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2020 - Upper Red Lake Fishing Reports (URL)


Rick

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Fished by the reservation line today. Went out alone to the first break. Fished in 14 fow. Caught my limit. Tied into a big pike? Had him strip most of my line out. I was making some head way when he got serious and broke off. Pretty exciting 30 seconds. The wind was blowing and it was pretty loud in the portable. What was left of the road I was on blew in. I was stuck for a bit. I threw my floor mats under my front tires and was able to get unstuck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Is It worth coming up there for late ice fishing. Are there any resorts opn to go out of. I know the roads will not be plowed anymore but that's ok got snowmobile or four wheeler. Any info would be great I did not get up as much as I wanted but still would like to if it's worth it. Thanks

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I plan on being out there. Well, unless a paying job opens up. grin But paying jobs in this area are far and few between. There were enough crappies caught by accident that I think there is a chance that someone could get into them pretty good. I wasn't on the lake anywhere but the Hillman's/Beacon road system so I do not know about the rest of the lake but the main roads here are humped up enough that they should be good until breakup. The last few weeks of walleye season we were able to get up on top of areas that had flooded and refroze leaving some pretty good travel for long distances. Off and on all winter crappies were showing up only 1 mile out so that area needs to be tried a little more in March/April. The main road goes out far enough to get into "crappie country" and what is better then a 40 degree day to be ice fishing.

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I could use one of those 40 degree days about now. We are chasing sunnies tomorrow through the weekend but would love to come up and scout for those "elusive but still catchable" Red Lake crappies. grin

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

I've been waiting to hear that for a while Kelly.

So your saying there's a chance to get get to the crappie highway.

You just made Wanda's day, (she's been asking me for weeks now about the conditions).

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I have not taken a snowmobile out there but it looks pretty good Borch. Many of the slush areas have frozen up good enough to drive a light vehicle over it and plenty good for a snowmobile. When you get out there you will have about 14 square miles of untouched ice. When you get on to the crappies take good pictures we can send to shaky and Doc. grin

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I was thinking about stopping by URL on the way home from LOW in 3 weeks. Hopefully I'll hear some crappie reports in the meantime smile If I could find just 1 big crappie, I'd be happy! What about perch or whitefish?

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

I have not taken a snowmobile out there but it looks pretty good Borch. Many of the slush areas have frozen up good enough to drive a light vehicle over it and plenty good for a snowmobile. When you get out there you will have about 14 square miles of untouched ice. When you get on to the crappies take good pictures we can send to shaky and Doc. grin

Will do! wink

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Anytime I get up there it's worth it, I've caught crappies out there the last 4 years in March, we had a couple good nights and days where we did only get a couple. Not that the number matter but its great to be out and have the lake to ourselves! I hope to get up there sometime soon, I'll leave a report. Good Luck

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just wandering if anyone has been out looking for the shy but fat crappie out there lately.I was also wandering what the best catch of crappie was this winter I think the best I have heard is 4 crappie .Thanks

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We made 4 trips for walleyes to URL this year. This was the fewest trips we have made since 1998. It seemed like everytime we came up we brought cold front conditions with us. Fishing was not spectacular but it was productive and if you worked for fish diligently, you caught fish. We (two of us) fished out of a wheel house for the most part as it was too nasty on most trips to fish outside for very long. The best bite times were an hour before sunrise until about 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. until dark - basically low-light conditions. The night bite for us was vitually non-existent. The deadstick produced at times. The best baits seemed to be a tail-hooked minnow with a colored hook/bead or a red-stripe demon. The rattling flyer in red color caught most of the fish. We had one trip out to the mud in 14 ft. of water but the snow/slush conditions on the lake made it difficult if not impossible for the outfitters to get out to where they wanted to go. The ice thickness varied a great deal from spot to spot and created dangerous conditions, especially for plow trucks. We encountered much slush/water and had to block our house and sometimes move a few yards during the day to get on firm ice. The rest of the trips we fished in 13 - 13 1/2 ft. on the sand transition line. Most of the fish we caught were under the slot 15 - 16 1/2 inches - perfect eating size. This, hopefully, bodes well for the future. We caught some fish over 17" but not a lot. Every trip we caught enough fish for a nice meal on the ice plus we brought fish home to eat (a limit every time except once when we brought home 5). All in all it was another great season on the ice and we want to give a special thanks to the Waskish Minnow Station for all their help during the year.

