Anybody been out?

Just wondering how the fishing has been this year so far? I haven’t been up there in a couple years, but me and a buddy are thinking of going for a few days.

Any reports? Good, bad or indifferent?

Fished the south shore in a sleeper over new years and it was slow. Think we kept 7 or 8 among the group in 3 days. Lots of dinks. 24 FOW.

Last Monday & Tuesday in LOTW Sleeper house, 27.5’, was very slow with small fish. One large Burbot. Biggest walleye was 15-16”. It’s always fun, but fishing was poor. We’re going to try again next week out of Dale’s sleepers. Slow or not it beats sitting at home.

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Thanks for the feedback. Thought we’d be going soon, but it’ll be mid-February. Got a sleeper house rented with Arnesen’s.

Any updates? Heading up in the morning

In early January I fished out of Zippel bays access a few days and Cyrus access a couple of days.
Did very well. Lots of little fish and plenty of eater size walleyes and Saugers.
Walleyes ranged up to 19”.

Last week a couple of friends went out of Arnesons. Got a couple slot fish, with more little guys and eater sized fish mixed in.
The biggest slot sized fish was 25.5”.

All trips were out in the 30 to 32’ of water range.

We were in the Angle two weeks ago – fishing was good for us but alot of groups struggled. It’s gonna be cold for you – we were fortunate to move around outside of the houses.

If you can, get bait on the way up. Have some suckers/shiners either on a tip up or even on your dead stick. Our biggest fish were on tip ups with 5″ suckers. We caught a dozen in the slot and some decent pike. We did find some live shiners for the deadsticks.

Get out early if you can – our best bite was early. Mid day will be a grind but stay with it – keep jigging and you’ll call fish in. Dead stick and something with some flash or rattle.

Out here now. Been getting a few on the dead stick and rattle reels. Setting up was brutally cold! We’re on adrians road 19 miles out

Well our trip got cut short. Long story short was at 4am was too cold for propane to flow for my heater, batteries froze and wouldn’t take charge, potable buddy heater o ring was cracked and leaking and unable to use, brand new portable electric heater didn’t work

Luckily the Ford fired right up and packed up and took my batteries home to thaw and charge and hopefully there not junk. Was a trip from hell, lesson learned I’m not going when it’s that cold again

That sucks. Sorry to hear. Mother nature always puts your gear to the test. Whether it’s cold or large fish (canada) or heavy weather. Better luck next time. Glad the old trusty Ford fired up or you would of been hurting!

Coletrain27 wrote:

Well our trip got cut short. Long story short was at 4am was too cold for propane to flow for my heater, batteries froze and wouldn’t take charge, potable buddy heater o ring was cracked and leaking and unable to use, brand new portable electric heater didn’t work

Luckily the Ford fired right up and packed up and took my batteries home to thaw and charge and hopefully there not junk. Was a trip from hell, lesson learned I’m not going when it’s that cold again

Glad you have a good attitude about it now. Sometimes those trips from hell are actually my favorite trips (as long as no one gets seriously injured), as they make for great stories for many years to come. Also, you’re able to look back and say, how stupid was that, and how did we not die!!!

Yes, the trips where things go wrong are the ones you remember forever

Out here with arnesens right now. Just 1.5mi from shore. Would have to say this is our worst start to a trip (fishing-wise) in our 14yrs of coming to LOTW. Just 3 small saugers at 13″ on the ice and a handful of dinks in 15 man-hours of fishing. Sitting in a sleeper house in about 25fow.

On the upside, we are fishing and the weather was beautiful yesterday.

Why do people drive all the way to LOTW??

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nice slabs joe!

They drive to LOW because of the infrastructure in place. they maintain ice roads, rent sleepers and people want a shot to catch giant walleyes. I only fish it in the fall and basically just the Rainy river. I think its just a bucket list trip for most since its so far away. I am not sure if I make it up there again, maybe once I retire?
Are there resorts that maintain ice roads in your area Joe? I wouldn’t mind hitting up your area since its closer but are there resorts that rent sleepers and maintain roads?
We used to do a spring trip to Lake Norway for years, but it’s been long ago…..nice fish!

eyeguy507 wrote:

They drive to LOW because of the infrastructure in place.

That makes perfect sense.

We have hundreds of lakes so no there are not maintained roads on all of them of course. But the lakes that people fish regularly do have plowed roads. The lakes are smaller so for the most part there really aren’t a lot of ice heaves to contend with. So a lot of times you just have locals plowing out roads anytime it snows.

Especially on low snow years like this you can get pretty much anywhere you want.

how far out do all you guys go? ive been using adrians road and last time we went all the way to the end which was like 22 miles at the time. im wondering if anyone has been fishing like 4-5 miles past the island or anywhere besides the very end?. last time it took hour and a half just on the ice road to get to the end

Anyone out? Slow for us 5.5 miles out past the island on adrians road

I was out of adrians Friday and lake road lodge on sat both were fairly slow. Out of lake road we were 25 miles out. I will be out again next Friday and sat and would love to hear fishings picked up closer

We moved out further to 16 miles today. It picked up a little but not a lot. Hoping the warm weather tomorrow changes things

blakehreha wrote:

Out of lake road we were 25 miles out.

How are the snow conditions that far north? Can you go cross county without tracks?

Adrians is closing there road today