Winnie fishing report 6/27/16

We had a great week of fishing at the Four Seasons! Lake Winnie was in fine form for our guests this week. Believe it or not, the only species that was hard to find were the perch. I’m not talking about the 7-9″ perch that are always biting, but the desirable ones in the 9″ plus category.
Walleye fishing was outstanding. Most of the guests were using Lindy type rigs with leeches on the main lake structures. It was easy to find fish, but they wouldn’t always bite. If you waited them out, there would be a feeding frenzy and the action was fast and furious. Then they would stop biting and you would have to wait them out for another couple of hours.
Those of you that know me know I would never be that patient! I would hit four spots instead of waiting them out and probably just hit another of the feeding times and catch them on another spot. There were numerous fish caught in the 18-23″ protected slot, but there were an awful lot of keeper size fish, as well.
I had the pleasure of fishing with a family singing group from Nebraska on Thursday. They were novice fishermen and wanted to have enough fish for a fish fry that evening for……20 people! So my options were limited. Either go for perch or northerns. Since the only reliable perch spot was eight miles away with no guarantees, I opted for option two.
Armed with jigs and fathead minnows, we drifted down the breakline south of the River. I love it when a plan comes together. We brought in enough for the fish fry and they had a great time! I only had to tie on about a dozen jigs. We also caught a few nice perch and one walleye in the slot. Hopefully, they had a trip on Lake Winnie they will remember for a long time.
The reliable perch spot I found on Tuesday. We were targeting perch and found them tight to the largest cabbage weeds I could find. The only way we could catch them was to have our lines as vertical as we could. Fighting a 15 mph wind made this task a little tricky but we got the job done. The ratio of keepers (over nine inches) to throwbacks was 50% which is very good for perch fishing.
The fishing should stay this way until we have a major bug hatch. There have been no signs of that so far. – Joe Thompson, Four Seasons Resort