Lake Winnibigoshish Fishing Reports

[BobT]

Yesterday, my brother-in-law, a friend, and I spent the day on Winnie from about 9:30am to 4:30pm. We threw everything we could think of including 1/8 oz. to 1/4 oz jigs tipped with minnows and leeches, Lindy rigs with and without bottom bouncers tipped with both minnows and leeches, and crank baits. We varied techniques including snap and finesse jigging, cast and retrieve from anchor, working break lines and flats from .5 mph to 1.5 mph and depths from 6' to 30'. We got our leeches bit off only a few times and only caught two small hammer handle northern pike. The only thing we did not have with us was night crawlers. They are too messy so we rarely use them. Maybe that's what we needed.

 

Literally everywhere we went we marked fish on our sonar. The sun was at a poor angle so it's not a very good picture but I've attached a photo of our screen while we were sitting on the area known as The Rocks . This was very typical of what we saw any time we were in 15' of water or deeper. Fish were everywhere but we would have starved if we had to rely on our fishing success for our next meal. 

 

But, as I've always said, "A slow day of fishing is far better than a good day at work!" Maybe next time. 

 

Edited July 9, 2022 by BobT

[Kettle]

I've done fairly well on lakes in the area with crawlers on longer snells lately. Was on Winnie about 2 weeks ago and only could get them in bobbers and leeches

[Badgervet]

Thanks for the updates. We are going up to Winnie this weekend to give it a go.  Usually we stay near the west side and pull bottom bouncers with crawlers with mixed success.  In the past  we've had better luck at night trolling crankbaits on the ridges/shallows.  

[Kettle]

@Badgervet def let us know how you do!

[Badgervet]

Update:  We had a great time fishing at Winnie.  The first few days the water temp was 74 and lots of walleyes biting in 17-19 feet near the drops around Moses and Sugar bars in the early morning and early evenings.  Using mostly bottom bouncers with spinners with a crawler harness.  Gold blades got the most fish but a green/chartreuse blade also worked.  At night, went shallow (~10 feet) along the south shore near little stony point and caught a bunch of 12-14 inchers just after sunset using rapalas/salmos (hot steel color was best though yellow/orange combos also worked, they seemed to prefer the shad body shape vs. the minnow shape).  A front/storm came through and dropped the temp to 72 and it cooled off the bite a little though we were still catching 7-9 walleyes a day with about a handful of northerns (largest was 32 inches and she was a hog!) and ~10 inch perch.. 

Most walleyes were on the smaller side with dozens in the 12-14 inch range (2019 class year from what I was told).  We got enough keepers in the 15-17.9 inch range for a few walleye lunches.  We got a few in the slot and about six over 23 inches though we didn't keep the larger ones.  

All in all, a good fishing trip for us at Winnie.  Next year should be a good year with the those 12-14 inchers getting into the "eater" size before falling into the slot.