February Walleye Destination Suggestions

A buddy and I are planning on doing a walleye trip in the middle of February. Both of us are pretty inexperienced walleye anglers and usually are after panfish. So we’d like to get out of our comfort zone and try something new. Our short list is to try any of the big 5 MN lakes, but are open to others as well. I’ll be coming from Fargo and he’ll be coming from just north of the cities. So any lake will be about equal travel for us. He’s bringing his wheelhouse and I’ll be bringing my portable. Our plan will be to set up shop somewhere with the wheelhouse and then to be more mobile and active during the day in the portable.

With our limited walleye and big lake experience we will probably be going through a resort for access/road pass. I may have access to a 4-wheeler to borrow to help with running and gunning, but I’m wondering if it’s even worth bringing with how much snow some places have this winter? Would it be just as easy to drive the resort road with the truck, park, unload, and walk a short distance when looking for new spots?

I’d even consider hiring a guide for the first morning to help us get on a pattern and point us in the right direction. I’ve been looking around at different guides and it seems like most only have the option for the complete package where they supply all equipment, etc. Do any of you know of guides that would just meet out on the ice and fish with us for a morning, or should I just contact the guides that offer the set packages to see if they would do a customized trip?

Our goal is to catch some numbers of fish and to be able to take a few home. We’re not ruling out Mille Lacs because of this, the main goal is just to get on fish. Mille Lacs I think is actually my top pick at the moment. I’m not looking to land a trophy, that would just be a bonus. I’d be plenty happy catching 14-18″ fish and to be able to build some confidence in walleye fishing. Also we wouldn’t mind catching pike or perch either if the walleye bite slows down mid day.Really I’m just excited that my buddy and I are finally pulling the trigger on a trip, as we’ve been talking on and off about a open water/ice trip for about 10 years.

So after all of that, what lake do you think would fit our situation best? Thanks for your help!

I would pass on Mille Lacs that late in the year the bite is very slow. Usually the fish caught are very nice quality large females but very low numbers. My first thought would be head up to LOTW. How far are you willing to travel I can give you a few other great options but there longer distances.

bowtecmike wrote:

I would pass on Mille Lacs that late in the year the bite is very slow. Usually the fish caught are very nice quality large females but very low numbers. My first thought would be head up to LOTW. How far are you willing to travel I can give you a few other great options but there longer distances.

100% agree on the LOW thought but I disagree on the Mille Lacs bite. This year may be different. The bite this Winter has been the best in over 20 years from what guides are saying. I think competition for food and the shear #’s of walleye in the biomass will keep things hot until it closes. Even then in March perch fisherman will be catching em’. You may be right though but I’s be surprised if that bite slowed much…RR

x2 for lake of the woods

Winnipeg

x3 on LOW. Any lake that time of year will be pretty weather dependent, even LOW could be slow if we get a huge cold front. I’d go to LOW over Mille Lacs simply because Mille Lacs usually rewards those who stay mobile. LOW you could sit in one spot and catch over 100 fish a day if the timing and location is right.

We are taking our first lotw trip in feb to Jeffs Ice o Miniums. We used to fish Mille Lacs alot. Time to move on, although it sounds decent this year. For February though, id pass.

I think we are looking to stay in MN. We had talked about maybe trying Devils Lake, but that was going to be too long of a drive for my buddy. Winnipeg would be a sweet trip, but I don’t think either of us are prepared for that. A trip there is definitely on the bucket list.

Lake of the woods would be alright with me. I’ve been there twice through Sportsman’s Lodge. Last trip was about 5 years ago. At that time of the year would it be better to fish the south shore or head out by the islands? I think the last time I was there it was around the same time frame and they took us out by the islands in the bombers.

I’ve only been to Mille Lacs once and that was probably 3-4 years ago and that was really slow, one fish for a three day trip, between three people. I don’t remember the time of the year, but the mother in-law booked a sleeper through Appledoorns. That was before I had my own portable and auger so we were stuck in the same spot and they wouldn’t move us. But yeah all the reports and pictures coming out of Mille Lacs this year really has my interest. I’ve been a bit worried about the dates we picked, but that was the only time that was going to work out for both of us.

You should probably just adjust the date’s to Feb 24th and 25th, so you can come to the IDO get together on Mille Lacs. My profile pic is a 26.5″ that I caught last year on that weekend, plus you could go home with a brand new Tuned Up Custom Rod!

IDO Get Together- Mille Lacs

IDO Get Together- Mille Lacs

Not sure why the link doesn’t work…

I’d go to lake of the woods if your willing to drive up there.

Attending the get together would be fun, but we are locked into our dates for this winter. So if we go LOW route would you go out from fourmile, Arnesens, or take the long drive up to the islands? Should we be looking for mud or reefs?

Generally by February much of the fishing from the south shore resorts has moved out to the reefs. Knight Island or Garden Island areas. Fishing can be fantastic out there but it is a long ride in a bomber.

I am sure there is still good fishing to be had in the mud that time of year but in my experience it gets pretty tough.

I would look at the resorts in the Northwest Angle if that is an option for you. A little further drive to get there but the fishing is generally much closer to the resorts up there so not as much time spent travelling to and from the fishing locations.

