On Thursday we fished the Plughat Pt. area from 2-8pm. When we pulled up, the raft of boats seemed to be pulling in fish all over. We made one drift through and found 8.5 ft. to be the magic depth. From then on we worked a 500 yard stretch of the breakline. We ended up boating 50 walleyes of all sizes. 20 under 15”, 15 between 15 and 17” and 15 over fish. The biggest of the day taped out at 23”. The two other boats in our group did well with 30 and 15 in another. An 1/8th oz. jig with a shiner was the bait of choice. I tried some different plastics resulting in not even a nibble.
Friday were on the water at 10am and headed to the same area. Right away we picked up a few, but it was much slower than the day before. It didn’t take long to realize that all the fish in the group were coming from a 50 yard stretch. I dropped the trolling motor and kept working the same area. Every time the wind picked up or the sun went behind a cloud we picked up one or two fish. The fishing was much tougher, but we still managed 25 fish before heading in at 5. The other boats in our group worked the North end all the way around to Ravens with only 10-15 fish to show for it.
Saturday was cold and windy. The wind is usually a welcome site on Winni, but the fishing really got tough. We fished a few different areas and made some calls to other boats, and the verdict was that the fish were not biting anywhere. With the wind now pounding the Tamarack area, I figured the fish that were on Plughat may have moved across the bay. I dug out the old GPS and found a dozen coordinates I had from 3 years ago. When we got to the spot I noticed that 5 of the waypoints ran right down the 8 foot contour line on my Lakemaster chip. Coincidence? Nope. We made one pass through there and picked up 2 walleyes, 6 perch, and 4 Northerns right on the break. That was more than we saw anyone catch all morning. We shortened up our drift and keyed in on a 7-9 ft. break. We wrapped it up after 4 hours with 15 walleyes, 30+ perch, and 12 Northerns. It sure didn’t take long for the boats running all over the lake to swoop right in after seeing numerous multi-species doubles.
A late night of 
meant we only had a couple hours to fish on Sunday. We headed to this same area off of Tamarack Pt. Apparently word had spread and we now had a dozen boats working this area. The wind had switched a little, so we decided to work a different part of the break. I would start the boat in 10 fow and drift up to 7. On almost every pass we were picking up a mixed bag of fish right before it topped out at 7 feet. We worked the area hard for 2 hours and ended up with 9 walleyes, 20 perch, and 6 Northerns.
The bite was definitely a little off for this time of year, but we were still able to catch fish. There is nothing better than having a big walleye or northern smack your jig in shallow water. I should add that most of the walleyes and all the Northerns and perch were released. I ask myself why I drive 3.5 hours in the winter to catch these perch, but I lob 10-12” perch over the side of the boat come spring.
