized walleye this trip than ever before. Could not get one over 28" though. Seemed that the weather systems had a lot to do with the bite. First two days we caught a dozen that were over 23". The best producer for walleye was a red 'eye dropper' about the size of a nickel with a shiner broken in two. Seemed like they wanted a chewed up minnow and would not take a whole minnow hooked behind the head. They always hit right after moving the bait up and down, as soon as it settled, get ready. We were fishing 1 to 3 feet off the bottom. Little or no action on dead stick rigs, and they did not want fat heads or any other type minnow, only shiners. On the slow days, we struggled to catch enough small sauger for dinner, and they were within 6" of the bottom. They also wanted the broken minnow on a moving eye dropper, and seemed to prefer the blue and white glo variety. Ice was about 22" when we got there, and there was a fair amount of water out of the hole when vehicles drove by. I was froze in when it came time to pack up to leave. Adrian's has done an excellent job in keeping an ice highway open for traffic.

[winniewalleye777]

Just got back from 2 days at the outpost cabin at Zipple Bay with our University Sportman's Club and had a blast! We had 9 people with and figured we caught over 150 fish. After two big fish fries we could still bring home about 15 fish. This was our best trip yet with numbers and size of fish caught. We fished two houses in 20 ft. of water on Tuesday, and on Wednesday the second half of our group moved to 24 while we stayed in 20. We caught all of our big fish in 20 ft... Tuesday a guy in my house caught a 25.5 inch Walleye on a deadstick and I caught a 29.5 inch walleye! I caught it at 1:00 on a green glowing jig tipped with the biggest fathead in the bucket.

On wednesday a guy in the group spent 45 minutes fighting a 42" northern and we finally got it up the hole. No pictures uploaded yet, sorry. All in all it was a phenomenal trip for all involved. Pink glow and gold jigs were hot. A shiner head seemed to be the ticket to catch the finicky biters.

EDIT: Forgot to mention all of the big fish caught were released.

[Swanny2]

What a dandy winnie!!!!! Congrats!!

[FISHINGURU]

Just got back from two days of fishing out of River Bend Resort, the GF and I caught about 100 walleye and sauger total in 2 days probably missed about another 50 of them half way up lol. No big ones though our biggest one was only 17 inches, fish were on fire from about 10 to 3.

I threw everything in the box at them and I pretty much have it all, to be honest the best producers by a landslide was just a plain #2 gamakatsu hook in either red or pink, caught a few on jigs here and there but most the time we'd read the fish on the vex or marcum look over and our bobber was gone. Get another minnow on the plain hook drop it down and it would go down again.

The kind of minnow didn't seem to matter for us, we had fatheads, shiners, and rainbows.

Nice trip for the GF and I, I prefer to get out with the snowmobiles, portables, and gps, personally. Still had fun and decent fishing considering the elements!

[asleson]

Nice fish, I have stayed at the outpost cabin before, its a little out of the way but very nice. We have it booked for this Sunday through Wed. hope the fishing holds up. What was the best lure, and did you use shiners or fats?

Thanks in advance.

[country_boy]

Fished out of Zippel Bay Wednesday and most of Thursday with my dad and brother. Fished in 21 fow and bcaught about 60 walleye and sauger total. Missed quite a few more right under the ice. biggest was 21", and the most productive time period was from 8-10, with a nice flurry around 11-12 both days. For some reason, the evening was our least productive time.

also worked. Didn't seem to matter much. If they wanted to bite they would. Only caught about 60% of the fish marked on the vex. Minnows didn't really matter.

They were hitting most anything. Jigging with rattling spoons tipped with a minnow head caught a few, pink, red, and glow green also worked.

Talked to some guys at the resort and they said the fishing was way better on monday and tuesday before the cold front came through. I thought the fish weren't gonna be feeding much or very aggressive during the cold temps, but it didn't seem to matter.

[winniewalleye777]

like country boy said, the minnows didn't seem to matter. Jigging spoons worked best with only a shiner head or tail. Pink demons and gold jigs with a red eyes worked best. Also plain red or pink hooks worked as well.

[asleson]

Thanks Winnie, leaving in 8 hrs. It sounds like a heat wave is coming up that way, maybe the fish will turn on.

