Ice/Fish Reports: 2018/2019 Season

How’s everyone doing up there?

I was up there last weekend. It was good. We are going back up again tomorrow.

I’m curious when the 1/2 ton trucks will be allowed from resorts for those who want to fish with portables.

Id love to know as well–and any fishing reports

was up there last 3 days looking at real estate but not fishing, stopped at wheelers resort for supper and most guys we talked to said mornings were better but a lot of small fish. stayed at resort down the road and same story, guys coming in that evening had 12 fish in a 5 gal. bucket and it was only half full, some were only 11 inches long at most

grizzly wrote:

was up there last 3 days looking at real estate but not fishing, stopped at wheelers resort for supper and most guys we talked to said mornings were better but a lot of small fish. stayed at resort down the road and same story, guys coming in that evening had 12 fish in a 5 gal. bucket and it was only half full, some were only 11 inches long at most

That sounds like my experience last year. I filleted up a couple 12″ walleyes and saugers. They have about as much meat as an 10.5″ crappie.

The dinks were biting like sunfish at times. There were also numerous occasions when I saw a nice fat mark coming up to look at my bait and a little walleye or sauger darted in and nabbed it first.

As soon as we can drive on the lake I’m still hoping to get back out and maybe find a couple nice ones.

The real trick of lotw for big fish is to fish bigger and more aggressive baits. Fish different break lines then most and stay away from the easy flats that 1000s are sitting on. If you have the equipment it worth heading another mile or 2 out past the groups. My buddy owns the bait shop in baudette so we fish these waters often.
This fish came off a rock pile where we couldn’t see any one in the distance. Fishing a big bait very aggressively

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Looks nice– am planning on going up over weekend of 12th first time for me

Thanks for the reports. Headed up to Zippel in a couple weeks.

My group of 4 fished those “easy flats that 1000s are sitting on” 8 miles out of Ballard’s, Fri-Sun and the bite was real disappointing. Weather conditions were the best we’ve ever had up there, and good service by the resort. Many small saugs, only one slot fish – none over, a handful of nice 15″ ‘eyes, a few tulibees, and my first ever pout. Talked with other fishermen who had same results. Colors that did catch fish were all over the board, chrome Kastmasters, black/red/gold rattle Kastmasters, blue and white something, and a chartreuse jighead with a minnow on the deadstick. Top producing lure, if you could call it that, was an orange on gold do-jigger.

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Fairly slow today. Leech flutter spoon for most of the saugers. Dead stick minnow for the walters. Catching fish in 10 below weather is tough. Tomorrow should be a better bite.

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Cool photo!

We head up on Thursday morning, right as it’s supposed to cool way down

Thanks for the report, keep them coming!

phishingruven01 wrote:

Fairly slow today. Leech flutter spoon for most of the saugers. Dead stick minnow for the walters. Catching fish in 10 below weather is tough. Tomorrow should be a better bite.

Was -10 the high? I see it got down to -32 in Baudette. That’s getting cold.

Was up there all day Friday and Saturday and did very Well. Went out of Morris point and caught between 85-95 walleye/sauger. Majority were sauger but got our share of good walleyes. I guess the cold wasn’t a factor for us. Biggest was a 21″ Walleye. Kept our limit between 4 guys. 90% were caught on deadstick. We brought up Shiners and rainbows and they worked great. Talked to another group that was up for the same time and they only caught 4. Not sure what they did wrong but if they were just using fatheads that could have been it. Good luck to all!!!

Sunrise this morning after seeing the lunar eclipse last night

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Awesome pic phishingruven. You’ve been getting around for a Michigan guy! Devils and LOW in a week! I’m jealous.

Pailofperch wrote:

Awesome pic phishingruven. You’ve been getting around for a Michigan guy! Devils and LOW in a week! I’m jealous.

Thanks! 5 out of the last 6 days ive been fishing from sun up to sun down. At two amazing lakes. We end in brainerd for the extravaganza to celebrate another ice fishing adventure! Then back hime for a week then off to little bay de noc and a couple of my favorite lakes in the U.P.

Lindyrig, yeah 10 below was the high temp. We experienced that 30 below as we are staying in baudette

Fished afternoon 1/24 – morning 1/27 out of Zippel, got back yesterday evening. Besides freezing our butts off, not a whole lot going on up there. Group of six of us were able to find one 20″, a 19″, and I think one 14″. The rest were all 12″ and under, and a lot of those were under 6″ I’d say. According to the plow guys checking in on us and the DNR guy it didn’t sound like anyone up there was catching fish with the cold. Fished only fatheads because no one up there had anything else. Stopped in Kelliher and Baudette and couldn’t find shiners anywhere and the bait shops were all out of rainbows as well(were expecting some the day after we arrived but we never made it back into town).

This was my first time on Lake of the Woods ice fishing. Was disappointed in Zippel to go along with the slow fishing. Our sleeper had six beds, but I think toddlers would have felt crowded in there let alone six grown men. I wasn’t expecting luxury by any stretch but the houses were not very well maintained either. The houses were very warm, but that’s probably the only positive thing I have to say about the sleeper and day houses we were in. They also split our group into two day houses on Saturday after being in one big day house Thursday afternoon and Friday. It looked like they had a bigger group they catered to in the six person day house that we had been in, they had a portable set up next to it so I’m assuming they had a big crew. Just sucks to get bumped so we all couldn’t fish together and two guys ended up just staying back at the sleeper house once they split us up. Overall just wasn’t impressed with Zippel, don’t see myself going back any time soon.

Nope I also don’t like zipple, been there a few times cause the rates are decent, but every time the fishing has sucked and houses pretty run down

Would love to hear some updated reports. We’re heading up a week from now and staying in a sleeper on the south end.

For you guys that fish up there more often should we expect the bite to be decent given relatively stable weather? Looks like starting Sunday/Monday the weather should be stable for about a week.

I’m also interested in a fishing and snow report. Heading up this weekend, hauling the wheelhouse. We plan on heading out on Adrians road. Is off road travel possible? Do they have enough plowed areas to park our wheelhouse?

Thanks in advance.

outdoorsmn wrote:

I’m also interested in a fishing and snow report. Heading up this weekend, hauling the wheelhouse. We plan on heading out on Adrians road. Is off road travel possible? Do they have enough plowed areas to park our wheelhouse?

Thanks in advance.

Definitely can’t go off the roads. I saw some they were stuck on the end of the rows plowed for resort shacks. Or you will need someone to plow a space for you.

outdoorsmn wrote:

I’m also interested in a fishing and snow report. Heading up this weekend, hauling the wheelhouse. We plan on heading out on Adrians road. Is off road travel possible? Do they have enough plowed areas to park our wheelhouse?

Thanks in advance.

If you are up there PM me your cell #. We’ll be in the south end in a sleeper. We’ll also be mobile if we need to.