Lake Winona Largemouth Slugfest

With the Winona State Fishing Club’s final tournament of the year on Lake Winona fast approaching, the last couple of weeks on the water have been all about Lake Winona (Winona, Minnesota). I have fished the lake many times since coming to Winona State last fall, and have learned a lot about it since. One thing that I’ve learned over these past two seasons is that Lake Winona can be very tough. The lake is a dredged maze of ridiculously sharp ledges and humps. Most of the ledges fall from 6-8 feet of water to 22-28 feet of water in less than a boat length. The biggest challenge that Lake Winona has presented me has been understanding these ledges and how the fish relate to them.

With a water temp in the upper 40’s to Low 50’s, I knew that the fish would likely be willing to take moving baits like Crankbaits, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, and rat-l-traps. The trouble was finding where they were and finding the BIG ones. I’ve learned over many experiences with this lake that you simply cannot get away with fishing shallow out there. Fishing lipless cranks on some of the lake’s grass flats can produce some decent fish, though most fall in the 3 lb or less category. Fishing the bank rarely produces a fish over 13″, and if it is it’s usually 14″ After eliminating these two options from my game plan, the only thing left is fishing the plentiful deep humps and ledge turns. I spent a lot of time in my early practice graphing spots and marking them with the GPS. Typically I look for humps that rise up to within 12 feet of the surface. Having a significant amount of arches on the graph also was important in deciding whether to stop or carry on. Finding the arches was only 1/3 of the work. The hard part was triggering those fish to bite. I tried football jigs, flutter spoons, jerkbaits, and swimbaits. Out of everything I tried, about the only thing I could get bit on was a deep crank and a storm wildeye swim shad (swimbait). I would position my boat parallel to the ridge, cast to the opposite side of it, and then proceed to bring the bait up the ledge. The ledges are so sharp that often times the crankbait will snag right into the compacted mud substrate. With a little practice, I got a feel for when the bait was just about to reach the top, and I found that by aggressively popping it off the lip of the edge, I could trigger big fish to put the smack down on a big bait. The same “snapping off the ledge” technique applied to the swimbait.

Though there are massive fish to be caught in Lake Winona, including many over 5 lbs and a legitimate shot at a 6+, it is a grind for 5 bites. In past Lake Winona tournaments, I’ve relied on the bank to give me 5 quick 12″ fish and then head deep to try and find the bigger fish. This strategy may be part of the reason why I have never weighed a limit more than 13 lbs on the lake. For this event, my goal was to never once fish the bank. I knew that 2 of my ledge fish would blow away 5 of the fish from the bank, and that made it worth it to pound deep water all day. Each day of practice revealed a little more about what the fish were doing. I was averaging 2 or 3 keepers per 4 or 5 hour outing, for between 7 and 11 lbs. The bite was mentally challenging and at times brutal, but it was enough to gain a spot per day. By tournament time, I had four spots that I was very confident would produce fish. With 3 fish from practice going 4-9, 4-10, and 4-11 respectively, I set my bar high for the tournament, aiming for 22 lbs. Go big or go home!

Tournament morning came and the winds were blowing hard out of the Southwest. This would prove to make boat positioning a struggle, but I had a gut feeling that the bite would be on. Spot number one was simply not happening. I spent a solid 30 minutes without a bite. Time for spot number two, where I caught a 3-5 Thursday night. I dropped the marker buoy on a school of fish that lit my graph up like a christmas tree. It wasn’t long before the first fish of the day smacked a Norman DD22. 4 lbs 10 oz . Next came a 2-14 and another fish near 4 lbs. Though I caught 3 good fish off this spot, my gameplan was to milkrun all of my spots in short order and then proceed to go back to them multiple times throughout the day. I didn’t want to stay on any particular spot for too long. You simply never know when a spot might turn on like a switch, and I wanted to move around and see if I could flip that switch. Spot number two proved to be a good decision. After a co-angler snafu with a snagged marker buoy, I trolled back on the spot to replace it. I circled out a bit deeper on the point I was fishing and saw some big arches on the graph in 12 feet. Sure enough, another giant fell victim to the crank. This one was a little smaller than the 4-10, but still in that 4-1/2 lb range. I finished my limit on the spot with a 3-1/2 and headed to my last spot, where I caught a 2.75 on the swimbait that wouldn’t help. I then spent a good hour fishing shallower water trying to get my co-angler fish, as I knew my chances were looking pretty good for the tournament. After all, It was only 9:30 by the time I had finished my limit. Unfortunately, the shallow bite wasn’t happening. By 10:30 I was back on the ledges, and found that the consistent action of before was now non-existant. In fact, I didn’t catch another fish the rest of the day. So much for 22 lbs, I thought. I figured I had a solid 17-1/2 lbs or better, but probably no more than 18. The scale disagreed. Thankfully not in the way that I’m used to. My limit ended up going 19 lbs 8 oz, the second biggest bag I’ve weighed this year, and one of the top 10 biggest bags I’ve ever caught. It was a tremendous day on the water and it was extremely gratifying that the game plan came together in a big way. Practice was a grind, but each day gave me the edge pieces of the puzzle. On tournament day I did the easy part- fill in the middle pieces. It just further proves that you can have a tough practice and proceed to whack ’em in the tournament. My blood is pumping, and though the ice is coming, I’m far from done with these big-headed beasts yet. I’ll have more pictures to come.

-Cade