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2020 - Upper Red Lake Fishing Reports (URL)


Rick

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I read all these reports before heading to Red so I better write one! Fishing has been good about 1.5 miles out from Rogers in ~12 feet of water. Had our "limit" in the first hour. Fish have come in spurts, just need to be quiet and wait. Nothing big, only one slot fish for the two of us. Caught a 40" pike that ran around all the other lines in house. What a riot! Get up here and fish as it is pretty good, obey the limits....there's a reason for them!

The staff at Rogers said its the busiest they have been in years. Lots of ice and with little structure, plenty of space to fish away from the crowd!

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Went out of hilmans, 9 feet of water. Started very slow, once the Sun came out the fish seemed more active. Ground out a limit about an hour before sunset. Red Lindy rattlin flyers worked the best. If they were looking, they weren't biting. Half the fish came out of nowhere and slammed it, half worked in fast then just hung on gingerly.

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First time on Red, one of first few times fishing walleye in winter. Brought wife and 9 and 11 year old daughters as 9 year old had it in her head she wanted to catch a walleye. Started about noon by 8 pm had limit of 16 inches plus. 11 year old pulled up a 24 incher. Got a few nice perch too! Ate 5 walleye for supper, now we will try to catch a few more before we head home. Couldn't be a prouder dad on the lake watching my daughters pull up nice wall eyes and having fun! I don't even care that all 3 women out fished me!!!!

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Went out of Hillmans Saturday and sunday 3 guys about 3 miles out in about 10 feet of water. Eked out a 12 fish limit with 1 bonus perch. Missed 10, caught 1 jigging Saturday morning, otherwise all fish caught at night on rattle reels, gemneye or ants, nothing on plain hooks. Fun trip, just not as fast and furious as the reports would indicate, but still an awesome trip and props to the nice people who run and or work for Hillmans

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currently 2.5 miles out of hilmans fished sat 5pm til current. caught roughly 30.. 2 pike both roughly 8lbs.. caught majority jigging. bite was fair steady misses 2x that amout of bites.!... hello cold front goodbeye walleye bite. been a wasteland since wind picked up... cant wait for day break to pick up and head south!

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I should followup on my Saturday report above. Sunday was a whole different story! There were tons of bait fish on the locators (and swimming up the holes)! The bite shut down, it took us 2 hours to catch one walleye to fill our limit and let's just say it was under the slot by a "couple" of inches....

Not sure where all the bait was earlier in the weekend but it sure put a stop to the hot bite in our spot. Rather than find a new spot we cranked her up and rolled home. Good luck and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

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Made two trips up with two different groups this weekend.

Sat was a great day of fishing - pulled up the wheelhouse and got set up by 10 and the three of us had limited by 2:30. Iced close to 40 eyes - lindy rattling flyer was the hot ticket jigged very aggressively.

Sunday I headed back to the shack along with with 3 newbies to Red. Found the fish very negative - not at all what I had seen the day before. After 10 hours in the house we headed home with 11eyes in the cooler. Not a single fish hit a jigging rod - all bit on the rattle reels or dead sticks.

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Fished out of Hillmans 12/26-12/29. Big thanks to Buddy for sending us in the right direction.

We got away from everyone and managed to catch about 50 eyes per day. We had 12 that were over 20". We caught about the same that were under 12". We did not have much luck jigging at all. Most fish came off rattle reels and tip ups. Plain red hook and split shot with a fathead won again followed closely by red #8 doodle bug, and a Gem n eye. We fished from 1.5-2.0 miles out and moved to fresh ice everyday.

On day 3 we went out to about 3 miles and tried for northerns and crappies. We ended up with a few walleyes, no northerns, but I did land my first ever URL crappie. It was about 14.5 inches. We snapped a couple of pics of me in my long underwear with it and I put it back. If you catch one that is missing the bottom portion of its tail that is mine.

The big northerns eluded us for the entire trip. We usually get multiple fish over 35" so we are thinking those hungry walleyes ate all those 35"+ slimeballs. Ended the trip with tons of eyes, couple small northerns, one crappie, some perch, and some new stories for next year.

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Two of us have been out since 5:00 pm last night and we have been slowly working towards a very nice bucket of walleye. Half of the fish have came off set lines and the half have been tricked in biting by very aggressive jigging with half a minnow. I stayed up until early morning waiting for magic late night run but it never came. Here is a picture of a nice walleye I just caught a few minutes ago. The other pic is from last night when I was playing with shadows on the wall.

full-14148-28303-image.jpg

full-14148-28304-image.jpg

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Just got back from an awesome trip. Iced approx. 150 fish 4 days, numerous eyes over 20", came back with a limit for a few of us and a few perch to boot. Had a great time.

Thanks to the fishing rube we ran into at Beacons who pointed us in the right direction, you definitely helped us out.

