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Lake Winnibigoshish Fishing Reports


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May 20th Grand Rapids - Deer River Fishing Report

Over all, on the area lakes we haven't had a fast start as we would have liked, not that were not catching fish, just that you have work harder then I think you should have to for this time of year. Walleyes can be found 7 to 8 ft range, jig tip with a shiner is the top choice at this time, also the perch bite and size has been great, look for them mixed in with the walleyes or on rocky shorelines on Lake Winnie. Bowstring has been the most consistent bite in the area, If you can't fine the walleye along the shoreline, try the deep water breaks 18 to 25 ft. again, jig & Shiner work well, I believe you could rig this fish with leech or crawlers, I just haven't tried it myself. Sand Lake is starting to show signs of coming alive. look for walleye in 9 to 11 ft range. If the small pike are to overwhelming try using chub minnows, you'll catch less pike and more walleyes. Big Red lake also took off last week, alot of walleyes in the 13 to 15 inch range, look for rocks 6 to 9 ft.

Charlie Worrath

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Fishing report for Lake Winnie and Leech Lake, over the last week has been good better on the windy cloudy days but even on the calm days the fish are still biting. Spent Sunday on Leech Lake for a few hours after the big cold front and high NW winds moved in on Saturday Night. Walleyes Sunday had moved out a little from prior days of fishing to the break lines in the 12 to 14 fow but when you would mark fish they would bite most days on Leech the walleye have been biting in the 5 to 10 fow. Monday started the first of a three day trip; we fished Winnie those three days with Monday being the slowest, calm winds and sunny skies made us work the break in 12 to 15 fow picking of a few fish at each spot and then moving on, all in all a good day. Tuesday and Wednesday where allot different the walleye where biting very aggressive in 6 to 9 fow and we did not have to go far to find another nice school once one slowed down. Wens I decided to check out the bars where there are some schools of walleyes showing up there, just like fishing the shoreline breaks and rock areas jigs and shiners are working good! Ryan Peterson

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SLOW..... holy cow Ive nevr seen such bad fishing on winnie. Almost everyone I talked to had the same opinion and luck. Im sure the weather over the weekend didnt help. I have a feeling that this week could be really good on the big lake though, because the shiners still have not run. Plenty of shiners are still full of eggs so any day now. Good luck everyone. Until then, I would hit Bowstring or Sand

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Man I could not agree more. I have fished Winnie the last 3 weekends and have had one good day on Sunday of opener. Besides that it has been very tough. Not sure what the deal is but it is very frustrating..

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Saturday 3 of us went out around 9:30 and by noon we had 10 keepers, took lunch and ended up getting our last 8 in 1.5-2hrs. Threw back 8 10-12" and 4 17.5-20". Jig & minnow 11-16 fow. Some of the fish were really hitting and some you almost had to feed line. Had a lot of misses with the minnow coming back skinless.

Sunday I jumped in the boat with a friend for a couple hours after the rain cleared. I decided to try lindy rig and a leech. We started out in 20' to give us time to get set up. It wasn't even a minute and we boated our first fish. Caught a few more in 16-20' the bite slowed down so we went into 8-10' jig and a minnow caught a couple more and some jumbo perch.

Monday my dad and I didnt get out till around 10:30, in the first 45min we boated 8 with 5 being keepers. The wind picked up like crazy, didnt feel like putting out another sock so we called it quits. Not long after we got back to the cabin the lake went flat and got sunny lol.

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Spent all of the past 5 days on Winnie. Monday morning thru Friday evening. 70% of the Walleyes caught were shallow, 8-11'. Went ALL OVER - VERY few were marked on the Sonar...

Monday 5/28: Wife caught a 26 1/2", 6 1/2Lb Walleye on one of the Bars. She's so happy... grin

Tuesday 5/29: Caught several Walleyes, kept a couple.

Wednesday 5/30: Slow with the Sun out, but managed a couple.

Thursday 5/31: Slow with the Sun & no wind again, 1 Walleye all day.

Friday 6/1: Didn't catch a Walleye, BUT we nailed the Perch 15' of water on the South side. Perch wanted a green jig, "ripped", then they bit like crazy. Bonus limit of Northerns doing that, too!

FFaL

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We were on Winnie from May 29 to June 3rd. The weather was not the best for walley fishing. We ended up killing our 8 man limit over the time were there. We fished all over the lake and found one to three walleyes per spot. The fish were very scattered. The fish seemed to slide a little deeper with the bright flat days and we caught most of our fish between 18' and 24'. We did catch a few shallow after dark but it wasn't anything special. The bait that seemed to fish the best was leeches with very few fish coming on crawlers. we did put time into shinners and they did catch a few fish but all in all I think leeches won the battle.

