Winnie Reports

Heading to Winnie on Wed. through Sunday. 19th year camping in Cut Foot. Just curious to see if anyone is doing anything up there? Are they snapping or tight lipped right now? Looks like weather could be a little gloomy, but whats new.

Thanks
Chris

Just got back….we came home Sat night…we had been up since Wed. It was hands down the worst fishing I can ever remember up there. We have been camping in cutfoot for a long time….29 years for me….47 for my dad and he said he can’t recall a year with the bite being so bad…..EVER.

I wish I had some good news for you….about the only good thing I can say is that we got 30 fish for the 15 people we had up camping…..only a couple actually had bait in their stomachs….so they gotta be getting hungry.
I might venture up Sat from our cabin if I go this coming weekend….they gotta start eating eventually or they are going to starve.
JB

I hit Winnie for opener and the bite was really off. My buddy stayed up there and they eventually turned on but were shallow. You had to be at the 4 ft lip to really get them. I’m not very familiar with the lake but we did the best I would guess half way between Stoney Point and the Gap. There are some rocks there.

Not sure what they did with the weather change for this weekend but that’s how we got them.

Serp,
Fished Winnie on Saturday and pulled 40 eyes in 10 hours. Strong NE wind and a 25 degree temp drop = no good . Jig & minnow in the shallows. The fish were really negative and small but we did catch 8 over 17″. All I can say is go West or North. Stoney, Ravens, & the GAP…

Good Luck
Shadrap

Well after reading this post I feel better not being the only one who didn’t do well on Winnie this year. I was up fishing winnie from last wed (5/16) to saturday (5/19) and it was the worst trip we’ve had, as far as fishing goes (its always great to get up there even if the fishing is lousy). We have been doing this trip every year for the past 8-10 years and the fishing was pretty poor this year. We netted a number of fish over 17″ but out of the three days we fished we probably only kept 10-12 walleyes between the 4 of us fishing. Lindy rig with a leech seemed to be all we could catch the eyes on. even the perch bite this year was a bit slow. I don’t know if it was the weather/goofy spring we had this year but the fishin wasn’t the greatest. good luck.

Thank you guys, really appreciate the reports. Yeah, I have a feeling I will be putting some miles on searching for those waldo’s again this year. Last season, similar weather it seemed (no constant weather patterns), we would find’em biting on Stoney and then the next day around the Dugouts. We were everywhere.

I hope they go on a feeding binge. After we got our butt kicked on the St. Louis river last weekend, I could go for a little brain dead fishing.

But like someone mentioned, just getting up there and camping out in Cut Foot makes the trip.

Thanks again guys and hopefully I’ll have a decent report

Chris

4-17 my dad and I limited on walleyes by 2:00 near Plughat with about a dozen smaller fish and another half dozen slots. 4-18 we couldn’t buy a bite. One decent keeper and a few slot fish again near Plughat along with a couple slots over near The Dugouts. 4-19 brought more of the same near Plughat. Probably a dozen slots by 12:00, so we headed up by Highbanks and picked up 5 nice eaters to fill back up our limits before returning home. Heard Raven’s was very good, but don’t have quite enough boat to make that trek. Also heard Tamarack Point was putting out fish on 4-19. The perch bite in Tamarack Bay was nothing short of phenomenal, but very few people were fishing it. For a couple first timers on there first open water trip to the lake I thought we did ok.

We were on the south end and caught alot of fish in 3-9 FOW. They were on fire in the morning and spirty in the afternoon. We averaged about 40-50 a day two guys. I was in a Red Lund Pro-V with a Yamaha on the back a 75. Yeah Ravens and Mallard were both pushing out alot of fish.
We limited out both days with 15 inch being the smallest we kept. We even caught 10 of those nice big winnie crappies but i cant give up that spot.12-14 1/2 inch crappies.

Made the trip up to visit the in-laws and get some good fishing in over the weekend. Traveled out to Winnie on Saturday and we didn’t move around much. Headed over to Tamarack Point and Highbanks because it was close and the wind was hitting these areas. Found a lot of other boats and not much luck right away. We trolled/drifted away from the large crowd and ended up finding a strip of shoreline along Highbanks that was productive. We were backtrolling and drifting, using 1/8 jigs and shiners. Had better luck backtrolling and had a number of times where fish would bite when we make adjustments with the motor while drifting. Best luck was in 8-9 FOW, however we did not try any deeper water >14 FOW around these locations.