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So your the one, I thought it was us that brought the cold fronts with us. We made 10 trips this year. 137 fish caught, 1 37" northern 2 perch, 134 walleys. 12 kept for meals on the ice. The rest released. Fish ranged in size from 10" to 23". Fished the same holes all year, some wknds better then others but always caught fish. Moved around alot last year and didnt really have any better luck so decided to stay put this year.

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Pretty much what we already knew.

Winter walleye harvest drops on Upper Red Lake | Grand Forks Herald Sunday, March 13, 2011

By: Brad Dokken, Grand Forks Herald

Too much snow and not enough ice combined to create the toughest winter of ice

fishing on Upper Red Lake since the big lake reopened to walleye fishing in

2006.

According to Gary Barnard, area fisheries supervisor for the Minnesota

Department of Natural Resources in Bemidji, anglers kept 29,000 pounds of

walleyes this winter on Upper Red during the creel survey period that began Dec.

1 and ended Feb. 28.

That’s down from 65,000 pounds during the winter of 2009-2010 and 52,000 pounds

during the winter of 2008-2009. The highest winter walleye harvest since fishing

resumed was 70,000 pounds during the winter of 2006-2007.

The DNR manages Minnesota’s portion of Upper Red Lake with a maximum annual

harvest quota of 168,000 pounds. The big lake’s walleye population collapsed in

the mid-‘90s after years of overfishing in state and tribal waters but since has

recovered, thanks to a moratorium on walleye harvest from 1999 until May 2006

and an aggressive restocking program.

“This winter’s creel was a bit of a downer,” Barnard said. “The poor ice

conditions kind of got things off to a bad start. That affected pressure and the

ability to get to the fish, which affected catch rates.”

Walleye season on Upper Red and other Minnesota inland waters ended Feb. 28.

Anglers this winter were able to keep four walleyes, with a protected slot that

required the release of 17- to 26-inch fish.

“It was definitely an off-bite,” Barnard said of the fishing. “You saw that on

other lakes, too — Lake of the Woods, Winnie, Leech — everybody’s catch rate was

down a little this year, and just on the smaller local lakes, there seemed to be

that pattern, as well.”

Access nightmare

Kelly Petrowske of Waskish, Minn., who rents overnight fish houses and plows ice

roads in the winter on Upper Red, said the ice road from Hillman’s Store on the

east shore of the lake normally extends 11 miles west to the boundary of the Red

Lake Indian Reservation.

This winter, he said, the road only was plowed 2½ miles; there were just too

many spots where the ice wasn’t safe. Petrowske said ice would be 2 feet thick

in places, while areas where snow piled up just a short distance away would have

only 8 inches of ice.

That condition existed well into January, he said.

“There was a huge, huge area that we just couldn’t fish,” Petrowske said. “You’d

try to make a road, you’d get it 10 feet wide and before you got it wider, the

weight of the snow bank would break through the ice. You were scared to go

anywhere.”

Petrowske, 55, a lifelong resident of Waskish, said the winter of 1986-87 was

the last time he can remember such challenging access conditions. That year as

this year, he said, white, frozen slush dominated the icepack instead of clear,

strong ice.

The cloudy ice, he said, also seemed to affect fishing.

“Whenever we get a year with a lot of white, frozen slush on top, the fish don’t

seem to bite,” Petrowske said.

By the numbers

That was reflected in the catch rates. This winter, Barnard said, anglers on

Upper Red landed 0.6 to 0.8 walleyes per hour. In previous winters, he said, the

number was closer to .15 walleyes per hour.

“It was essentially half of what we would normally see up there,” Barnard said.

Word spread fast, and the result was a decline in fishing pressure. According to

Barnard, anglers logged about 600,000 hours of total fishing time on the ice

this winter. That sounds like a lot, he said, but anglers in previous winters

put in nearly 1 million hours on the ice.

Those numbers, he said, were inflated by the number of people who spent multiple

days on the ice staying in overnight fish houses.

On the plus side, Barnard said, walleye populations on Upper Red are in great

shape, and fall surveys are producing 20 to 25 fish per net lift. The lake also

supports several age-classes of spawning-age walleyes, and it appears the 2009

hatch could be a record, Barnard said.

“It’s a little early yet, but it’s predicted from shoreline catches to be the

strongest year-class we’ve ever sampled,” Barnard said. “That’s all natural

reproduction, so that’s really good.”

Dokken reports on the outdoors. Reach him at (701) 780-1148; (800) 477-6572 ext.

148; or send e-mail to [email protected].

