Winnie and the early spring

The warm spring has made for many advances on the fish this season. The annual stripping of the walleyes in Cutfoot went very well and quick. I did stop by the stripping station to find an amazing amount of smaller fish coming through the system.

It looks like we have a never nice year class which most of those fish are in that 11-13 inch range. It should be another great year on Winnie.

The slot limit continues to show why it is so important for Winnie as we have a number of males in that 17-22 inch range, which is very uncommon.

The 2000 year class is now in the protected slot. The 2000 class was one of the best classes in history and if you interested in catching good numbers of bigger fish, Winnie will be suppling that from here on out as a number of the fish are in the 22-24 inch range.

So as we nudge close to opening day, with the water temps in the upper 40’s to lower 50’s already, look for this season to be an opener like no other. We should see the peak jig and minnow bite right from the 1st day. If the conditions continue to stay warm, look for those memorial weekend spots to be hot opening morning.

I will be back to submitting reports regularly again and I am excited to be back with IDA. I will also be spending a number of days on Red Lake and as we head North I will be letting everyone now what happening up there.

Nice to see you posting again Sean

How have things been for you? Hope to hear some more from the Winnie Area this Summer from you.

Great to see you back on IDA Sean. I’ll see you memorial weekend.

Bob

I totally agree with you Sean. This should be another incredible season on Winnie. I received a call yesterday from the DNR and got a good update on the health of the lake. While harvesting eggs, they were very impressed with the number of year classes represented in their sampling of fish. They are extremely happy with the overall health of the lake and feel that there will be a great spawn this year provided the warm weather hangs in for the next few weeks. This in combination with the millions of small Walleyes they returned to the lake last year should provide great fishing for years to come.

When the Lake Winnie Resorters met with the DNR a couple of weeks ago, they did ask that we encourage our customers to keep some of those Northerns that are under 24″. The Northern population is very strong and reducing the number of smaller fish will really help maintain a balanced, healthy fishery.

Northerns are some of the finest eating fish there are. Unfortunately, many people don’t keep them because they don’t know how to clean them. We are going to be offering our customers lessons on getting the Y-bones out this summer and doing Northern Fish Fry’s to encourage people to keep some of these awesome tasting fish.

I’m looking forward to comparing notes with you Sean and providing quality fishing reports on IDA during the upcoming season.

Jeff

Thanks Sean, Nice report. I have never fished Winni in the summer. However this spring I will get my chance. I hired SmallieGuy for a guided trip on Father Day weekend. I really can’t wait. Keep up the reports from Winni, they will keep me squirming at my desk until I get up there. Love2Fish.

Thanks for the post, I will be up there on the 17-20 (Tamarack) 3 weeks away and all ready having a hard time working.