Low Report

[Gary H]

I’m coming up next Thursday the 17th. Staying at Riverbend.  Was curious about current fishing info and this resort???  Thanks!!!

[Parmer]

On 1/13/2019 at 8:20 PM, Gary H said:

I’m coming up next Thursday the 17th. Staying at Riverbend.  Was curious about current fishing info and this resort???  Thanks!!!

Not sure about the resort... But I know Adrians road is like 11 miles out past pine Island and they were plowing farther. Guy from my work was 9 miles out last weekend and did good on 14 inch sauger with some walleye mixed in.  He said there is 24 inches of ice.   I would say to try and get away from the groups.  Good luck fishing. 

[BobT]

Heading up to LOW February 8th. I have heard reports that shiners are not available up there. We can get them around here, although keeping them alive might present a challenge. Would it be worth the effort or are shiners not that productive on LOW? 

[Bigfatbert]

Hey there BobT ! For starts chubs , rainbows , and the native Emerald Shiners that LOTW has in the system all work up there . It’s not hard to find frozen Emeralds there , just about all resorts or bait shops will have them , and they work just fine . I have found just using the Emerald heads work the best though . As for chubs and/or rainbows they are probably used the most , BUT lots of times size matters as sometimes the smaller the better , and some times the larger the better , and this may change from day to day or even hour to hour . Experimenting is the way to go , so be prepared. Good luck , get em !

47 minutes ago, BobT said:

Heading up to LOW February 8th. I have heard reports that shiners are not available up there. We can get them around here, although keeping them alive might present a challenge. Would it be worth the effort or are shiners not that productive on LOW? 

 

[Parmer]

1 hour ago, BobT said:

Heading up to LOW February 8th. I have heard reports that shiners are not available up there. We can get them around here, although keeping them alive might present a challenge. Would it be worth the effort or are shiners not that productive on LOW? 

The key is emerald shiners. The ones you can get in the cities are not the same as emeralds up there. Frozen ones work great for jigging. 

[CJH]

2 hours ago, BobT said:

Heading up to LOW February 8th. I have heard reports that shiners are not available up there. We can get them around here, although keeping them alive might present a challenge. Would it be worth the effort or are shiners not that productive on LOW? 

 

That is correct.  We were just up at LOW out of Zippel Bay and as far as we could tell, eveybody up there was out of live shiners.  We were able to stop on the way and pick up live emerald shiners @ Big Dicks Bait Shop in Kelliher.  This was on the 17th, so if you go that route, I'd call first to make sure they still had any.  Fishing was a little slow for us, but it was right when the cold front came screaming in, good luck!

[Hoey]

21 minutes ago, CJH said:

Fishing was a little slow for us

That is what we experienced too.  Three of us were up, fished Thurs, Fri, and Sat.  Lots of little ones, sniffers, the type that keep you busy, wear your arm out jigging on.  We only kept 15" eyes and 14" sauger or better and ended up just short of our limit.  Many 14" eyes released along with 13" sauger.  Others indicated a tough bite as well.  There was one group in the cleaning shack that had some, maybe a 1/4th of their catch, in the 16 to 19 inch range.  We fish with fatheads and some frozen emeralds.  Ice thickness-wise, the auger head was just above the shavings pile, so the ice is growing quickly.  Snow on the lake is hard.  Good Luck.  

[PRO-V]

My niece got a 28" walleye and a 44" sturgeon the same day a couple days ago. 

[Hoey]

Oh I forgot to mention is was b*#%hing cold.  Minus 33 Saturday morning and -36 on Sunday morning.  We had to leave one sled behind at the cabin on Saturday and it took forever to get the Solo started on the auger.  Maybe time for an electric.  

 

Nice niece catching day Pro-V!!!

[walros]

The bait store in Deer River has shiners.

 

[PRO-V]

2 hours ago, walros said:

The bait store in Deer River has shiners.

 

Are they emeralds or spottails?

[BobT]

Thanks for tips.

 

8 hours ago, CJH said:

 

That is correct.  We were just up at LOW out of Zippel Bay and as far as we could tell, eveybody up there was out of live shiners.  We were able to stop on the way and pick up live emerald shiners @ Big Dicks Bait Shop in Kelliher.  This was on the 17th, so if you go that route, I'd call first to make sure they still had any.  Fishing was a little slow for us, but it was right when the cold front came screaming in, good luck!

