Just got back from Red Lake…
Driving conditions on the lake are excellent just about everywhere from I could see and also heard. 16-18 inches of ice where we were. 3/4 ton trucks and 20 ft wheel houses were common to see, lots of houses out there but plenty of room to find a spot. Minimal snow cover, most of the small drifts hardened up, no issues with spinnin or getting stuck with 4WD, might go as far to say cars are fine-also.
This was a trip with my dad and brothers new wheel houses, including my wife, my mom and my 5 year old niece. Anyway, 6 bodies, 3 rookie fisherwomen. Got up to West Winds road and set up about 2.5 miles out…10ft of water by 3pm on Sunday 12/30. Started catching 16-19 inch walleyes immediately. Ended the first night with 38 fish with 70% of the fish hitting set lines with a plain red/orange hook with a shiner. The rest of the fish were caught with jigging spoons (CJ Spins-Demon Glow Spoon, Slender Spoons-daytime, and Northland Forage Minnow’s. The fish were active from 3-6:30m. They took a break and started in again around 10pm- of and on until 4 am. Picked up 11 fish over night with the biggest being 23″ on a shiner set line.
Monday AM- brought in nasty wind and cold weather, -10 below temps, thought the fishing would slow down, I was wrong. It slowed compartively speaking from the day before however stayed steady. 8am-11am was great with many fish once again in the 16-19 inch range. Lull- Mid-day 11-2 and then they started again.
I must note- All fish as best as we could were counted on a clicker in each fish house. It drives me nuts to hear people say we caught over 100 or over 20 etc. So with that said, we caught 98 fish over our two day run. I can honestly say that the slot on Red Lake is working and there was a ton of fun had up there! Numerous people in our group catching many walleyes for the first time. I noticed if the lines were not set within 6 inches of the bottom, the line did not get hit at all. We found a gradual 1 foot break with rock and sand. Attempted to get away from the crowd for the most part, however a few ended up setting up closer to us and I would, but the fishing was still in my mind excellent.
Get to Red Lake and get in on the action, I heard people that they had tougher fishing in the cold, however it was not the case for us. I have attached a few pictures of the fish we were commonly catching.
PS> The Tuned Up Custom Dead Stick is one sweet walleye catching TOOL!!!
Good luck,
Jake