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Great report buck. Headed out from there on 1/16 for an overnighter with my wife. Looking forward to some action.

If the "action" is slow, try to do some fishing! wink

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Made a one night trip yesterday and that mother of cold fronts hit about 2 hrs after arriving. First time ever getting skunked on red and we weren't the only ones... terrible

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A few crappies here and there but it is pretty early in the season for many of them to be showing up yet. The walleye action seemed to be pretty slow yesterday and last night but seemed to start improving about midafternoon today. They are still taking the hook real light but at least biting again.

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I fished on the southside this weekend. Saturday was good, the fish I had come in on my finder bit. But it did slow down in the afternoon. Sunday I was slowed down by a dead battery in my truck and didn't make it out until almost 3. I had a few sniffers but only managed 3 for my trouble. I was only able to fish one hole as my blade went dull on me. Cutting two holes side to side, one to fish and one for the transducer, and they overlapped at the bottom. Im heading up in the morning. Im going to venture to the north side. The fisheries crew from the rez have nets all over by the boundry right now. I love fishing this area but when I got to compete with nets fifty yards from me I think its time to move to lean the odds back in Laportians' favor!

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Like most of the other reports, sunday was a good bite but we worked hard to ice 4 keepers this morning...cold front effect for sure!

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Great weekend of fishing on Red. Bite on Sunday was really good. Monday was slower but still iced some fish. Ended up with 60 eyes and 3 pike for the 2 days of fishing. Biggest eye was 24 couple others at 21. Best jig was a white glow frostee spoon.

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Fishing was good on red this weekend. I got plenty of walleyes between 14 and sixteen inches. unfortunately none over twenty. Still plenty of numbers. The same formulala that works for everyone else worked for me. Find your own piece of ground and jig with one rod and deadstick the other. red or pink glow jigs and jigging spoons or bare hook and lively minnow. 12 to 13 fow. short and sweet.

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Went out of Westwinds this weekend and fished about 6 miles out along the pressure ridge out of my portable. Arrived at 10am on Sunday and left at 5pm Monday. A total of about 30 fish, with just as many lost at the hole or shaken loose. Biggest was 22", along with a 13.25" crappie, and 11" perch, surprisingly not one pike. Best producers were Lindy Rattle Flyer spoons, had to change up colors often, between red glow, firetiger, and green glow. Also the deadstick had a red glow Frostee tied on the entire time. Both with a whole fathead hooked at the tail, the bigger the better.

I do have to give a HUGE thank you shout-out! I went in for dinner at WW after the football game and started chatting with a guy at the bar. Chatted about the standard fishing talk, etc, he then asked where I was staying, I said I was just sleeping in my truck for the night. He said, "well I have an open two man for the night, you can stay there, no charge" and hands me his business card. Turns out to be Spider Johnson! Super nice guy and nice houses. I will say I didn't get much sleep though, with those rattle reels going constantly. grin He wouldn't take any money from me that night but I did drop him a $20 when I left for gas. Thanks again Spider, and I'm trying to get a couple guys together for a trip, and if I do you will be the first I call!

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we fished 3 miles out of Rogers Monday afternoon til Tuesday afternoon.we got our eight but we had to work hard at it.seemed to lose the nicer ones at the hole does a 10 inch hole help a lot compared to 8 inch?

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funny you should ask...:) I bought a 10 inch 2 years ago, and hadn't fished with one much before that.

If I had to do it again, I'd go 8, but not becuase of weight, safety, etc.....but because I do most of my fishing on Red, and the avg Red Lake walleye seems to be able to turn in that 10 inch hole and swim downhill! Obviously if thery're hooked well thats not happening, but seeing as I mostly jig (again, a red lake thing) I get a lot more lightly hooked fish, thus them coming off when the lift gets verticle in the hole.

I never had this happen any where near this often with an 8 inch hole., and the ease they come INTO the hole isn't evened out by the loss ratio, for me anyway.

I've thought about figureing some sort of device to slide below them once they're in the hole, maybe similar to the fold up slush remover I've seen, but in all likelihood you'd end up knocking the fish off anyway as you tried to slide it below them. Open to ideas, thats for sure!!

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fish elevator lol!! i fell victim to one of those years ago.. great concept but takes to much fooling around and actuallu loose as many fish with it, when u reach to turn the handle shut. HERES THE MILLION DOLLAR IDEA... expand on the fish elevator concept and make it foot controlled then maybe have a valuable piece of fishing equipment... ps anyone wants to buy mine let me know .. used 1 wknd

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We were just talking about the 8" vs. 10" hole .

I switched last week from the 10" to an 8" hole and realized right away that 8" was better. We were able to grab almost every fish that fell off in the smaller hole but a lot of walleye that get off on the 10" make it back down quickly.

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