Still slow??

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Heading up there tomorrow to do some fishing, not sure where I'm going out of yet but I'll post a report when I get back. Any super secret tips you can give me? lol

[SwivelDigger]

Headed  up tomorrow also for a couple days. We are heading out of Red Lake Adventures. Good luck Jim.

[MNsetters]

3 miles out of Rogers 14' water 4 in the bucket sence 2:30.

[MNsetters]

Deader than dead this morning! Only seen one on the locator.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Well that sounds a little slow from what the lake can do but it sure is better than sitting at home!! We are heading over there in a bit, might have to set up in a little shallower water or something. Thanks for the report @Mnsetters. 

[ANYFISH2]

Brother and sister in law are on Thier way home now.  They were out of Hillman in 10ft water.  They average like 12 walleye a day and missed more than they caught.  8-11pm seemed best for them.  Kept a good distance from anyone, quite around them.

Sister on law is NOT a fisherman, she seemed to enjoy herself.

 

[Jim Panfish Uran]

The dang wind kept me from going over there, took a short ride around Cass and realized we better not head up there on such a windy day with the hub. Tomorrow the wind will be manageable. Now the wait is on...again.

[eyeguy 54]

13 to 29 up there friday.  not fun. hopefully you get out soon with the family

[Jim Panfish Uran]

10 to 15 is more manageable than 20-30 like today. I've been listening to the weather up here all day lol. 

[MNsetters]

You're not missing anything! Not a walleye all day, but it is so ugly outside I'm not moving!

[Harv]

I'm on lake fishing too, 1 walleye at around 1, couple small perch so far.  The wind outside is nuts!!  I hope the evening bite is where it's at!

[MNsetters]

2 walleyes this afternoon and 2 perch.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

I might abort mission and go to Winnie tomorrow if the bite is that dang slow, but it might be worth parking my big ass up there for a day lol. Couldn't hurt. Maybe I'll buy some big sucker minnows and try them out there for a day. It seems like the typical stuff just isn't working out. 

[MNsetters]

Has Winnie been putting out any fish this Winter?

[tfin]

Went out West  Winds today and had poor fishing in 8.5 fow with just 1 on a dead stick around 9am.  Moved out to 11 fow and caught 10 fish and missed 5 or 6 between noon and 2pm.  Noon to 1 pm were all on dead stick with the exception of the first that was caught on a jigging rap.  1pm to 1:30 or so were all on buck shot spoon or the same rap.  1:30 to 2 were on either but a little bit slower.  They went crazy for 30 minutes and i couldn't get the bail set on 2 drops before they were bighting.  I think the wind changed direction and picked up a bit right around Noon but it was also when i was driving to the deeper water so I'm not sure. The fish were all between 13 and 19 inches.

 

[Jim Panfish Uran]

10 hours ago, MNsetters said:

Has Winnie been putting out any fish this Winter?

Not sure, heard it's been a little slow out there too for walleyes but the perch and the pike have been producing. 

[Jim Panfish Uran]

I'll be up there in a few hours to spend the day in the Eskimo with my fam. It will beat sitting at home that's for sure. 

[ANYFISH2]

Good luck, keep us posted how it is going.

[SwivelDigger]

Got here yesterday about 3. Pretty slow but about 8 this a.m. It picked up about 25 caught, kept enough for a meal so far. Most around 16 inches, one 20.5 the wife caught. Plain hook dead stick has been working the best.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

We went out of Westwinds about 10:30 or so, set up in 11' of water and marked a couple fish at noon, my son had one up to the hole at about 1 or so but it just got off at the bottom, nice little fat walleye lol. He bit a sucker on a pink lindy frostee. 

 

Lot's of folks pulling in as we were leaving at about 4. It was fun though, kids got plenty of fresh air and we gave it a shot anyways. 

[kelly-p]

This talk of slow fishing is interesting. People are finding it hard to fill a bucket up with fish.

For the 2016 harvest season 190,663 pounds of walleyes were harvested from the State waters of URL. That was the 2^nd biggest walleye harvest ever from the State waters.  2^nd only to the 2014 harvest that was 230,135 pounds of walleyes. Hours of fishing pressure for the 2016 year was 1,749,994 hours with 1,640,413 hours or 94% of that pressure happening during the 3 winter months, Dec., January and February. For comparison the 2012 harvest season had 753,448 hours of fishing pressure with 714,706 coming in the 3 winter months. Pounds harvested for the  2012 harvest year were 72,107 pounds of walleyes with 44, 862 of those pounds coming in the winter.

  This New Years weekend it is being estimated that the number of wheelhouses on the lake could have been more then 10,000. So if fishing was “slow” and each of those 10,000 houses averaged 2 fish per day that is  40,000 walleyes. In 2016 the average walleye harvested was 1.1 pounds. So 40,000 walleyes times 1.1 pounds,,,,,,44,000 pounds of walleyes just this weekend. For comparison for the winter part of the harvest years for the years 2007 to 2012 winter harvest averaged 51,972 pounds of walleyes.

