I’m heading up there next Saturday for four days and I borrowed two down riggers. I have heard it can be an effective method there this time of year. I have some experience with downrigging on Lake Michigan. Does anyone know the basic drill for Lake of the Woods? What kind of lures will I need? Location? How deep? Trolling speed? Line weight? I would appreciate some help forming a strategy.
Hey Don! im in the same situation you are with having the gear, been doing it on Lk Mich for 5 years now, been going to LOTW for years, but never down rigging. Although I did watch the entire fleet of baudette launches down-rig last July up north of garden island, and they were banging them non-stop while i couldnt catch a thing on a traditional spinner rig or jig.
Asking around over the last few years leads me to believe that slow trolling small cranks with 10# mono would do the trick. not sure how far back from the ball they usually go, but i would try 50 ft and go from there.
im sure others will pipe in on this topic. let us know how you do.
I just returned from Lake of the Woods. For us things seem to be a little off this year. Usually in July we are trolling the open water basin areas in 28-32 fow. When thats the case we run mostly #7 shad style baits. We put the baits 35 feet back and leave the downrigger balls 5-7 feet off bottom. On this particular trip we ended up keying on 17-21 feet of water and used leadcore to get our baits in the strike zome. A few boats were pulling downriggers through this same area and I believe our two boats were outfishing them 3 to 1 atleast. We had alot of little walleyes and saugers, but with leadcore they all look like big fish. Good luck up there.
Don,
If this is not to late, you can bring your downrigging gear, but I don’t think you will need it as of right now…at least for the next week. We have not even dropped a downrigger and have been having amazing success up here this summer. We have been slow drifting…trolling…anchoring and jigging and slamming the Walleyes. If you’re interested in seeing how we are fishing on a daily basis, checkout my daily fishing report on our website at http://www.wigwamresortlow.com.
Once again, I have seen some people downrigging, but we at the Wigwam haven’t had to bust them out yet and we’re catching a ton of fish…just an fyi for you.
If you get up here, please swing in and introduce yourself. Best of luck on the hunt for the Walleyes!
Happy Fishing,
Jean-Paul Tessier
Wigwam Resort
http://www.wigwamresortlow.com
P.S. The picture that I’m attaching is from yesterday…they had a whole other cooler that they didn’t hang up…they were slow drifting and pulling jigs with frozen shinners up on the southwest side of Garden Island with our guides (Tom Briggs, Billy Kloos & Kevin Olmstead).
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