Lake Winnibigoshish Fishing Reports

[laker1]

Maybe it is time to have the slot slide some years?

[watersguy]

I agree, Millacs is totally messed up. Have a friend with a place on Millacs, talked to him today he said nobody on the lake. They caught plenty of big fish but not one keeper. The DNR has a model and it is turn all the premier walleye fisheries into catch and release photo lakes. You have to chose between catching lots of fish that go back or catching a few eaters. Why not allow 2 fish of any size with no slot. Most people will still throw back 24 inch and larger fish, but it would still allow everyone a dinner.

[slovene]

Gregg: sounds like next year 18-25" will be the new slot..still 6 fish. Just flying back from Louisville now, will be out on Friday. Should have a report next week for you. Sounds like some ice chunks still floating around on my end yesterday, so most of my buddies opted for campfire/bottle bass instead.

[gregg52]

hey Slovene

have heard much from you

curious where did hear that

I sure dont think it would hurt

i dont know why the dont mix it up some

[fishuhalik]

I think they need to open it up to 20-26". There are a TON of those 19"-20" fish out there, way more than 18" & under. But hey, I'm no fisheries biologist.

[winniewalleye777]

I disagree with you guys. Just think of the prime spawners that were saved this weekend. Everyone one of the fish caught in the gap were post spawn fish heading back to the lake. How many of them were 17+? All of them! And none of them were kept. This tells me that the slot is perfect.

On a side note... We were in the mess of boats at the gap Saturday morning and left to find some eaters. We found a mess of 16.5 inch fish along the north shore. Other simple answer if you want some eaters is to move around. You will never find a keeper in the post spawn bunch. Give it 2 weeks and those 15-17 inchers will go nuts. Either way this weekend was a blast. Everyone was catching fish.

Be careful driving from north to soutt side as there is an iceberg in the middle of the lake about the size of a football field.

[fishuhalik]

Hopefully you're right ww. I guess the mess on ML has me a little gun shy right now. It would absolutely kill me to see Winni turn into ML.

[slovene]

Gregg..pm sent

[Jason Boser]

they were supposed to try a new slot on Winnie but Kahvana our dnr super wouldn't let them so if you want some of those big fish out of the lake call your DNR so it isn't another mille aces they are talking next year

Jason

[bowhunternw]

It is obvious that the slot is working with great numbers of big fish, with that I do think that they could tweak the slot or just open it up on occasion. I rarely keep fish and like catching the bigger fish, but also don't want to screw up the lake. I would imagine that if numbers of small fish dip too much then it would be fairly easy to rebuild.

[Sandmannd]

We caught mainly large fish but got a few keepers as well as some nice jumbo perch mixed in. Add in a couple of nice pike and it was a great weekend for our first trip up to Winnie.

Most of our fish came off of the lindy rigs tied with #6 cobalt gamakatsu hooks with a few fish coming off of chartreuse jigs and shiners. We tried plastics and jigging raps as well but had very little success with them. Fish were caught between 9 FOW and 22 FOW with most coming in the 9-12 FOW mark. Water temp was only in the upper 40's. I think in the next couple of weeks the fishing is going to really turn on. There were still fish spawning. One boat was pulling in a big female and had a male follow her right up to the boat. Once the spawn is over they will tie on the feed bag and fishing will be lights out.

[SCONASOTAN]

I know everyone has their opinion on the slots in place.

I for one am NOT about to compare Winni to ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE that is the supposed mess (it could very well all cycle back to health) of Mille Lacs. There are way too many variables that set Mille Lacs apart from all other examples. how about camparing Winni to EVERY OTHER lake that has a slot?!? that sounds like a much more educated approach.

I am not opposed to changing the slot and/or limit on Winni. But please don't try to take away slots that have saved so many lakes from us slobs.

[fridron]

Started out in Cut Foot Sat. and kept 12 of 18 and a 1.2# perch. Sun. didn't have the same luck so ended up at Stoney and kept 1 walter and 24 nice perch. All in all a great weekend and tasty.

[Crappieflop54]

Fished Big winnie opening morning with little success. Hit Mcavity bay Sat afternoon and Sunday morning and did great! Boated 40-50 fish with only two keepers in the mix. Fish were not out from the spawn yet absolutely stacked in cutfoot. Water temps will warm up soon and the eaters will come. I'll take catching these postpawn/spawn females any opener! We have all year for the eaters!

