This is a late report, but I was up at Lake of the Woods last Thursday-Saturday. I met my Uncle and cousin at Rocky Point and we headed out from there. We found some fish just off a reef in a 23-26 foot rock/sand/mud transition. We dropped down spinner rigs and had our first double of the day within minutes. We continued to work the area for another 3 hours putting somewhere between 25 and 30 fish in the boat. Most of the fish were smaller, but we did get a half dozen fish in the 17-19 inch range and a couple big fish also. These fish were showing a preference for an orange/pink bead combination and a hammered copper spinner. After some battery issues, we were forced to keep the big motor running. We decided to try pulling some leadcore over these fish. WOW, did it pay off. We only had 2 lines in, but it was constant action. I rigged my cousin with a Black Gold Sunset Flicker Shad and that proved to be the number 1 bait. I constantly was changing baits and caught some fish on other gold varieties, but the Black/Gold/Red combination was the go to. My cousin ended the day catching his largest fish ever, 26 inches. I also was very happy about our hookup ratio with the leadcore. I think we had 2 fish come off for 20-25 fish boated.
Friday we headed out into 4 footers that turned into 10 footers. I felt comfortable in my Uncle’s 2090 Warrior, but it sure made fishing difficult. We ducked around the point to keep the waves manageable and pulled some more leadcore over the 23-25 foot shoreline break. We only boated 8 fish in 3 hours, but they all came on a Blue Tiger Flicker Shad. The Berkley Flicker Shad crankbaits have been great for me the last two years. On this trip I ran them alongside Shad raps, stickbaits, taildancers, and Reef Runners and couldn’t even get close to the success of the Flicker Shads.
Saturday was way too rough so we headed for home. It was another great trip to Lake of the Woods. I made the drive by myself, so it was long and boring but its all worth it for the fantastic fishing like we had Thursday. I’ll get some pics up soon.