That bucket of fish is still being caught, it’s just being spread out amount the greatly increased number of fishermen.

 

[BassDr55]

Went out of JR's Saturday morning.  2 wheelhouses with 3 guys each.  Went to Center Bar.  Set up by 11 am. By 9 pm had 35 fish, most by 6 pm.  Didn't fish overnite. Fished from 5:30 am to 9 am-no fish, marked a few, but not bites.  Headed home.

[Jmlsmp]

Wow Kelly, I guess that’s what happens when the only place to drive tucks pulling wheelhouses is Red lake during the holiday week. I don’t know how they calculate angling hours, but I ran some calculations and the numbers are kind of scary. If there were 10,000 fish houses out there and I took the average of that house being out there at 36 hours. I know some people don’t fish at night but a lot of people stay for 3 or 4 days. If a house averages 2 people that would be 720,000 angling house. If the number of people would average 2.5 that would mean 900,000 angling hours and for 3 it would be 1,080,000 hours. I took your 2016 poundage number divided by the hours and came up with a factor of 0.10895 pounds per hour fish. I applied that to the angling hours and for 2 people = 78.444 pounds 2.5 people = 98,055 pounds, 3 people = 117,666 pounds. That’s a lot of fish. That could be over half the fish we took all of last year in 1 weekend. Wonder if they may close the season or change the limit in the near future?

One last thing that I thought about. If those 10,000 fish houses average $20,000 in gear inside them that would be $200 million. That’s not including the truck. Add in an average $30,000 truck and that’s a HALF OF A BILLION dollars on the lake.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Jmlsmp

[kelly-p]

It would interesting to see if there was  any attempt to get some kind of somewhat "official" count of houses but I doubt that the DNR would have flown the lake on a holiday to film it and count the houses later. 10,000 seems almost impossible but it sounds like the lake was really packed with houses.

It is unbelievable just how much winter fishing has changed in just 5 years. I do not think anybody could have guessed what this weekend would be like.

 

"being out there at 36 hours."

From the 2015 season with the numbers rounded off.

Day trips                        27,000

Sleeper trips                  38,000

Mean day trip length            6.5 hours

Mean sleeper trip length       41 hours

Day trip hours                173,000

Sleeper trip hours          1,580,000

 

So if I look at it right already in 2015 day trips were less then 10% of the fishing pressure. Another thought. We have more then doubled the winter fishing pressure in just 4 years from 2012. If we had the fishing pressure now that we had in 2012 could the daily walleye limit be 7 or 8 fish now?

 

 

[grab the net]

A friend was leaving the lake this morning at about 10:30.  Thought there was close to 5 miles of trucks and wheel houses, bumper to bumper leaving about that time.  They estimated 5K houses on the lake. 

 

[gunner55]

kelly-p, ever see any #'s for what they think is spent "locally" per trip or per angler hour? Just curious about how good they are about supporting the lake. 

Edited January 2, 2017 by gunner55

[PRO-V]

2 of those had separate crashes near Deer River yesterday about 2 miles apart. Not good!! Drive safe boys.

[Big A]

Kelly-P, thank you. Those are some breathtaking numbers and more importantly, numbers that thousands of people ignore... I'm having a similar discussion in the LOTW forum and while I've kept track of my experiences for over 20yrs, I wish I had the figures you have here. I'm certain they would be just as mind numbing.

[jb426]

Yep the days of setting up near the first break and catching 30+ fish a day are over.  It won't be long before the DNR shuts down the lake.  If the DNR doesn't do it the fisherman will stop coming as the fishing will be so slow.   I have witnessed the slow down over the last 5 years or so.  I just hope the resorts and outfitters that make a living off of the lake are saving some cash as this will not last much longer.  Not blaming anybody or saying that we need to change, as I believe the lake will make the change for us.  Just hope it doesn't came as a surprise to anybody when it happens.  Plan ahead if you make a living off the lake!

[jigginjim]

This was my first time ever going to red lake, drove up Saturday, got set-up at noon.  Tried my 1/2" drill to auger holes that didn't work out the way I had hope finished drilling holes by hand. Good 18+ inches of ice after 4 holes done in my house for wife and I, wasn't up for moving. Traffic was crazy, more guys leaving then coming out, we were 50 yards from road. We went out of Rogers on Red, 1.7 miles out, 15ft used everything from shiners to crappie minnows on red glow demons, gold maxi, jigging spoons, jigging minnows.  I caught one 18" walleye saturday night at 9:30 on red frosty jig and large fathead.  Sunday afternoon, I caught and released a nice 6lb pike demon and fathead.  I was jigging a salmo perch with rattles to try calling fish in, when the pike hit. We stayed until 9:30 Monday morning before leaving.  Not sure if I'll go back, Red lake left me wondering with more questions.