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Upper Red Lake Fishing Reports by Portavilla


Portavilla

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Looks like he looking for a report... Asked Jonny for one also.

Good Luck!

Ken

I thought maybe so but wasn't sure since he missed the ? at the end. I was wondering if there was something more to the post than meets the eye. We have a house rented from them this weekend.

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SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. Fishing since 530pm last night, only two small perch this am. House next to us has been fishing since friday afternoon, with also no fish. But at least the portavilla staff is very attentive, helpful and freindly.

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Yes Ive heard the south end has slowed considerably, except for the shallow water bite, which is pretty limited to a few hours in the eve and after dark. I heard that JR's road is doing rather well. the northern end of their road has been decent, not outstanding but consitant anyhow.

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Well I think a couple of you guys forgot a couple of OOOs but close enough. The big ridge has kept us hugging trees making it a drag at times but we haven't given it up and turned to spending the day story telling with you all. I do appreciate all the guys that have ran around with the portables and have found that we have put the houses in about as good as it gets locations. We have not also moved the houses in shallow however they are getting more in the shallows. Every time we have done that the noise and light pushes the fish off. It may be nice from an outfitter point of view to say you haven't been quite enough or you should of stayed in the dark but that wouldn't be good from a vacation standpoint so we will continue to look for areas where you can enjoy the whole trip and if you want to hit the shallows it's best with a portable.

White jigs have ruled the last couple of days and some of the guys are getting to eat some and bring some home but most are drinking with the couple they got trying to make them talk. We will continue the hunt as it always turns around.

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I have a group coming up Friday. 3 of us will be there before check in but plan on fishing before the rest of the clan gets to the lake later that night. Can a guy get around with a 4 wheeler or is it best to leave it at home?

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the snow is deep on the lake. Unless you have chains, gonna be tough getting around on an ATV.

Good luck!

Ken

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Made the rounds with the guys last night and all reports were slow by my standards and all the groups had been out with portables and said they have been doing just as well in the houses. A few had been frying fish and Lindy slick jigs had been the answer by three groups that stood out, all the guys were having a good time and said they have enjoyed their time here.

There has been a few more Crappies caught this year than the last couple of years is it Crappie days come back I doubt it but still nice to get a few. When I say it's slow Walleye fishing I don't mean it's Crappie slow.

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Well, what can you do but keep trying. I respect that you're not afraid to tell it how it is. I am have booked another weekend with you guys at the end of feb, and am hoping that with more stable weather that things will improve.

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Had a great time out of Portavilla these past two days. This was our 2nd year in a row, and will certainly be back again. They had the houses in as good as a spot as we could find in the portables, with almost all our fish coming in the hard house. Last year we searched and smacked em' in the portables during a slow Feb bite, where this year the hard house was on a decent school of fish. It was great having an additional Otter Thermal next to the hard house for exploring too. For the guys ripping on Chris for lack of moving, you have the nicest hard house, and the nicest portable on the lake at a great value. So I don't see what the problem is, if the hard house is slow, get out and explore in their provided portable. It is the perfect basecamp setup, with the ability to go explore and try the miles of unpressured water.

If it weren't -27 out sunday/monday we would've probably done a little more searching. We caught enough fish to keep a 3 man limit of quality eaters, a lot in the 18-19.5 inch range. Had a big fish fry during the superbowl at West Wind's that really hit the spot. My dad caught a porky 24 inch eye this morning for the big fish of the weekend. We were fishing directly on the bottom and slowly bringing it up; slick jigs with small minnows were the ticket. A couple at night on glow hook rattle reels and a red glow demond.

Here's a few that we started off with on Sunday:

full-910-29833-555902_10151230552245146_

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Another good day today we got quite a few houses moved with just couple things to wrap up for the weekend. It was a good week and with a couple more weeks left its time to have some fun. The guys have been using little white glow hooks with some success. The fish look so healthy it's nice to see they have been feeding well.

All the young guys from different outfitters have been getting together fishing every night trying different areas sure is nice to see. They work together well and our guests have been awesome and have put there time in fishing. As one guy said today this is one sweet hotel lol.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Had a great time this last weekend out of portavilla. Dallas moved us to a fresh spot and we caught 34in walleyes, a small gator, and a lots of little perch. Thanks to Chris, Dallas, and the rest of the portavilla crew for a great weekend.

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  • 8 months later...

We won't be fishing on the lake this weekend as we don't feel comfortable with the current conditions. We will take a look at it through the week and currently think the following weekend may work better.

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As of today there is not much for ice out of Rogers however Westwinds may be better positioned as of today. I would call them if your looking for something this weekend they may not be letting people out but worth a call if your inclined. They are very knowledgeable & safe as well if they say no they have good reasons.

For us we will have to wait.

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Chis, good call. Joani and I just returned from a all day trip to Bemidji, to late to take a picture but take my word for it there still is a lot of open water out there and any change in wind direction will get the whole thing moving again.

Jerry

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sure do just give us a shout, With the Otter train doing it's job on 7-8 inches of ice and so it looks to be typical year.. but, weather man says look for snow monday through wednesday, how much? we will take it as it comes, prepared for the worst as always. So, on the the fishing. It's good, I laughed when Brad said "even the thumb suckers are catching fish and the tree huggers (fishermen who fish close to shore) are doing pretty good to" If you are not catching fish, use big baits and move, period.

For now Walleye kisses for everyone and good luck fishing, man it's good to be back icefishing.

full-21970-39655-photo1.jpg

full-21970-39656-photo2.jpg

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From what I have been hearing is that trucks will be allowed in a couple of week unless the lake gets a bunch of snow an insulates the ice

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We will have wheelhouses out very soon if we get a bunch of snow that will slow the progress of getting out farther by plowed road, however we can get to where we need to be by tracked ranger and Otter thermal portables. We will be to the Center Bar long before there's a road.

The guys did head out into the forbidden zone to find not much ice and flooding when they drilled. Right now hugging trees is fine they are catching plenty of fish in as this is normal, in a couple of weeks that's when we got to get out a couple miles on the south side. So far things are going better than planned and our two point approach to keeping guys on fish is in play.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • leech~~
      Nope not me.  May want to go nextdoor and ask around?  
    • smurfy
      Looks to me like Leech brought his chair home!!😅😆
    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
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