Getting your wheelhouse up to the reefs on LOTW is out of the question so what I would do is get the wheelhouse set up in the deep mud off of Adrian’s (or any resort really) road. See how the fishing is there in the mud one day and then venture up to the reefs with the portable if you can’t find a consistent bite in the mud. The mud bite on LOTW is very much more hit or miss compared to the reefs. With that said, I’ve had days where the bite is so good in the mud that its hard to justify riding the extra 30 miles to the reefs. However, that late in the year, I dont think a four wheeler is going to be able to get you up to the reefs. You will pretty much needs tracks of some sort or a snowmobile.

As for Mille Lacs, if there was any year to ice fish ML, this would be the year. I definitely wouldn’t overlook it.

freds beds LOTW. went up there a couple years ago and went through this guide. great guy and will get you on the fish. aslo you just sleep out in the houses on the lake. it was a good time and good fishing!

I would agree on LOTW as well. As for getting around on the lake, I was on Mille Lacs last weekend and you could drive everywhere. Devils Lake requires tracks and there is also quite a bit of snow up on LOTW. This warm weather could help with that. I wouldn’t set any plans in stone yet as your date is quite a ways away yet. I would watch these forum pages and decide where you want to go and what you want to all bring (wheel house, portable, wheeler..etc.) as the date gets closer. A couple other good pages to check out are are Fishing Minnesota and Lake State Fishing. I know one guy did bring up Lake Winnipeg, February and March is primmmmme time for trophy greenbacks. It is only four and a half hours straight North from Fargo. Big Windy is where I will be heading in February and March.

Just to share the opposite side of the coin about LOTW – My Brother & I traveled from Ohio to Zipple Bay Resort to fish sleeper shacks/day houses to only have harsh sub zero weather kill the bite to only catch dinky 12″ Sauger & Eyes..
being mobile & flexible to what you get into will be an asset

Well I figured I should give an update from our trip. We were planning on going to Willmar to fish some smaller lakes there for perch and eyes. My buddy had some info from a coworker of a decent bite going on down there. Then early last week when we saw the forecast for the weekend we were a bit worried about being able to get his wheelhouse on and off the ice with the warm temps and rain. So we figured we needed to head north to play it safe. We decided on Leech Lake. We also talked another one of our friends to tag along. He had never really ice fished before.

I called Phil Bauerly to see if by chance he still had any openings for the holiday weekend. Luckily he was available all day on Sunday, so we booked him for a day of perch and pike fishing after he told me the walleye bite was real slow and it was a short bite window in the evening.

We set up the wheelhouse in Walker Bay, south of Cedar Point. We were in 25-27′ of water. Friday night we caught three small walleyes and an eel pout. Only one fish was caught jigging, everything else was on the rattle reels.

Saturday morning we landed another dink walleye. After breakfast we took a drive and went out to Shores at Pine Point to access the main lake. The guy at the access said people were having decent luck for perch on the Grand View flats and by Goose Island. We started out on the Grand View flats and had holes drilled from 11-16′ deep. All we got there were some tiny perch. After a few hours of hopping around there we drove out to Goose Island with the same results. Our big catch there was 4-5″ crayfish. We packed it in and drove back to camp, made supper and watched the Wild game in the wheelhouse by using chromecast. We caught a few more small walleyes in the house that night, but no keepers.

Sunday morning we got our biggest walleye of the weekend at a whopping 14″. We then met up with Phil for our day with him. What a sweet set-up he’s got. We drove out on the ice on his snowmobiles and flip over otters towed behind. He had all the gear we needed the only thing we needed to bring with was our lunch. There wasn’t anyone else fishing where we had set up. We did have a couple smaller groups of people set up in the vicinity throughout the day, but the area we were was obviously less pressured than other spots on the lake. He brought us to a shallow flat that had a weed bed He started popping holes and set us up in the otters while he drilled some more holes to put set lines in. We were in 5-6′ of water and we were sight fishing without any electronics. It was a ton of fun. We had to play keep away from all of the smaller perch and wait for the bigger ones to run through and drop them bait on them. I had one small perch chase my spoon all the way to the top of the hole and it actually hit my spoon as I was lifting it out of the water!

He had homemade rod holders that he set his dead sticks on. The dead sticks had the Okuma bait feeder reels on them. We were catching perch right away and it took him a while to get all of the dead sticks set up because the first couple he set were getting hit. We took turns fishing in the otters and watching the dead sticks. We had steady action the whole time we were out there. There were quite a few pike that were cruising through, too. We caught three of them and my buddy had one break his line. Towards the end of the day I was in the otter and saw a fish coming from the side of my hole. I thought that it looked like it had big whiskers, well it ended up being about a 30″ pike with a 6″ perch t-boned in its mouth. That was pretty cool to see. We ended the day with 37 keepers between 9″ and 12.5″, plus the three pike that were each about 24″. We fried up the pike for supper that night and decided to pack up early and head home Sunday night so we didn’t have to deal with the rain on Monday morning. Ice was still very thick, but the top was getting very sloppy by the time we left. The plowed roads were holding quite a bit of water, but there was hardly any snow left on Sunday so it was better to drive off the roads.

Deciding to hire Phil for the day on Sunday ended up being a smart choice. He salvaged the fishing portion of our trip. We had a blast and we can’t say enough good things about Phil. He was a great guide, very knowledgeable, put us on fish, and had top notch gear for us to use. His rates are very reasonable. I’d recommend anyone looking to fish on Leech to give him a call.

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Great report! THX!

Excellent report!