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

[73h h4x]

Fishing was less than spectacular for us. Fished Friday 1:00pm - 8:00pm out of Roger's, and then 7:00-11:00 Saturday morning. We were in 8ft on some structure that the road happened to cross not far from shore.

Iced 2, lost 3 at the hole, and a small pike.

Moved to Hillman's for Saturday afternoon. Picked a random spot near the end of the road. Caught 3 more between 1:30pm - 5:30pm. Got stuck multiple times trying to leave due to drifting snow.

Snow is a foot deep everywhere, drifting to 2ft. My lifted truck with oversize tires got stuck both days just a few feet off the road.

14 inches of ice

HUNDREDS of people out of both resorts, but Roger's probably had twice the people on their road.

[swamp stomper]

Fished Rogers Thursday Evening until Friday evening. Fishing was slow but was able to get enough for a meal. Could not believe the amount of traffic out there this year. Is it the same at the other resorts "westwind, etc"? I can't image much of a bite continuing in the trafficked areas, you probably want to bring a collapsible with even if you have a hard house so you can spread out a bit. I went to sleep in my own little area and woke up surrounded by people. It reminded me of a fishing tournament. Over all we had a great time and my four year old got trained in on the rattle reel so it was worth the trip.

[401TE]

Not too hard to figure out why there are so many people out there. All you have to do is scroll up. Limits, limits, limits!!! The hype is in full force this year.

[terrible_fisherman]

I fished with some family members out of Rogers starting on Friday late afternoon through Sunday morning. Their was a lot more traffic on the lake then I remember in previous years but then again I got there right at 12:30pm when most people were checking in. Roads were good going out and I got a small area plowed out by Portavilla. Fishing was good Friday afternoon and evening. Slowed down some over the night then started picking up fish again from about 4am until 8am before it slowed again. Caught a few here and there during the day before the storm came. Once the storm came in and the winds came up fishing slowed quite a bit until about 4am again. If I could keep holes open I caught fish, they freezed up every time I went to bed though.

All in, slower then some years but not the slowest I have seen. It was better then I expected with that weather front coming in. We ended up with 3 limits of 15+ fish with a few nice 18s mixed in. Probably caught around 35-40 fish in all (missed a lot as I was teaching girlfriend to fish that has never done it before as well as a few of my nieces). Seemed like our best bet was frosty jigs during the night and geminis (however you spell those but you know what I mean) during the day. White glowing worked at night and yellow/orange was best during the day. Fatheads versus shiners didn't seem to matter other then the pike attacked the big shiners whenever I put one down.

[Rikkus]

A Nice Report. Thanks

[lzika]

Three of us fished from 2:30-6:30 today, 2 miles out on the West Winds road. We marked very few fish. We had two bites and caught both of them-15" walleyes, one on a plain hook/bobber and the other on a white glow jig.

[Benjy]

We fished from 3:00 Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning about 10. Unfortunately we arrived just after the severe cold snap, but had no choice on our dates. Fished 2 miles out of West Wind, then a little north on the first spur road they had plowed. The bait shop at West Wind suggested 9 fow, we ended up in 10 as there were no spots plowed in 9 ft from what we could tell. Plenty of wheel house spots available in that area. Flooding was not a major problem. I did block one half of my house since it would have been sitting in a little slush after I punched holes. Turned out to be a good decision as blocks were beyond frozen in when we left.

We had 2 houses, 6 people (2 guys, 2 wives, 2 kids), so fished 10-12 lines the whole time. Fishing was really poor. We kept 14 over the entire trip and only released 2-3 small ones. Definitely one of the worst Red trips I've had in a while. Most we caught on dead sticks with plain hooks. Emerald shiners seemed to be better than goldens. Rainbows and fatheads did nothing. We marked very few fish on the graphs. I have no doubt that the cold temps impacted fishing substantially, but I still figured we would have done better than we did. Wondered if we should have been deeper, but most we talked to on shore didn't do much better.

We had -37 early Tuesday morning. By far the coldest temp I have ever fished in. The good news is that all equipment held up well, but I did notice my furnace had trouble keeping the temp much above 60 when the 30lb tank went below about half. Minor problem considering some other things that could have happened. Planning to head back the weekend of the 10th, hopefully that will be better.

[DreamBig]

We had the same luck as Benjy. Got out there about 1pm on Sunday and fished through Tuesday AM. We were out of Rogers. We stayed in a 6 man Portavilla house (awesome setup). We were in about 12-13ft and fishing was slow.

Shiners outfished rainbows and fatheads. Jigging was pointless as I think we caught one fish while actually jigging. We had about 17 keepers and threw back a handful of smaller ones and 1 a little too big.

Fun trip, but that cold front killed us. Heading up to LOW next week and hoping the weather/fishing will be a little better!

[Bryce]

Almost all fish jigging yesterday afternoon into this morning. -34 but no wind. Not marking a ton but catching most that show up. 19 and a couple 18s towards possession limit and some 16s & 17s destined for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. Be interesting to see what happens as it warms. South shore.

[Lipriper84]

Thanks for the report Bryce, Is the ice making some noise with the weather that cold.

[Acemac]

are we going to fish this lake out this year? seems like lots of fish are being taken I have to think more fish will come out of the non res side this year.

[MNfan]

How deep Bryce?

Andy

[mpester]

Fished from 12/29 - 12/31 in one of Portavilla's four man houses. I had the wife and two small kids with me. We got 70 walleyes and a couple of 11" perch in those two days. Not quite fast and furious but were landing about three fish per hour that we were fishing. I would say we did great for how cold it was. I had to play a lot of cards and games with the kids. The biggest was 18.75" and we came home with a nice limit of fish.

