lake of the woods LOTW Fishing reports

[Ballyhoo]

Any new reports now that the weather has been decent for 2 days in a row?  Any news from the south end?  Heard the Rainy is starting to get muddy with the run off from all the rain last week.

[WalleyeWoman@low]

I would disagree with the statement that the Rainy River is STARTING to get muddy. It is muddy! That being said, the water level has increased over a foot from 2 weeks ago.

Boats are going out past the mud and doing good. The walleye are slow to bite mid day. Evening bite is hot with a minnow tipped jig.

Good luck and happy fishing!

[srj]

Just got back, went up Wednesday morning, fished the afternoon. LOTS of dirty water. Almost nobody in the usual spots. I tried a couple of the normal hotspots then gave up and went looking for cleaner water. Once found, the fish bit quite well. Hopefully the water will settle out in the next couple days........except for the gap. As mentioned, the river is dirty.

Had a lot of stuff to do but had intended to head out for a couple hours, but when I was ready to go, the wind had come up a good bit out of the N or NW. Headed back up tomorrow thru Mon. Hope the weather gives us a bread and it sounds good on the front end at least.

I jigged in 16 - 23 feet, the fish were aggressive.

 

Good luck.

p.s. And WOW! The lake is low, real low. What a crazy switch from a year ago.

 

 

[triggertrav]

We also got back after a few days fishing on LOW.  We did well,but not as great as we were hoping.  We still came home with our limits.

Mainly fished out of long point with jigs, pink was hot on day one and lead head on day two.  20+ FOW with frozen shiners.  We tried off the islands after seven for the night bite but didn't produce like we had been hearing.  probably boated 80 eyes in two days of fishing with 15 of them over 20".  biggest were just under 26.

the weather was great and fishing was average.

Good luck to everyone.

[Ballyhoo]

Fished around the lighthouse gap on Sat and up north on Monday.  Fishing was overall slow.  Knight, Bridges, Little Oak were doing better but still not to the level that they should.  Some people were coming in with fish but it is way worse than normal.  Water was dirty on the south end but up north was better.  I did not hear any reports from Zippel so not sure how things were there, also heard Long Point produced some fish. Hope things change soon so we can catch them on the south end. 

[DJ_Slick]

Memorial Day Weekend:

Weather good.  Fishing not as good, but we've had much worse weekends.  Ran up to Knight each day. Crazy to have to go that far this early in the year, but had to find clean water - at least mother nature cooperated.  5 of us kept enough for dinner Saturday and Sunday, but only brought 4 fish back south.  Some nice slot fish, highlighted by a 26.5" walleye.  Couple of nice perch in the mix, and a 17.5" sauger.  Lots of little fish, bait stealing, and short bites.  Eventually caught some of them with a stinger hook.  At times, caught fish on virtually any color and all baits.  Other times, it was just dead.

River is almost back to normal...still probably 4-6" low.  Lots of junk floating down with the rising water.  Comes in spurts - at times, the river, 4 Mile Bay, and the gap was like a minefield.  Saw sticks and logs floating probably a mile or two out into the lake, too.

[Rick]

How has the fishing been?

[soli433]

Hi All - been on this board trolling for a while but never posted, wanted to give some info. 

Went to LOW 12th thru the 15th.  Went to Knight the first day, not much.  Lots of small sauger.  Finished in the gap that night, about 18 or 20 feet, and picked up a 28 and 26, few keepers, lots of sauger.

Next few days went to Long Point.  1 day really got into some nice 20 to 27 inch fish, lots of them.  We  ended up with lots of nice keepers, too.  18, 19, etc...  Also some nice 15 and 16 inch sauger, tons of small ones.

Pretty much jig and shiners the whole trip.  Hope this helps everyone, headed back up in a couple of months. 

 

[Ballyhoo]

There were some fish along Pine on Saturday.  It was a decent N/NE wind and drifted spinners with crawlers, leeches and shiners.  Caught fish on all of them.  Nothing big but ended up with a good bunch of eaters and threw quite a few small ones back.  It was not fast and furious but just kept picking away at them.  There were also a group of boats out a little deeper and towards the gap that caught some fish jigging.

[Rick]

Hi All - been on this board trolling for a while but never posted, wanted to give some info. 

Went to LOW 12th thru the 15th.  Went to Knight the first day, not much.  Lots of small sauger.  Finished in the gap that night, about 18 or 20 feet, and picked up a 28 and 26, few keepers, lots of sauger.

Next few days went to Long Point.  1 day really got into some nice 20 to 27 inch fish, lots of them.  We  ended up with lots of nice keepers, too.  18, 19, etc...  Also some nice 15 and 16 inch sauger, tons of small ones.

Pretty much jig and shiners the whole trip.  Hope this helps everyone, headed back up in a couple of months. 

 

​Welcome to the FM Family soli433

[mhynes]

I just got back from Long Point yesterday.  Fishing was tough.  We were marking lots of fish but they weren't interested.  The may fly hatch started on Friday, not sure if that had anything to do with it and the wind seemed to change daily.  Fished frozen shiners and jigs and caught 4 walleye's in two days.  We finally changed over to rap's on Saturday in about 10-12 FOW water and caught 10, still not great but better than jigging.  We stayed next to the fish cleaning house and spoke to lots of folks and everyone was struggling.  Good luck, I hope the bite changes soon.  

