fishing reports 2020 - Upper Red Lake Fishing Reports (URL)

[Reedo7]

Yup, not hard to catch a LOT walleyes on red right now. we bought every kind of minnow you could, shiners, fatheads, rainbow......they all worked equally well. just put one on a jig and drop it in. Its that easy right now.

[TyGuy02]

I would agree. One of the best days of fishing I've had in a couple of years today. Didn't get on the water until 1230 and could've had 3 limits by 3:30 but we started getting picky and took until 4. Only 2 slots (19 and 20") but everything else was 16" with a half-dozen or so dinks. Trolled spinners at 1.2 to 1.4 in 5-7 FOW. Water temp 57 degrees. Talked to a guy that had a hard time finding keepers pulling cranks, but he still found his 4 in about 3 hours.

[2thepointsetters]

Lots of fresh water drum and slot fish today. We had a hard keeping the drum off the line this afternoon. We must have got into a large school of them as we were catching them every 5 minutes. They sure fight good. We also got a bunch of slot walleye today and only a few small enough that could have been keepers. I didn't feel like cleaning fish so we let everything go. A pelican did manage to get a drum as it was bring released. The bird swallowed the drum whole in one gulp.

[lifterpuller]

nice fish, esp the sheeper!

good to see a decent bite right after the big winds from Friday.

Were you still getting them all the way to 3 FOW?

[2thepointsetters]

I didn't fish that shallow but I did see lots of boats anchored in that area. I didn't fish under 5 feet and caught more fish in the 6 to 8 range.

[maxpower117]

How do you guys think the forcasted winds for saturday (5-15 with 20 MPH gusts from the SSE) will affect the fishing and boat control if fishing the S or SW shore??

[midnight508]

Went to Red on June 3 and left the 5. Fishing started out slow to the right of the Public landing channel then we went left in front of West Winds and the fishing was fantastic. 3 to 5 feet of water, minnows, leeches, crawlers it didn't matter. Stayed at the Big Bog Park, great time,great fishing.

[Handsonthepole]

4 days of fishing. North of Rogers. 3-6ft with large spottails on a jig dragging slowly on bottom seemed to work. I am not exaggerating when I say we had fish on almost every cast. Some of the best I have seen on Red. Lots of size variety from 6 to 26in. With this weather I can't imagine it slowly down anytime soon.

[CANOPY SAM]

Upper Red Lake Fishing Reports by Canopy Sam

About as good as it gets.

2 hrs. = 16 fish = all between 15-16 1/2 inches

Bonus = only walleyes (not a single rough fish)

Wish I lived there.

Any idea when they're going to have that bridge on the south end back in again?

[UpNorthIce]

Last weekend we spent a little time on Red Lake chasing the elusive Red Lake Crappie. We had very good luck catching about 50 crappie in two 4-hour sessions. Average of 10 - 15 1/2” fish. We fished the cabbage weeds in 2.4’ of water with water temps. of 71 degrees.

We also caught many walleye trolling crank baits in 4 1/2’ - 5 1/2’ of water.

[fridron]

Nice slabs UNI and the way you presented the information about a known lake gives a guy an idea about how to start without pin pointing a specific spot. So many guys are really weird about saying anything about a lake when the way you presented it still makes a person do his/her home work and do their own searching for success. This is the kind of info I looked for in joining these sites and is rare to find.

Thank You,

Ron

[UpNorthIce]

It does seem like there are alot of people that think it should be a big secret. Don't get me wrong i would never give exact gps location but this will help you get started and hopefully find the red lake crappies. Good luck fishing.

[cookie129]

thoses are reeds behind you,, was there also cabbage?

[UpNorthIce]

There was cabbage just outside the reeds. We had our best luck when we could find both and fished between the both of them.

[cookie129]

Sweet well done, kinda cool to see them little ones also. The lake has been relativity calm this year .I wonder if that bolds well for a nice crappie hatch? years ago mid summer before the crappie boom me and the greek landed a mess of crappies in the cabbage weeds on the north shore. This was before gps and we could never find that patch again. lakea a guy think I need to try some of them patched this summer ya never know

[UpNorthIce]

I was thinking the same cookie maybe trying some mid summer crappie jigging. Maybe we will have to get together and find us a camouflage boat and head out on a mission real soon.

[cookie129]

I like it give me a call 218 556 6197

[UpNorthIce]

Look forward to it cookie and also think it is a good deal when outfitters on opposite sides of the lake can meet up for a good day of fishing.

[wally diver 2]

I was thinking of heading to red tomorrow in your expert opinion do you think the walleyes are still in 5 to 6 ft of water?

[UpNorthIce]

We were on the lake with a couple of groups this last week on monday and tuesday. We found the walleyes spread out along the north shore from five to eight feet of water. Our magic bait was a Berkeley frenzy shad in a purple flash color. Also did very well pulling leeches. We will be there on Saturday and Sunday with a group from Minneapolis so if u néed some more up to date info just ask. Good luck fishing.

[IowanSince02]

I was thinking of going up the URL right around Labor Day... what's the fishing like then, in a typical year?

[uncle butch]

Fished upper Red last Thursday, lake is 2 feet low and green. 1 sheephead and two small perch after many hours, moved to Island and Dixon. No better. When we were leaving heard that some Wallys were getting right in the rushes.

[cookie129]

How shallow did you fish? The magic depth was 4 feet before the warm front arrived. I plan on getting out later this week if everything pans out.

[uncle butch]

we focused on 15feet...did not check 4 feet, "marked" many on the bottom and 12 feet. We tried crawlers, leaches, minnows, and shad rap. WE ate at Mac and Dons...."marked" fish don't fry up well.

[uncle butch]

Should be clear by then and good, if not Lake of the Woods is close by.

[FlyRodAddiction]

Saturday was fun with 14 fish caught but mostly dinks in 4-6 ft of water. Sunday that spot was blown out and the opposite side was too weedy so it forced us out deeper drifting. A couple hook-ups but nothing put in the livewell and mostly just got beat up by the waves. All in all, a seriously disappointing weekend on the best walleye lake in Minnesota! The highlight of the weekend was the $8.95 hog roast at Westwind's!

[bturck]

Jeff sounds like I better go with you next time. I'm no expert on fishing (just ask Kelly or Jonny) but I'm great at hog roasts. Take care my friend.....hope to see you on the ice

[BowTech03]

hows the water level, any trouble getting boats in?

[ArcticCat21]

This is the ice report from West Wind Resort.

"We checked the ice just after lunch today and we found 4-5 inches of decent ice where we walked. We went out to 8 ft of water but had to cross a couple of 12 inch wide cracks to get there. There are several reports of open water all around the lake as of this morning so the entire lake is not locked up yet and is very prone to moving and shifting in the wind. I just went back down a few minutes ago (2:30 pm) and I could see white caps on the open water not too far out from where were at 12:30 today. After seeing this I'm going to say the lake is too unstable to give the green light on fishing. I personally would give it a few more days of cold nights to lock up tight. So standby for now folks. It won't be a long wait, but the safe bet would be to wait."

[ArcticCat21]

I'm actually at the resort right now and that 12" wide crack looks to be about 10 ft wide now, so things are really moving with todays wind.