Dad and I spent the last three days up at Winne looking for some (if it were legal in MN) catfish bait most people call walleyes. Because of medical reason, I suggested that this be our last trip up here…he sort of agreed.
We arrived Tuesday afternoon and headed out into the Cutfoot area with high hopes. Weather was nice…little cool, but with a little action, we would be warm enough. Surface water temp was 66.
Although 1/8th oz green jigs is the preferred method of filling the frying pan on Winni, Dad is a firm believer in a spinner ( gold or chartreuse only) except when rapala came out with there gold floating raps. He did change to them for a few years, but went back to the ol’ standby, “Little Joes”. He likes using a yellow Mr. Twister, but I prefer the shiner or fathead. I think he likes the Twister because he doesn’t have to move to get more bait.
We stopped at our first “honey hole” in McAvity bay. I didn’t even have a chance to get my money for the first fish out of my pocket when I noticed Dad holding his hand out with a chucky 18 incher next to the boat. Man, with this action…I was going to have to start taking some jackets off, I thought. Well, 5 more hours of fishing, in 5 “honey holes” paid off with 2 eater eyes and countless small northerns. Fun, but not what I drove 5 plus hours for.
Back at the resort, other guests had found a crappie bite taking off. Apparently Tuesday was the first evening of “good” crappie fishing. Most fell into the 11 inch range but many went as high as 12.5 inches with limits or close to limits coming to the cleaning house. One fella from Chicago was with his dad and having (what sounded) like the time of his life. He must have been in his late 20’s or even 30’s and just giddy with excitement about landing these slabs. First time fishing for this fella. Man I take things for granted!
(Secret to Cutfoot Crappies….30 feet of water) Don’t tell anyone I told you…wink, wink, nod, nod.
Wednesday morning I had a little surprise for Dad, I hired a Winni Guide. Dad’s fished Third River in spring and Cutfoot in fall since sometime around the 60’s. He’s been on the Big Lake less than a handful of times and then to Stony Point and back into the Third River Flowage. But then, how far can you go in a day with the ol’ 9.8 Merc? With the time that we had, we didn’t want to spend time looking for spots to fish.
Good time to hire a guide I thought! In checking the Winni forum, I kept seeing this fella by the name of Sean Colter posting reports. It’s funny, once you read enough post from a member, it seems like you know him. Sean seemed like a nice guy and he sounded like he knew what he was doing. I felt that was a good starting point. After a little phone tag (my cell phone didn’t work up there…this is a good thing) we connected and met at the Gosh-dam-place and got to meet each other in person. To be honest here…when he walked in the door, I didn’t think I was going to like him…he wasn’t wearing an IDA hat…but in just a few minutes his personality won me over. Dad liked him because he didn’t have a beard, and he had all of his teeth…near as we could tell. Hey! That’s dad…
The game plan was to trailer down to the Birches landing, and head out from there. Dad has bad back from WWII shrapnel injury and can’t handle the waves. We wanted to keep the ride to a minimum.
Jigs and shiners were going to be the ticket of the day. Since Sean has gone through 3000 jigs so far this year, I would guess they are the ticket most days. Sean did say cranks work well at times too when run around the 18 foot mark.
It wasn’t long when the eyes started popping into the boat. One thing about Sean that really impressed me was that when one of us mentioned “fish on!”, he was right there with the net to bring her in, take out the hook and release or live well your fish. At times I thought he just appeared next to me! If you would let him, he would do everything for you…I made a mental note of this as an option for next year when I’m going to be taking out three female rela-tics.
We pick up a few eaters on the south east side next to the weed line and a few northerns. I’m guessing the biggest northern was around 4 lbs. I’ve always loved that run they make when they see the boat. But I have to tell ya, when Sean was taking them off the hook and releasing them, I had to stick my nose in my cat fishing jacket to cover up the smell from them. Give me a whiff of flathead any day over the smell of a northern. Whew!
Occasionally Sean’s marine radio would sound off with a “Hey Sean, you out there?” and it would be a buddy of his letting Sean know if they “were putting something together”. Guide talk for “hey dude!? You catchen anything?”. One call came across the radio asking if “Cha Che” was out there. To my surprise…Sean answered! When I quizzed him..he kinda blushed and said that he’d picked up that nickname. I figured I was better off not asking! J
In between bites we were talking about what’s going on in life. Between his full time job in town, he has a full time guide service and he’s building a house with the help of a couple relatives. He has this deadline on the house hanging above his head like a dark cloud, sent from the highest power….his wife that’s expecting in December. Well, at least he has the fishing to keep him sain!
Back to fishing. We ended the morning with eight eyes in the bag for lunch, a few pointers on how to fish the big lake and an enjoyable conversation with an experienced Winni guide. Since he’s now wearing an IDA hat, my worry about not liking him vanished. Going to Winni and don’t have a lot of time to find fish? First time up there? Want to fish some new spots? Cha Chi is the guy to call or email. You won’t be disappointed, I will bet my catfish mail box on it! (This is a non paid for opinion of one of the best, reasonably priced guides on Winni)
That afternoon, after fried eye’s, baked beans, peanut and onion sandwiches and a little snooze, we were back at it. Couldn’t get out on the lake because of the wind. Ended up the 4 hours with 3 eyes and 842 hammer handles…but who’s counting. In the cleaning house the other guest were coming in with more crappies all the time. I told dad, in the morning…if we can’t beat’em, we should join’em! He agreed.
Last morning there and we had to be out by noon. Dad said, let’s go into Little Cutfoot before going after those crappies. I knew a couple spot to try, so I half-heartedly agreed. Pretty windy again. Made two passes and said enough of that and on to the next. While going to the next spot, I remembered a corner that produced years ago that leads into Little Little Cutfoot and it was out of the wind. The ‘out of the wind” part clicked and that’s were we started.
Six feet of water. Just get settled and wham! An eighteen incher slams my spinner. Thought it was a northern hit, but didn’t feel like a pike after the hit. Well, I told dad….there’s the last fish of the morning! Didn’t get those words out of my mouth and wham! But I lost him! By this time dad has his Mr Twister in the trash and is threading on a shiner. Before he could get his line in the water….wham! 15 inches in the live well! By the way…I got my quarter back…
Some friends of ours just bought a cabin last year. We were fishing right smack dab in front of it. When they came down to talk, I’m sure they thought we were rude by not stopping….but we only had until noon and we couldn’t fish…while talking! When all was said and done, about 3 maybe 3 and a half hours we had our limits of eaters and 4 maybe 5 slot fish with 18 being the average size of the slots. Good fishen!
On the boat ride back, Dad asked me if we were going again next year…which I responded….wouldn’t miss it! 