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Well things are changing every day out on Winnie and Leech Lake with the water temp getting up in the upper 60's the walleyes are moving out to deeper water. On Leech fishing has been good in 13 to 20 fow on the steep breaks,rigging leeches are working best with little or no wind and on the windy days shiners are working well. Winnie has been a little tougher the edges of the bars are giving up some nice fish right now but nothing in big numbers to have a successful day you must keep moving. I have heard reports from people catching fish on the humps to. Winnie has not yet taken off this year although people are still catching fish, but my guess is with the warm weather this week that will change. Good luck Ryan

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Had a great crew out on Winnie Thursday, by noon had most our keepers rigging leeches on the bars, once the lake went flat we headed for some deeper water humps and finished the day out which I thought it would get tough but it only slowed a little, all in all great day cleaned 18 fish for the three of them and threw back a bunch of slot fish.

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Started the day with cold air and high Northwest winds so we put in at Cut Foot and worked there for a while, we did manage to pick off a couple nice eaters and then things dried up so off to the big lake we went. After looking around on the graph for a while I finally found a nice school of fish but it seemed we where going to have to work for them picking off one here and one there we did get a few and about 1:00 the fish really turned on, leeches and crawlers run on 3foot leaders seemed to work best. Low winds long leaders high wind shorten them up. By the end of the day we had a nice box of eaters and CPR a bunch of slot fish.Good luck Ryan

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Was on the water all last weekend and the bite was great for us. I was prefishing for the MTT on Friday with a buddy and as soon as we caught 3 keepers from one spot we would move on. From 8:30-12 we had 10 keepers and 8 too big. Saturday we started down south on the bars and all were too big, fished some small humps off the bars and picked up some keepers. Ended up running up north and got a few more. Caught around 35 fish with 18 being keepers 12 of which were 16-17". Sunday the bite was a little slower for us and most others as well. We still caught around 25 eyes but only 9 were keepers. A lot of fish were hitting and dropping the bait. Rigged leeched and crawlers all weekend, shoreline breaks in 15-18', edges and tops of bars and the humps all produced fish for us. Just had to keep moving to find keepers.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have fished Winnie 25 days since opening weekend. As Jason said the only consistent thing on Winnie is the inconsistency. Don't get me wrong we have had some very good days, but other days that were equally as bad. I have yet to have two good days in a row. Right now we are fighting a bug hatch and a large surplus of minnows for feed. You have heard it in all the reports....keep moving and do not fish from memory and years gone bye. This year is different than I have ever seen. Do not forget about the weed bite in 12-14 feet there are always fish in the weeds. Just my observations from many days on the water....Keep plugging away!!!!

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  • 4 weeks later...

fished winnie for the first time yesterday and did decent for an afternoon. picked up a 22, 18, 16, 14, and a couple of 12s. Crawler was the bite zero on the leech. We had a TON of phantom bites, must've been small perch because we caught a few of them. 7-8 FOW was the depth we picked up almost all of the fish. It was nice to be able to catch fish shallow this time of year, they fought like they were twice the size! I'm not good at fish identification, but ciscos, whitefish, tullabies, whatever they were, too many dead and floating to count

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Absolutely! tcroz just rang a bell and I figured it was you. Thats good to know cause now we can share all of our secret spots with each other right here instead of going through chuck.....LOL

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It has been a frustrating year on Winnie to say the least. Many average days and few great days, lots of below average days. But as you well know Chuck will keep pluggging away.....he is awfully mad at those walleyes! Keep in touch.

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I think Winnie might be the 2nd best walleye lake in the state! Boy is it putting out a good bite right now! That slot makes it fun, good year classes in there.

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Spinner rigs and crawlers have been solid for me. Hammered gold blades and silver blades have been the best.

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Have fished winnie the first full week in August for the last ten years and this year was, by far, the slowest for walleye. We could pick em' up here and there, but nothing consistent. The 12-15 inch crappies on the other hand kept it interesting and salvaged our week... just throwing this post out there in case someone is having trouble deciding which lake to run up to this weekend... winnie is very slow right now (from a walleye fisherman's perspective).

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Just wondering what the ice reports are for Lake Winni. Looking forward to taking a trip up north and can't wit to get on those jumbos

Thanks,

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The ice is looking really good for now but I would still stay within reason we went out to the first set of bars and I must say if one does not watch where they are going they could have a bad day with one a few few trap doors I seen. For me I will be fishing the shoreline break in closer till the cracks freeze back up.

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Anyone been out on the west side? I've got some good spots within a reasonable walk from shore, but I'd hate to drive all the way out there just to fine I've not got ice to walk on!

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