[Rick]

I just got back from Long Point yesterday.  Fishing was tough.  We were marking lots of fish but they weren't interested.  The may fly hatch started on Friday, not sure if that had anything to do with it and the wind seemed to change daily.  Fished frozen shiners and jigs and caught 4 walleye's in two days.  We finally changed over to rap's on Saturday in about 10-12 FOW water and caught 10, still not great but better than jigging.  We stayed next to the fish cleaning house and spoke to lots of folks and everyone was struggling.  Good luck, I hope the bite changes soon.  

​Welcome to the FM Family mhynes

[fisherjmb]

We got back yesterday too and 5 guys fished near Long Point as well and like mhynes, we struggled. We did get some fish for a decent fish fry on Friday night but it was mostly saugers. Everyone brought home some fish but again it was mostly decent sized saugers. We did catch a fair amount of slot walleyes but the nice eaters were hard to find. Only caught one walleye that was bigger than 15 inches that we could keep and that was a nice 18" eye. We noticed the mayflies as well, maybe that played a part? Who knows. If you read soli433's report it sounds like we were about 5 days too late. 

[tacklejunkie]

I just got back from Long Point yesterday.  Fishing was tough.  We were marking lots of fish but they weren't interested.  The may fly hatch started on Friday, not sure if that had anything to do with it and the wind seemed to change daily.  Fished frozen shiners and jigs and caught 4 walleye's in two days.  We finally changed over to rap's on Saturday in about 10-12 FOW water and caught 10, still not great but better than jigging.  We stayed next to the fish cleaning house and spoke to lots of folks and everyone was struggling.  Good luck, I hope the bite changes soon.  

Looks like everyone struggled this weekend. We did decent on Thursday but after that got tougher and tougher. Oh well, that's fishing. We did get enough for walleye dinner, anyways. We tried frozen shiners and the switched to live bait but still tough​

[slammer]

Anyone pulling cranks or down rigging yet?

[mhynes]

I spoke to the guy at Long Point when we were checking out and he said guys were already having success with mid summer patterns like down rigging.  If you have the equipment I would give it a try.

[slammer]

Thanks mhynes.  Will be out over the 4th weekend.  I'll bring the riggers with.

[Rick]

Thanks mhynes.  Will be out over the 4th weekend.  I'll bring the riggers with.

Let us know how it goes please.

[slammer]

Will do.  Fishing has been good in Ottertail county.  Been trolling cranks in the evenings and doing well.

Edited June 28, 2015 by slammer

[slammer]

[slammer]

Sorry didn't mean to hijack thread

[Hoey]

This past weekend the bite was very good.  Folks are anchoring and jigging, drifting/trolling spinners, and some are long-lining or down rigging.  The next big storm will push the bite into full summer mode.  The eyes seem to be feeding on larvae.  No significant fish-fly hatch yet.  No biting flies yet.   

[srj]

Fished last Thursday afternoon and Friday, then again yesterday. Fished the south side Thursday doing some jigging but mostly pulled shadraps. A decent bunch of fish still quite shallow on the south shore. Friday went reef hopping on both sides of the border. It was a little strange.....a fair number of humps were void (tho I didn't stay long) but some were gangbusters with fish of all sizes. Pulled spinners and jigged, both worked well. Yesterday was terrific...big fish ruled but all sizes were present. Rocks up north. Wish I was there again today. A few bug carcasses floating and a few big mayflies around the cabin.

Only down side to  the day was on the last spot fished, alone on a tiny, teenie, 2 boat length across hump. The charter boat really didn't need to come anchor right on top. I think the guys on the boat were probably embarrassed, I would have been. No matter, it was time to go home.

 

Good luck to all this weekend.

[bearberg]

Had good fishing Wednesday afternoon near south Buffalo Pt.    Pulled spinners (hammered  gold or hammered silver) with half crawlers in 8 - 12 feet

[slammer]

Fished Friday, Sat(4th), Sunday morning.  Friday around Garden island west and north side was pretty decent.  Spinner/ crawler from 12ft to 3ft. A lot of 15-20in fish.   Sat stayed on the south shore and was slow.  Fished from Lighthouse to Twin Islands picking up one here and there with many small throwbacks.  Spinners and down rigged all depths.  Got out early this morning(Sun) before the rain for a couple hours around Pine Island and got 4 nicer fish(16-17 in.) to fill our limits.  Good trip overall.  Wanted to go back to garden Sat but stayed back.  Glad I did because the wind picked up in the afternoon and would have been a no fun ride home.

[Hoey]

Fished Friday and Saturday.  Bite seemed to have slowed a bit compared to the prior weekend.  Many limits were still being caught.  

For us, we enjoyed many slot fish and a couple of big ones while getting our half limit of eaters.  The lake was busy.  Most typical spots were loaded with boats, 4th of July weekend fishing families, etc.  Saturday night fireworks were cut short when the storm came in.  

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

Hearing a lot of people say no fish on the south end for some reason and Oak and Garden are on fire.

If you don't want to travel that far for eaters I suggest fishing the mouth of the rainy out to the gap. Slow death with a bottom bouncer and drift at .09MPH....

Oh by the way, Bring lots of crawlers and have fun!

My dad gave some older gentleman from Kansas that had a slow day on a charter boat to Oak island a couple of slow death rigs and some worms. Hoping they got into the fish like the rents did!

[DRAGFOOT]

We did ok straight out of the gap in 26' jigging frozen shiners on Friday, little slower on Saturday. Not fast and furious but we picked away at them and by the time we went in we caught 38 in 5 hours on Friday throwing back a bunch of little ones.

Edited July 9, 2015 by DRAGFOOT