We will be going through Kelliher. How did you keep them alive for that hour-long trip to Baudette? 

[Wanderer]

Interesting read, guys. 

 

Bob, I’d recommend an Engel bait cooler with aerator.  No idea what CJH used but they’ve been amazing at keeping shiners alive for me.

[BlackLabGuy]

We stopped at Fred Bait just west of Deer River, they bought "regular" golden shiners and rainbows. They bagged them and once on the lake we put an aerator in the bucket and if you changed the water daily we had very few dead after 4 days. I think the cold weather helps keep them alive unlike in the spring, summer and fall. I know the golden shiners are not the norm on LOW but we have had good luck with them and prefer to have choices!

[Ten point]

We didn't have a problem catching them on fatheads today out of long point in 32ft saugers and walleyes with several slot fish up to 25 inches and nice saugers

[CJH]

On 1/22/2019 at 7:13 PM, BobT said:

Thanks for tips.

 

We will be going through Kelliher. How did you keep them alive for that hour-long trip to Baudette? 

I picked up one of these from Gander.  It's the 13Qt version, only available there.  My old bucket was getting pretty beat up and I hated having the bubbler hanging off the side, so I wanted something where the bubbler was integrated in the top, leakproof, and insulated better - this was the only one I could find that incorporated all of those things, and I believe it was cheaper than the Engel.   Worked awesome, I think we only had one floater shiner after 48+ hours.  We put a few ice chunks in the water to keep it cool when it was inside the cabin/ice shack.  Also changed out 50% of the water to lake water when we got on the ice.  I did buy the 110 plug/converter so it didn't have to run off of batteries while in the cabin, found it on the web for about $15, if I remember correctly. 

 

 

And yes, it was bitter cold, but it is every year at this time.  (We go yearly over MLK weekend)   As Hoey said, lots of sniffers.  I could raise some fish 4 times and not get them to bite, kind of frustrating.  There was no conceivable pattern we could figure out, just constantly changing to try and get them to bite.  Caught one 13in Perch and one 24in Walleye/slot fish.  The rest was standard 13-17in eater walleye/sauger that you normally get up there.  The moon was superbright, which was kind of cool.  Good luck!!

Edited January 24, 2019 by CJH

[bigpike]

Was up over MLK as well, using chubs.  Fished off of Cyrus road in 30-31 ft. Slower for us on Saturday, picked up some on Sunday.  All 12-13" saugers with a few 14-15.   One 17" walleye and one slot walleye.

 

Sunday, the started responding to jigging for me, but Saturday they would come up, look and take off again.

[fishingMN4eyes]

Fished afternoon 1/24 – morning 1/27 out of Zippel, got back yesterday evening. Besides freezing our butts off, not a whole lot going on up there. Group of six of us were able to find one 20″, a 19″, and I think one 14″. The rest were all 12″ and under, and a lot of those were under 6″ I’d say. According to the plow guys checking in on us and the DNR guy it didn’t sound like anyone up there was catching fish with the cold. Fished only fatheads because no one up there had anything else. Stopped in Kelliher and Baudette and couldn’t find shiners anywhere and the bait shops were all out of rainbows as well(were expecting some the day after we arrived but we never made it back into town).

 

This was my first time on Lake of the Woods ice fishing. Was disappointed in Zippel to go along with the slow fishing. Our sleeper had six beds, but I think toddlers would have felt crowded in there let alone six grown men. I wasn’t expecting luxury by any stretch but the houses were not very well maintained either. The houses were very warm, but that’s probably the only positive thing I have to say about the sleeper and day houses we were in. They also split our group into two day houses on Saturday after being in one big day house Thursday afternoon and Friday. It looked like they had a bigger group they catered to in the six person day house that we had been in, they had a portable set up next to it so I’m assuming they had a big crew. Just sucks to get bumped so we all couldn’t fish together and two guys ended up just staying back at the sleeper house once they split us up. Overall just wasn’t impressed with Zippel, don’t see myself going back any time soon.