Lake Winnipeg Greenback Report 03.16.2012

“Greenbacks”….aka Lake Winnipeg Walleyes are a destination for hundreds if not thousands of ice heads each winter, why, simply because it’s the best shot any angler has at catching a true giant of a walleye. By Giant I mean anything over 12 lbs, for us this trip would yield 3 of those giants in 3 full days of fishing. Something about ice fishing the 11th largest freshwater lake in the world gets me fired up every March, as the walleyes make the annual run towards feeder creeks or big rivers systems to stage for spawning. Knowing that the next mark on the MarCum could be the fish that haunts your dreams!!

This relatively shallow fertile lake and sure size (9,460 sq miles) produces some of the world’s largest walleyes year in and year out. So where does an ice fisherman equipped with an ATV go to start looking for these fish? First things first is finding an access that is still accessible, from there you can travel anywhere with the ATV to get to your fishing location. Then venture off on your own to find the massive schools of staging walleyes. Lake Winnipeg in the south basin is virtually structure-less, really no significant contours to fish, reefs, flats, etc, so fishing near feeder creeks or the famous Red River is a great place to start, which is where we chose to start our adventure. Some simple keys to eliminate water is NOT fishing a spot too long, we gave each spot a max of 15-20 minutes, if we were not catching or marking fish it was time to move, maybe only 75-100 yards but we needed to find fish. Marching along like this proved to be our most productive way to find schools of greenbacks, once found it was clear we were on them as they were not shy about crushing our baits.

Our bait of choice was simple, BFT 1/4oz pink/white blade bait sometimes tipped with a salted minnow head or sometimes fished without bait. We found that 12 feet of water was the best depth for fishing, seemed to hold the most fish so you could fish the 1/4oz blade fast. Giving the blade several strong vertical rips to draw the fish into your area was key as well; the vibration of the blade bait would draw the curious fish in sometimes resulting in bone crushing strikes, sometimes they would need to be coaxed into biting the blade bait it was weird but very effective to finesse fish a blade bait. Fishing with Braid line like Suffix 832 in 20/6 with a small strong swivel tied to 4 feet of 10lb mono was our presentation. Strong swivel is a must as I had a fish actually snap my swivel off; it was a 12lb swivel…

I started this annual trip 4 years ago, every year it just keeps getting better and better. The quality of the fish seems to be getting bigger, and we seem to pull bigger fish each year. We actually hit the 13lb mark this year, several 10 plus and a 32” was top honors for length. Don’t forget about the pike, they like blades too, 40”x20” was the best on the trip as well. The drive is very easy to LW, in fact I think it’s about 1.5-2 hours further than Lake of the Woods, so if you’re going to commit yourself to 5 plus hours what’s another 2?? We had a group of 11 guys and we did this trip for 200 dollars, which covered all the fuel for the vehicles, ATV’s, and lodging. By far my favorite ice fishing trip each year, I cannot wait until next March.
Sadly with this report marks a sad day for this Ice Head as it is the end of a great ice season for me, I have had the best winter I can remember, lots of PB fish were caught this year and it was a safe season for me as well.
Until next ice season, I hope everyone has a great summer!