[ZapMan]

Out last 2 days, lots of big ones and plenty of under fish to eat. Few jumbo perch mixed in.

[side_laker]

Anyone been fishing from the dam. Planing on coming over tomorrow night. Wondering if there will be any fish able to be caught from shore.

[ZapMan]

Much slower today, water temp down 9-10 degrees since Tuesday.

Still found a few eyes and a bunch of perch.

[laportian]

side_laker- they are opening up the cutfoot tonight at midnight to state anglers. Go up 46 to the bridge and fish. Still plenty of eaters to be had in there. Has a nice fishing dock on the southwest side. Or you can fish under around the bridge on both sides of the highway. Or you can fish off the dock on the northwest side, the mosomo landing. We have been in there a few times this week and there are still a lot of eater walleyes lingering around.

[Capt.Blaine]

Hey Guys, What is the best landing to fish the gap area? I haven't been up there in 14 years.

Thanks

[fishuhalik]

Deer Lake would be the closest free launch but it's an unimproved access. Bowens is right there & is a great option on a windy day since its really protected (so is Deer Lake) but Bowens charges $15, if I remember right. Your next closest would be Williams Narrows, but that's a pretty shady access. We usually launch out in Little Cut Foot by the bridge.

[gunner55]

Mosomo Point is what we use also but it's only 6-8 miles from our place.It has 2 concrete ramps,pretty well protected from the wind,& quite a bit of parking.Very busy though especially this time of year.They were parking on the highway(46) next to the bridge before 6:30 on the opener.

[Capt.Blaine]

Sounds good! Thanks for the replies!!

[live-2-fish]

Please tell me what lake in mn that has had a 17" and under slot where the fish count has improved.

[magnum mike]

Kabetogama. Before the slot was imposed, it was a hard days work to catch any walleye.

[hugonian1]

Well, let's start with Winni.

[live-2-fish]

Have you read the DNR report for Kabetogama?

[live-2-fish]

Lengths of gill net captured Walleye ranged from 6.97 to 24.29 inches in 2013. The average length was 15.8 inches. The average weight was 1.61 pounds. Walleye growth has remained relatively consistent over time. However, the observed length at capture in 2013 was lower than previous surveys for age-7 through age-9 fish.

Eighteen age groups from age 1 to age 20 were present in the Walleye catch. The average age was 5.4 years. Age-7 Walleye from the 2006 year class comprised 23.0 percent of the total Walleye catch. Age-1 and age-3 Walleye made up an additional 13.0 and 18.6 percent of the catch, respectively. Analysis of gill netting data using a year-class strength index (YCI) suggests the 2006 and 2001cohorts were the only two strong year-classes produced in the recent past. Lake Kabetogama had been producing a strong year-class every 5th year dating back to 1996. The most recent data suggests a strong year-class has not been produced on Lake Kabetogama since 2006 which would mark the longest span without a strong year-class on Lake Kabetogama since the large lake monitoring program began in 1983.

Strong year-classes of Walleye are not occurring as frequently as they once were in Lake Kabetogama. While at this time we are unsure of the cause, high juvenile mortality appears to be affecting Walleye recruitment and therefore production of strong year classes. Examining mortality of juvenile (age-1 to age-3) Walleye showed that mortality has significantly increased in recent years.

[tcroz]

4 fish limit on Winnie....1 slot fish......18-25 inch slot. In my opinion this would solve a lot of the problems. You need fish to eat ...... Eat the perch they are awesome. You do not need 6 walleyes per person. Many of them just end up going to waste in the freezer. Just my opinion !

[CC Rocks]

what if they started protecting the smaller walleyes? Why not protect any eye less than 14"?

I see a lot of boats keeping 12" cigars just to boast that they "got their limit"

[tcroz]

I would assume they go with the assumption that most anglers will throw the cigars back. More restrictions equals more confusion which requires more enforcement. Hopefully they will keep it as simple as possible. It is very likely that Winnie will be opening up the slot next year. We cannot continually target those 14-17 fish year after year without reprocussions