Riverbend Sleeper Jan 1-4 Report

[SalmonJedi]

Well, back from 2 and a half days (Thursday afternoon through Sunday Morning) of fishing out of a Riverbend resort sleeper. 4 guys on this trip in about 28 feet of water maybe a mile and a half over Pine. Fishing was SLOW - can't report on how others are did as we never heard until I looked at the site this morning. We caught 37 walleye/sauger total with probably 27 of them being small saugers less than 12 inches. The keepers were seven in the 12-14 inch range, one around 15, one 18, and one 19. We did release one slot Walleye at 22". This was our groups 4th annual January trip and was the slowest fishing we've had. This was also the first year we had caught any eelpout and on Friday night we caught 3 pout within about an hour - the biggest was 34" and about 11-12 pounds on our scale Great fun and a great fight - thought it was going to be a sturgeon! Even got most of the fight on video Couldn't bring ourselves to keep any of those ugly buggers.

No hot lures identified - some on deadstick, some jigging. Fish were relatively evenly spread through thursday afternoon, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday while we left before 11 had the makings of the slowest day yet - 1 small sauger between 7 and 1030am. Most fish did bite if we ever saw them on the locator. Just didn't seem to ever really be many fish around. No real preference between shiners and fatheads either. All fish off the bottom. Never saw any suspended stuff other than what I suspect were periodic whitefish or baitfish 5-10 feet down (they'd get spooked or ignore anything at their level).

Weather was pretty miserable between the swinging wind directions, cold, snowstorm on Saturday and bitter cold Sunday during pack up (-17). Luckily for us the house heats up nicely to 70 in any weather. However, I'm sure the weather didn't help the fishing. As most folks are reporting unless you have a track vehicle you'll be limited to very near the plowed roads for the quite awhile. I bet there is 18-20 inches of snow on the ice and more where there is drifts.

[bturck]

SalmonJedi: Thanks for the report even though it probably wasn't what you wanted to write about. These mood swings in the weather are certainly not in our favor. I'll be there again a week from today, maybe something will turn around, hope, hope.

Is Riverbend still maintaining the roads so that I can drive my own vehicle out? Prefer that to a bomber if possible, nice to come and go when I want to. Thanks again for posting. Bill

[noworkletsfish]

Thanks for the report Salmonjedi- We went out of Morris 1 thru 4 and did about the same for 2 guys. Lots of dinkers- a 18, 19.5, 21 and I caught a 22" eye suspended 17 feet of the bottom in 28' of water with a glass jiggin rap and the head of a fat on the bottom. Split down the middle between jiggin and the dead stick. Caught the biggest damb eal pout I've every seen on Fri. night- Didn't get a chance to measure it!! Pretty slow for LOW standards, but still a blast. Al and the Morris crew did a great job- nice cabins, great food and good people. How bout that snow Sat.- got pretty narly out thare!!!

[brna0102]

I just got back from Lake of the Woods also. We went up Wednesday night, fishing Thursday, Friday, & Sataurday. We were out of Adrian's road with a wheel house. We started in 16 feet of water for the morning & did ok caught alot of fish mostly dinks. The wives had some nice fish hooked up but learned that its no fun to get your line tangled in the vexilar transducers. We went out to 32 feet for the day & didn't graph a fish. For the evening we moved into 22' and caught some more mostly dinks. For Thursday we caught 40 - 50 fish all sauger.

Friday the wives started to complain about having to move the 20' house all the time & it was -27 so we stayed in 22' all day. We caught about the same number of fish but nicer quality. All sauger again. We ended up cleaning 16 fish.

Sat. we caught alot of fish in the snow storm which was different for lotw. Finally caught walleye. 24', 18' 16's, and 15's. Nice saugers also. Left the lake at noon before it was impossible to get the house off.

I think the spot to be would have been 19' of water all day long. One day the jigs were hot and the next the set lines. Red was the color of choice with something that glows bright and rattles loud. There is a ton of snow making it even harder for the fish to find your bait on sight alone. Plain red hook was the set line of choice. Bring alot of shovels if your going to hit it hard.

[SalmonJedi]

Bill - Yeah, hopefully you'll have more stable weather for your trip. But as I've been reading reports it sounds like if you found some fish - you caught em'. If not, no fish. That's kind of how we felt too - if there was fish coming through it seemed like we would catch them. So I imagine the guides are working to find the fish and I'm guessing that snow conditions have made it challenging for them to be as mobile and spread out as they would like. We were closer to other fish houses than I've ever been out there. Of course a lot of that was individuals pulling wheelhouses and portables and using the road we were on. But yes - the Riverbend guys seemed to be working hard keeping the roads plowed open so I would expect you'll be able to drive out to the house just fine.

Hoping to make it up in a month or so and maybe try bringing the portables...

Good Luck! Brad

[bturck]

Brad thanks for the info. I'll post when I get back late next week. My wife is going with me on this trip, and she is a real trooper when it comes to watching the vexi. She really has a good time, so hopefully a few flashes on her side of the house. Bill