Recent Reports

I’m going to try and post reports for Winnie and the surrounding area this summer here. I know this section doesn’t get much attention but I’m sure a few will read them. I fish pretty much daily with Winnie/Cutfoot being the main body of water.

Fishing has been good to very good on Winnie lately, weather permitting. Jig and shiners have been best although I have caught fish on chubs, plastics, cranks and have heard of people pulling lindys with leeches with some success. I’ve caught fish from 6-24’ in the last week with 10-14’ being key on the top edges of breaks. Some fish are showing up on the humps but mostly shoreline breaks still. The main big points have all been good but it seems one is better than the other every day. Keep moving till you find them and don’t give a spot too long before moving. When the wind starts ripping, the walleyes start biting. Water temp is 51.

Please keep this up… I Love this body of water, but it is an 8 hour drive for me. Seems like every time I get a report for up there it is always “the fish are biting, come on up!” Then I get there and it is the classic, “well last week every one did very well!”

Great Report! Going to be up for a week here June 10th.

Good report Charlie. I also found that shiners and the 10 to 13 foot locations were key. I focused a lot of my efforts around the north shore and river channel. Son and I did decent Friday till Sunday evening. We also got into a pretty good panfish bite in the shallows of little and big Cut Foot Sioux Lake. There were also bass and northern in the shallows as well. Water is high. Does anyone know when they will open the winne dam a little more? The dock is getting close to being raised again. Keep up the reports.

Thanks Charlie and everyone for the reports, I’ll be tuning in as well. Love Winnie.
Fished NE corner yesterday with decent success. Worked river channel in Tamarac some and had best luck on shoreline weeds to the north and west in 10-12′. It was all rigging for us. My boy outfished me 3:1 using blaze red hook with white bead. It was a pretty neat deal. We waypointed new weed growth using side imaging and worked each area methodically. 10-12″ jumbos were on fire for us with several nice eyes mixed in. We put our few keeper walleyes back and kept 10 or so perch for a fish fry. It was another good day on the water.

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Great report Charlie. It was nice meeting you at ENL over the weekend. Thanks for the tips as well.

I wish I would have tried some for panfish. I’ve always wanted to find the crappies and have never been able to. Were the panfish nice ones?

The crappies didn’t have the size. The bluegills were nice. Not huge, but good enough for a few to fry.

Update- Walleyes are transitioning. Water is high 60’s now. 68 for me yesterday on the main lake. Fish are being caught on jigs and shiners/plastics still. Really ripping it with lots of line still seems to be best. Leeches have started producing fish, some days much better than jigs. Bobbers, Lindy’s, and my personal favorite, dropshots, all have there time and place right now. Fish are showing up on the humps now but are not too aggressive yet. It still seems the most aggressive walleyes are on the shoreline breaks and points.
Panfish are going strong. I have not spent much time chasing them but have for a couple hours here and there. Crappies are up shallow and will be done in the next couple days I assume. Bluegills have been coming in numbers with some real quality fish coming to the resort lately for those that have been targeting them. The growing weeds in Winnie hold lots of panfish right now but big and little Cutfoot are still the preferred area. Please release the larger bull sunfish and keep enough for a meal. When they get shallow like they are right now, the big fish are vulnerable to over harvest, even on one of the largest lakes in the state.

Thanks for the report. Heading up Saturday for a week, hopefully will be able to get the kids on some fish!

They are on the humps and they are hungry. The north central area humps in 20ish have been great. Lindys and leeches or spinners have been producing. When the wind blows, the major points are still a safe bet and I assume that will continue for the rest of the summer.

And we are now in the usual summer patterns. Spinners and crawlers have been best on the humps. Most fish are coming near the bottom of the breaks. Had a decent mayfly hatch last week but the fish still bit. I suspect there will be another, larger hatch soon. Bobbers and leeches have been good as well in cutfoot during the evening hours.

CharlieW, great reports even if I never fish your area. We’re further north and east of you, but the locational patterns seem transferable to other bodies of water.

Curious though if you can describe your rigging and technique for drop-shotting walleyes for those of us curious to experiment with this presentation. You seem to be highly confident in this approach which one can assume is due to past successes.

Fill us in!

Brian

We spent a few hours last weekend following up on your post. Spot on!…got these 23’s and many more rigging leeches in 20′ over north end humps. Lots of bug carcasses floating around.
Thanks Charlie.

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I usually start rigging. If I notice fish pushing up a couple feet off bottom on the graph, I’ll pull out the dropshot. I suspect these fish are eating emerging bugs. I usually run a small size vmc spinshot and leech with about 18” to my sinker, usually 1/4 oz for solid bottom contact. If I drive over a fish, two or three, I’ll pitch or drop the dropshot right onto them. It’s not long and they’ll thump it. I don’t like really big leeches for this as I like to set the hook almost immediately but play around with it if they’re a little finicky.

Interesting. Gonna have to try it, though with plastics in substitution for the live bait (never touch the stuff – slows me down). Thx for the tip!

I use flukes pretty often too. Usually start with jig and plastic pretty much always then switch to the live bait rigs if it’s not a hot bite. Then when I run out of leeches I go back to flukes on the drop shot. It all works when you find aggressive fish!

Most likely the last report of the summer from me. Walleyes are still eating the usual spinner rigs with leeches and crawlers. Sunfish and crappies have really started going on the weed edges in Cutfoot and if you slide out a little bit deeper, don’t be surprised to snag a walleye or two. Jig raps have also started to produce consistently. Find some harder bottom with active fish and a slow day can quickly be turned around.

my wife showed me a report that highbanks just posted on facebook today.

20 inches of snow, 11 inches of ice. no trucks, no wheelhouses no ATV’S no ice roads. snowmobile travel only. guests will be transported to there rental houses!!!!!

just an FYI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was out there probably over a week ago now. There was a lot of snow then and I know this weekend added about another foot. Sleds are a must.