[mnhunter 3815]

fished zipple wed-thurs it wasnt the best but we caught a few realy nice eyes 2 21 inchers back to back.21ft of water they were hitting on both deadstick and jigging.heading back up on on the 13th for more fishing time.

[CRK]

Winnie. It's Chris Knoll how you doin? That is a nice little guy you caught there. I am heading up on friday, till monday. When you going back up? I'm new on this web page, we should exchange email's. Some how not publicly.

Chris

[Maplebay]

Just got back fom low, fished north of gull rock in 30fow fishing was great. That was the best fishing I have had in a long time. lots of bucket fish a 25 and 27 it was fun, going back up the first weekend of feb.

[Alfred Alten Jr]

Went out by DNR reef off of Springsteel today all we got was a nice size pike.

[rcatcherman]

Make sure to have some quarter ounce Glow Blue. it has been unreal color this year. Up for my 3rd trip this weekend for another week.

[mamohr686]

Fished the big pond out of baudette from 1/7 to 1/10, and had a blast. I would highly recommend stopping at outdoors again, next to the baudette motel for bait. They had good sized shinners that were just taken out of the river. The other bait shops only had tiny shinners. We limited out each day except for our short day on sunday. We had a very hot shallow bite in 15 ft of water from 7:45 am to 9am. We were the closest portable to pine island. It was pretty quick bite, but we would catch about 4-6 walleyes in the 16-22 inch range, a few 14' saugers, and even landed a 11 to 12lb 31 inch walleye that I released on saturday.

The temp gauge on the truck said -18 on sat morning when we set up. The fish frosted up the second I took her out of the house, but swam away fine after she got back in the water. It was so cold that we had to run dual heaters just to say warm.

The hot bait for the active walleyes was a clown colored small jigging rapala with a shinner head on the middle treble hook. On the bobber rod, a northland yellow/orange fire-eye jig with a large shinner produced lots of good sized fish. After the morning bite slowed down, we were fishing way out 2 1/4 miles past the end of adrians plowed road. There was only about 8" of snow on the lake, but it did have a crusty layer on top so we did get stuck a few times. We would just shovel around the tires and get going again within a few seconds. We fished in 33' feet of water and managed to catch a walleye in the 4-5 lb range each day and lots of keeper sized saugers, mixed with dinky fish. The fish would come in groups and hit a couple of rods, the we would wait about 15-20 minutes and more fish would move through. It was steady action until about 3 pm. I was really disapointed when I caught this burbout. I thought it was another giant walleye.

It was great not having a house within a few miles.

I talked to a few guys while cleaning our catch, who fished out of the last row of houses (that went west) at the end of adrians road. They did well from 2-4pm, and also had several perch that were around 1.5lbs. When were were fishing out deep, the fire-eye jig, green buck-shot rattle spoons, and a gold/maroon kastmaster spoon seemed to work well. We had to keep working our baits high to get the fish to rise and trigger them to bite.

In the evening, we would go back to our shallow water spot in 15 ft of water. Another flury of walleye action went from 4:30 to 5:30pm. We would pick up another 5-6 nice sized walleyes right when the sun went down.

[rcatcherman]

686 sounds like you had a great time. The report was very informative and right to the point.

[NAMASafetyDirector]

Fished the south shore this weekend in around 31 FOW. Had extremely good luck, caught about 50 fish Sat. Sunday slowed up a bit with the cloudy condtions and snow but mananged to catch about 40 again. 2 of us limited walleye/sauger and kept a couple perch as well. The glow red jiggin'shad rap was the hot jig for us, bait didn't seem to matter much. Threw back 8 fish over 19" 3 22's and one 25" along with 4 17-18er's. Also..we caught about 8 slot fish that were suspended anywhere from 3 feet below the ice to around the 15 foot mark....these fish were very aggressive any nailed the jig as soon as they saw it. Learned alot, esp. about watching the whole water colum on the vexy! 6 of our keepers came in suspended yesterday..

[winniewalleye777]

Hey Chris... todd.steve at smsu.edu I may get up there again later in the year if I am lucky. Where are you going out of?

[tearin' lips]

Lake of the Woods January 9 and 10.

Got back last night from the big pond and we just annihilated the walleyes and saugers!! Four of us fished out of Morris Point both days. Key for us was moving around initially to get on top of a school. We would move around and if we didin't catch a fish in 15-20 minutes we would move and it worked awesome, as we put ourselves on mondo schools of hungry fish!