It may have been fast and furious for the house if I had been with three more experience fisherman. We lost a lot of fish since I was with the kids and the wife. We all had a great time and I cannot wait to get back. I know I hooked the boy on ice fishing, maybe the girl as well. They wife loved being able to read for two days straight. I wish it had been warmer for their first weekend trip but I got to tell them it will probably never be colder again when we go to a sleeper. The house was nice and warm.

I was worried the ice would be making a lot of noise and it would scare the wife but it was sure quiet out there. I cannot believe the lake is not making ice at -30. The guides and the resorts are sure working hard to keep the roads open and everyone safe. They are really earning their money this year.

[eyeguy 54]

nice memories!

[paceman]

Very nice report!

[Bryce]

6"-1' from the bottom or 10-10 1/2' from the bottom of the ice Who said those grade school story problems in math would never come in handy? Answer in the back of the book says 11' below bottom of ice.

[FishFindHer]

Hubby and I fished New Years Eve into New Years Day. Pretty slow overall, caught maybe 15-20 between us, 4 keepers. Biggest one was 16.5. It was kind of a last minute trip, all we had were chubs. Gold seemed to be the best color. Pretty even between the jigging and deadsticks, but pretty shy bite overall...missed/lost several fish. Really cold overnight, about 30 below. Just a couple bites on the rattle reels. Picked up a little more in the morning. One cool thing: I had a bite at 12:01 New Years Day morning...just a little 12 incher, but it was a nice way to start off the year We were out of JR's in 13 FOW.

[mpester]

Forgot to say how we got our fish. We got most of the fish on the dead sticks or rattle reels. They seemed to like gold and pink jigs sitting dead still with a half dead fathead. Very few fish while jigging until the last morning when it was -31. Not many fish at night. We got most of them from sunrise until sundown.

[Bryce]

Has slowed considerably for us since the wind picked up last night. Hoping to scratch out a few more to replace what we ate at West Wind this afternoon. Pulling out noonish tomorrow before the next cold spell hits. One night of -34 per trip is enough. Think this one will have some wind with it too. Averaged about 1 fish/hour for the trip to this point.

[DLD24]

We started fishing out of Rogers in 13FOW on Thursday at 7am and left today at noon...We caught 24 eyes a perch and a pike...Thursday was pretty slow all day, our best bite was probably from 3:30 to 6 or so...Bobber rods caught most of our fish, they were not liking much jigging...Gold jigs seemed to work best...Hoping its better when I go back up in two weeks...

[FF_205]

Bryce, did you drive out of westwind with a wheelhouse or did you rent a house? Hows the ice and flooding situation?

[Bryce]

Sorry, didn't fish there so can't comment on their on ice conditions. Shower, grill, and beverage cooler in top notch condition. Chopped my shack loose this morning and tried lifting it again late this afternoon. Got a date with the chisel tomorrow morning.

[bassNspear]

spent 10 days out of rogers. Fishing was good, but would have been even better if the weather would have been better. We caught 30 plus a day, with 90% of them on dead stick. Felt jigging that it scared them away.

White glow, pink, and blue glow were our best colors!!

[ryan olson]

Fished out of rodgers sat all day and sunday half a day me my dad and brother half our limit sat full limits today and last night hour after dark 37 in northern was fun but wish the front wouldnt have cane in graphed tons of fished the came up to jig and turned away had lots of fun though

[bassinboy3]

Went out of JRs on Saturday and fishing was pretty tough, 4 of us caught about 30 eyes and a couple perch, all of the fish except for 4 came on a plain red hook and small shiner. We managed a couple eyes on a pink stop sign with minnow head but for the most part the fish ran scared when you jigged. The road was in good shape and it looked like they were plowing all morning and throughout the day. We did the best from 10-4 and at dark it completely died for us probably had a lot to do with the declining temps.

[UglyStick12]

Fished Red Friday night through Sunday morning. Friday was really slow so moved the house into 13.5 ft and started catching them right away all the way up til dark. Night bite was dead. Than Sunday morning was marking fish but couldn't get them to bite after the cold front. Most fish caught on dead sticks with fatheads with red and white jigs. Got some fish jigging a gold buckshot but most fish would spook when jigging but the ones that bit were aggressive. All in all good weekend on Red even in the frigid temps.

[Ferny]

New Years Eve thru Friday. Our two shacks had consistent fishing. Actually got worried about propane since it quits at -42 degrees. I put a few hand warmers on top of the tank but the pilot stayed yellow until the sun warmed everything. Hillmans Road 10'deep quality fish with some decent perch. Saw some awesome Northern Lights one night. Fished stopped biting Friday for the warm up and wind so we left.

[Vitreus]

Our first trip up to URL was yesterday through today. It was just an average bite. We started off with gold and chartreuse jigging spoons, but the vast majority of action was on the rattle reels with shiners. Red and glow hooks were working, mixed it up with some gold beads above the hook, but not sure if that mattered really. We caught around 20 fish between the 3 of us, all walleyes. Kept only enough for a meal. Really a quite sporadic bite, with only one fish coming along during the night hours. Will certainly go back again but perhaps with a portable. I expected a little more action but I'm not complaining. Overall, a great time with friends.

[blue_healer_guy]

20 walleyes in this weather and it was an average spot? sign me up.

[Vitreus]

I guess "average" is relative