Does anyone have any updates on the fishing or ice conditions in the Baudette area? A group of us head up this week and I’m curious to see what we are in for. Thanks.
IDO » Forums » Fishing Forums » Minnesota Lakes & Rivers » Lake of the Woods (LOTW) & Rainy River » any updates?
any updates?
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December 29, 2003 at 7:27 pm #286467
Here’s a link to a pretty comprehensive report on LOTW. It is written by Marcus and was reported in the Ice Fishing forum. The link is below:
December 29, 2003 at 8:35 pm #286771Mike,
Just got back from 3 day trip to LOTW last night.
We stopped at Red Lake late in the afternoon on Friday on our way up to LOTW. Went out of rogers and had only 3 crappies to show for our scrounging abilities. We went out on LOTW saturday morning out of Adrian’s road and hit alot of numbers but size was down. We had one 23 inch fish and a few 16-19 inch fish as well. We parked the Otter shack out in the 24 foot range for the daytime bite. Morning and evenings were in the 15-18foot range. Ice conditions to the East of Adrians seem to be about 11-12 inches. Sunday morning we headed west closer to the gap area and looked for bigger fish and came up empty handed for the bigger fish anyway. Here there seemed to be a bit thicker ice. (13-15″)The mild weather this past weekend brought lots of melted snow on the ice and lots of water and slush in result. The resorts were checking to see if there were any opening over night Sat/Sun. No majotr hazards were found.
I did hear that the reef area has been turning some very good fish as of late. 12 and 16 mile reefs were good over the weekend with some bigger fish. Here ATV or snowmobile travel is the suggested travel to these areas.
Hope this helps you out a bit!
Good luckDecember 29, 2003 at 8:43 pm #286773Mike
We were up there on Saturday over Pine Island and things were good to great to say the least. Ice conditions were pretty good, with 11-13 inches pretty common in each spot we fished. Numbers of all sized trucks on the ice. We had some rain on Saturday making for a slushy ride in at dark. We started out in 17 foot…had some sucess with both eyes and saugers…biggest one was 21 inches…numbers of those 12-14 inchers though. Around 10 am moved out to 30-32 feet…saw very few fish on the Vexilar..at noon we made a move to 23 feet…marked better numbers.
The 23 feet is where we would finish the day and in a flurry. From about 2 pm on it was nearly one pole fishing. Best bait for us was a 1/4 oz. Northland Buckshot Rattle spoon tipped with a shiner head.
Largest fish for the day was a 23 incher, nice numbers of 17-21 inch eyes. Most of the eaters were in the 13-15 inch range…yep even the saugers were in that range..nice batch of fish.December 30, 2003 at 1:26 pm #286843Thanks for the info guys. I got the itch and it needs scratching!!
December 30, 2003 at 1:27 pm #286844Here are a few pics from the Red Lake/Lake of the Woods short trip we had last weekend.
December 30, 2003 at 1:35 pm #286846Here is a pic of a 23 inch eye that made it to the ice on LOTW. As Sean mentioned, 22-24 foot was our best depths on Saturday up there with lots of action and a handful of 16-19 inch fish. Our best presentation was orange and green rock and roll jigs tipped with a shiner. One bobber rig and the other was a jig rod.
December 30, 2003 at 1:37 pm #286847The last pic is the slushy conditions every one encountered over the weekend with mild temps and some light rain from time to time.
December 30, 2003 at 7:56 pm #286896I’ve been fishing 6 times on lotw in the last week in various spots. Depending what you’re in the mood to catch is where you go. If you’re looking for walleye only, and can handle a burbout every half hour or so…I’d recommend going off of long point, or zippel bay resorts. If you like to stay busy with perch, sauger, and walleye, I’d recommend going over in the ‘muskeg’ bay area…you can either go off of south shore which is accessed from the swift ditch road, or you can go right off in warroad, and go south (naturally). I personally have had really good luck in the elm point area, and if you’re not familiar with the lake, basically you just go off of springsteel island, and head north about 2 miles. There is a man-made rock reef out in the area, and it’s about 20-24 feet deep. You can spend all day pulling up some nice sized perch and walleye, and the occasional northern will haunt your holes and break your poles. The weather here has taken a nasty dive in temperatures from this past weekend, with a low of 4 degrees this morning, and they’re calling for highs in the low teens for the remainder of the week, with it warming up some for the weekend. This could have an impact on the ice…currently there aren’t any pressure ridges to speak of, but I expect to see some soon, so I’d ask around to find out where’s safe travel.
Hope you enjoy your trip, and hope this helps you out!!
marcusDecember 30, 2003 at 8:00 pm #286825as to the idea of driving your vehicle on the ice….as of last weekend they weren’t letting people drive in a lot of spots, and I can personally say that there are some pretty daring people who don’t have enough experience on the ice taking their $40,000 trucks out there. This morning one came within a 100 yds of my shack doing at least 30, and the house moved for about 5 minutes afterwards and the holes flooded over…..
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