Grand Forks Herald 375 2nd Ave. N., Grand Forks, North Dakota 58203 | Phone:

(701) 780-1100

© 2011 Forum Communications Co. — All rights reserved

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i was just wondering if anyone still gets some crappies on upper red. i know that it was good a couple years ago and most of those fish are gone, but does anyone have any luck there anymore?

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

We'll find out this weekend. I've done well through last spring. With my schedule and the ice conditions this is my first slab trip of the winter this year.

It's prime time now and if it's gonna happen it should be starting up soon.

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A few years back there would be 4 to 5 thousand people out on URL looking for crappies in the middle of March. Now we send Borch. grin I think there are most likely more crappies now then there were 4 years ago just due to way less people fishing for them. It was a strange winter but we picked up crappies in places where we didn't catch any before. I do not think anyone has even tried Borch's favorite area all winter. It's been a ghost town out there. Very few fishermen around and most of the people that worked on the lake have scattered out for paying jobs to try stop the bleeding.

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With an ATV I think you could go almost anywhere. Even with a truck it has really opened up. A lot of a lot of the snow cover has dropped way down and the slush pockets have frozen up. It is the best ice we have had all winter. I have not dared head out exploring as Jon is gone and Buddy has been busy with Shorty's passing so there isn't any rescue party to call if I do get stuck. There are 2 plowed roads still in good shape to within about 1/4 mile of where you usually go for crappies.

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Nobody is trying to catch any. Along the north side of the lake I've seen 1 fisherman this week.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

We'll be up with the sleds on Friday to give it a shot hope to see you then Kelly. We're staying up on the north side.

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It's a ghost town around here. With no fisherman and several of the locals gone or away working and most of the "outfitters" all back in the cities it is pretty slow, other then the traffic going to LOW. Getting across the street to the gas station is like a of messed up game of Frogger. I would bet Carappies are to be had by the guys that get on the lake and make it happen, plus it is 36 degrees right now with a high of 40 something today, what a day to be on the ice. Lets also not forget the big perch we where seeing, I bet those guys are stacking up right now. I am looking forward to getting back next week and making a few trips out but for now its repack the bags and back on the road again.

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I would call to confirm but my guess would be plan on quads and leave the sleds at home. That is the word on all the lakes on The Range and also in Canada. We made the switch today for our trip north tomorrow.

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Wheelers will work great from what I am seeing just watch out for old road banks and fishouses banks.

43 degrees with a strong wind today so the snow is getting its but kicked today.

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We were out last weekend for 2 days running portables. Man was it windy!!! 1 guy had to stay in the portable at all times or it was going for a ride on Friday. We went out of hillmans as usual, and there was 3 other shacks out of this road, only one was being used. Buddy came out to check on us, and I believe it was Kelly and his pup that came and fished near us for about an hour on Friday night. I got one crappie up the hole and lost another in the hole. A dozen or more perch. We punched a ton of holes and had to walk as we didn't bring sleds or wheelers up. So strange to be out there with no one around....strange but sure is peaceful. Anyway there are still some in there, we did much better last march though. I posted a picture a while back of one of the mounts we made from last march. I think this weekend will be the one to be out there. I have a pic of the one I pulled up but it is my phone, happy to post it but the quality itn't the best. I forgot how also. Good luck!!

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One of the people at the Benifit said that they had picked up 13 crappies Friday evening. The smallest was 14 inches.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

We got blanked this weekend for slabs. Tough getting around with the rain, sleet followed by more rain. Man I was soaked. I think we covered half the ice that we normally would with the weather and Wanda recovering from the upper respitory bug and just didn't get on any. I heard the same report Kelly and we were actually in the same "general" and all we got were eyes. Just the way it goes sometimes.

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That's not what we wanted to hear. frown Well, add your name to a long list of fishermen that were humbled by the Lake this year.

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  • 1 month later...

Fished yesterday evening and managed to pick up 6 crappies and a bunch of C/R eyes. The water temp close to the break was around 45 degrees, but the warmest temp on the lake I found is coming out of the Tamarac river right around 50 degrees. The fish were caught on floats in 7.5 FoW

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  • 3 weeks later...

Fishing was solid on Saturday. Boated 30+ walleyes in 6 hours, left the lake around 3pm with our 8 keepers in the livewell. It was a struggle putting fish in the well, most walleyes were between 17 and 18 inches and were smashing anything from jigs to crankbaits.

Good luck and good fishing.

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  • The title was changed to 2020 - Upper Red Lake Fishing Reports (URL)

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