Upper Red Lake trip, June

I’m looking to introduce my 5yo daughter to walleye fishing at URL, fishing out of Morts.

Wondering what to expect.

Fishing with a Starcraft 18′ IO and a 25 kicker. Have also 4 downriggers and board mast to use. Mostly plan to drift with indiana blades with minnows and leaches. Going first week of June. Camping at Morts.

Suggestions??

Look to use those boards. Set yourslef up with orange, gold and white spinners and run them behind the boards. On the south shore you will haave spots to run right along the reed edge with one board and another in six feet of water.

Also don’t hesitate to put some #5 Shadlings behind those boards.

Also look at the deeper points of rock structure with bobbers and shiners for the young one to work.

Mort wil also know excalty what has been going on as far as the bite.

Just to get ya going here is a pic of a day Joel Nelson and I dinged over 100 walleye and a 44″ pike long lining cranks and running boards in front of Morts.

Here is the report from that time of year.

URL report June 2009

Jonny, thanks for the report. I’ll be sure to check in when I’m around.

Got the blade colors, but a couple of questions:

1) what meat would you run behind? shiners, crawler, leach??

2) what depth would you run at? I’m presuming right on bottom, but with what weight? Finned 1oz or so??

3) what about nickel, gold and copper? Pounded? Size #4??

When you are running the edges and the 6′ side, would you be running the DOWN WIND side of the lake or would you run in front of Morts ANYTIME??

When we are on those rock points, what shiners would you soak??

Also, other than the shadlings, what sticks would you run?

Thanks in advance. I guided on Michigan for kings for 4 years and this is a whole new world… Thanks again.

OK lets see:

I would run shiners unless I start getting short striked then it would be worms/leaches. Trouble with the wiggly stuff is the Sheephead love em.

I run low and slow, at most I will run 3/8 in front of the blades looking for 6-12 inches off the bottom at 1-1.5 mph. Just enough to get the blade spinning.

Nickel never does as well as gold and copper is good on cloudy days.

On Upper Red the down wind side or wind blown side is always tough due to dirty stirred up water, the cleaner the better. South shore has always been good to me.

When running floats I run spottail shiners, Emralds don’t live long enough under a bobber. Don’t be afraid to bust out the fatheads/rainbows under the floats.

I prefer the Shaldings due to pull point technology and the awesome colors but I also run Raps and even a few Yozuri sticks.

Stu,

I will be leaving Morts when you arrive. I will be mor ethan happy to fill you in with what has worked for the week prior to Memorial day. I can tell you Johnny knows the program and the first breakline out in front of Morts and along the south shore will be great to troll along at that time.. We have been going there for 6 years now for that last week of May and just about anything you want to try will produce. No downriggers needed, lake is only 15ft deep in the deepest area and fishing should be less than 8 feet at that time if temps don’t sky rocket. we like to jig, bobber, and troll cranks depending on what we find. Be happy to show you what’s working at the time. we are leaving the tues June 1st. besides Mort, you should see Johnny P coming through each day to tend to his traps and i am sure would be happy to answer some questions.

Maybe see ya there.

You guys are both princes!!
Now, I gotta order some oranges and whites!!
Later.
If you’d send me phones, I’ll give you a buzz as things get close.
You can send them to [email protected].
Thanks.

I’m a little unclear on what blade SIZES work better in the orange/gold/white/copper spectrum. I’m picking up #3s, #4s, and #5s.

Is it a smaller bait=smaller fish situation (which we ran into on Michigan quite a bit)

Also, will i need a GPS map or the lake pretty homogenous?? Is there structure i will need to return to??

I would say the smaller blades are used more frequently but to each there own. I mainly use smaller ones but not the tiniest. Can’t remember the #.

I always find a map to be handy but I have the lakemaster chip for my GPS. But Red Lake is pretty much just a bowl and could very well get along without one. But there are some rock piles marked on the maps.

I think a Lakemaster map installed in GPS on Upper Red is always a good idea for a few reasons:
1) The dreaded reservation line
2) Believe it or not we have a few rock hazards with low water, not many but they are present
3)the ability to pin point and pick out tiny hooks and points on the last sandbar
4)Great tool for discovering a pattern that you can apply elswhere on the lake.

Blade size varies from day to day…normaly what ever package I opened that morning is the size I use. I do run smaller blades in clear water and bigger blades when the water is dirty.

What marine radio channel(s) are people using on URL??

Quote:

---

I will be mor ethan happy to fill you in with what has worked for the week prior to Memorial day.

---

I too will be on URL 1st weekend in June, staying at WWR. I too would appreciate any advice you could give about what’s working. This will be my 1st trip to URL.

Thanks