Northern Minnesota Ice Tour

I made the northern Minnesota ice fishing tour this past weekend. We hit Upper Red Lake on Friday, Lake of the Woods on Saturday, and Big Winnie on Sunday. A slow bite had us searching for greener grass. We didn’t find the true ChemLawn green, but the search was fun.

We called Ninetoe’s Cabin on URL our home base and went in a spoke pattern from there. On Friday at URL, we used the Hillman’s road and started out 6 miles from shore, which put us in 12 FOW. Our group employed a variety of presentations and with the fish in a negative mode, subtle was the key. A colored hook under a float seemed to take top honor for the day. I scouted various spots from 1 mile to 8 miles from shore with similar results for the most part. We punched a couple holes 3 miles from shore that produced a quick 17.5” walleye for my Dad, so we decided to set up camp for the rest of the day there. The Marcum was showing good activity and a couple fish after the sun hit the horizon until about 7:00. I would advise sticking out a little after sunset and you may be rewarded. We didn’t land any crappies, but on a couple occasions both my Dad and I made the claim that we put a tear in a paper-mouth. We had walleyes on the brain and set the hook accordingly.

Saturday we headed north to LOTW and set up in 29 FOW on Adrian’s road. I got word from Mark Steffes that the bite was a little slow with a plain hook and shiner being the most effective. Thanks for the tip Mark, we put your advice to work. Being stubborn, I did have to try the jigging spoon, but by watching the Marcum it often seemed to spook them when I got too aggressive with my jigging action. Roger and Trevor in our group faired the best using a rosy red under a float. I have to admit I was skeptical of the tactic, but the sauger stack they formed spoke for the merits of this approach. We decided to roll the dice for a walleye bite closer to Pine Island in 19 FOW for the evening bite. It ended up not panning out.

Sunday brought us to the east shore of Big Winnie. We set up on Perch Bar. Seemed like the obvious choice for our target fish. Perch Bar has produced for me in the past, but they didn’t want to cooperate for us on this particular day. We marked a lot of fish, but they were in “sniffer” mode. I went on a pursuit for active fish and found a pod of active fish in 24 FOW. The best presentation for me was a Hali tipped with a minnow head and I hole hopped picking out the active fish in each hole. Chris was putting on a clinic with a shiner/jig combo under a float. Once again, any aggressive jigging would make the perch disappear from my Marcum display. There wasn’t a severe slush problem on Winnie, but it was the only lake of the three we toured that had any signs of slush. Sunday was a great day to be on the ice. We came home with a tan and some perch for the pan.

Good luck to everyone in your future ice ventures!