The Perch bite on Lake Winnie this past weekend was challenging. Take your pick on the location and type of structure…all of them seem to be holding some fish. Getting them to bite was the challenge! When you do get on some active fish, gold, pink and orange seemed to work best.
Moving around on Friday was tough at best. With white out conditions on the lake for most of the day, a lot of people stayed put or moved to smaller lakes for safety. Saturday brought some pretty cold temps and uncooperative fish. Those folks that did stay mobile had the best luck.
Fish are still being caught on Zoomers and the North Humps area, Perch bar is still holding some active fish and so are the Sugar and Ravens Point areas. Good numbers of quality fish were caught inside Tamarack Point in 22 FOW near the old river channel.
Most of the fish caught are stuffed with small crayfish or Mayfly larvae so hitting your bait on the bottom to stir things up is the ticket to drawing them in. A slow lift off the bottom will often trigger the strike.
Staying mobil is the key to getting more fish those that were in the right place at the right time did very well.
All in all, it was a pretty tough week for our customers, but I know that better times are just around the corner. March is always the best bite for Jumbos and the move to shallow water and aggressive fish is only a matter of time.
Hopefully I will have some good news to report next time.
Jeff
We had a crew up on Winni this past weekend, and yes things were a challenge. The white out on Friday was something, as we were uncomfortable traveling long distances. We went out from the third flowage, there was a pressure ridge out about three miles which prevented us from going out beyond. We would pick up a few here and there, with Sunday being the best by far out a bit from Zoomers on a gradual slope from 22 to 18 FOW, just kept hole hopping, every hole had lookers, just not real interested in getting hooked. We took to the smaller lakes which saved our trip, our crew released 5 walleye between 22-24″ and had two in the slot. Mix in a few jumbo perch and some very nice crappie with a few nice pike on tip ups, makes for a nice couple days work. I bet as soon as I pull in the driveway things will start to pop up there, always seems to happen.
We had fun though as the captain came calling and put a few under the table. 
Spent a nice day on the lake yesterday (3 March). Popped a couple holes early, caught about 10 keepers and a few dinks. Then the clouds parted, sun came out and the fish developed lockjaw. Moved around trying different spots, although I had no gps points to target, we fished shallow (14′) and deep (30′) and even some in between. Not much doing the rest of the day, but is was a beautiful sunny day to be out in the ice. Did have the oportunity to have the validity of my lisence checked by a couple MN DNR employees. Two guys pull up in a green pickup, get out, walk up and in a not so freindly way, ask to see our lisences and our fish. The guy who checked me was borderline freindly, the other guy, not so much. Either way, the checked us, looked in the pails and left. We ended the day with 14 keepers. Not a bad day for a couple guys with no “Hotspots” to try.
Wade: Pick up one of the new reelbottom maps for the lake. It’ll help point you in the right direction and is pretty accurate. As for unfriendly CO’s ???
Guess everyone has a bad day now and then. Every encounter I’ve had up there is been good.
Just to clarify, as it seems I may have been misunderstood. I didn’t mean to imply that they were total jerks, just seemed like because I had Nonres plates they came into the situation as if I was already under suspicion.
For instance, they couldn’t believe I had only drove up for the day. Actually asked me three times about it.