We would fish from 7:30-9:00 in 21-22 feet of water and would pick up 2-4 nice eater walleyes, some small saugers, and a nice mid-twenties fish.

From 9:00-2:30 we spent our time running and gunning in 31-32 feet of water. Being mobile like this put us on the biggest and most aggressive schools of fish I have ever been on. We were no where close to anyone either, as we took our trucks WAY off the beaten path. We caught alot of 10" saugers out deeper, but every 4th fish was a nice 15" eater sauger or a walleye. We too found a great suspended fish bite in this spot. We probably caught a half dozen nice walleyes that were suspended. We also caught some mondo huge perch out deep. biggest was 12.5"! And the average was 11.5".

Then from 2:30-dark, we spent in shallow. We didn't get many fish in 16 ft. of water, but the ones we did get were big mixed with an eater or two. Sunday night was the better night bite for us, putting a 25" eye and a 36" northern on our lines. Plus we missed, or lost 3 more fish that were probably in the mid-twenties.

All in all, my group of 4 ended up catching 100+ fish per day. We tried keeping a ticker count of fish, but it was too crazy to do so. Lindy darters, chubby darters, and smaller northland jigging spoons put all our fish in the ice.

Best weekend of walleye fishing in January I have had, but we also worked hard to do it. I will try to post pics soon.

[catchphoto_filet]

I havent been to LOW in a few years and my uncle from FLA is coming up to fish. We are staying at Adrians 13&14th but using my portables. any ideas as to where to start? I dont have a LOW map chip or anything so im pretty much fishing in the dark. A good starting point would be of great help.

Thank You

[bunkerbay]

Lake of the Woods January 9 and 10.

Got back last night from the big pond and we just annihilated the walleyes and saugers!! Four of us fished out of Morris Point both days. Key for us was moving around initially to get on top of a school. We would move around and if we didin't catch a fish in 15-20 minutes we would move and it worked awesome, as we put ourselves on mondo schools of hungry fish!

We would fish from 7:30-9:00 in 21-22 feet of water and would pick up 2-4 nice eater walleyes, some small saugers, and a nice mid-twenties fish.

From 9:00-2:30 we spent our time running and gunning in 31-32 feet of water. Being mobile like this put us on the biggest and most aggressive schools of fish I have ever been on. We were no where close to anyone either, as we took our trucks WAY off the beaten path. We caught alot of 10" saugers out deeper, but every 4th fish was a nice 15" eater sauger or a walleye. We too found a great suspended fish bite in this spot. We probably caught a half dozen nice walleyes that were suspended. We also caught some mondo huge perch out deep. biggest was 12.5"! And the average was 11.5".

Then from 2:30-dark, we spent in shallow. We didn't get many fish in 16 ft. of water, but the ones we did get were big mixed with an eater or two. Sunday night was the better night bite for us, putting a 25" eye and a 36" northern on our lines. Plus we missed, or lost 3 more fish that were probably in the mid-twenties.

All in all, my group of 4 ended up catching 100+ fish per day. We tried keeping a ticker count of fish, but it was too crazy to do so. Lindy darters, chubby darters, and smaller northland jigging spoons put all our fish in the ice.

Best weekend of walleye fishing in January I have had, but we also worked hard to do it. I will try to post pics soon.

That sounds awesome! Cant wait to see the pics!

[only ice]

Im also going to Adrians on the 15th for a few days. 3rd trip this year. report sounds great!!!

[mamohr686]

I edited my report and added pics, it's one page back.

[Eyewitness]

686 were you able to drive your pick up anywhere you wanted to? Going up Friday and sure would be nice to not have to bring the machines up.

[Lundisnumber1]

Lucky... I am stuck down here in Rochester,MN... so far away from my favorite place in the world....

[tipupsonly]

Fishing was exceptional off of Pine Island today. A bunch of guests got limits of fish (more saugers than walleye) and it sounded like some big fish were put back too. We are out 3-5 miles in the deep mud. The warmer temperatures really turned them on today. Should be great fishing this week.

Off road travel is good once you get off the plowed roads and away from the skid houses & wheelhouses where snow drifted up. Much of the snow has blown off the lake and we haven't had any accumulating snow for awhile so there are plenty of old tracks to follow. Around 24" of ice.