When the fishing starts to slow, old man winter throws a weekend of sub 40 below zero temps with the windchill, but those fish must of thought it was time to feed. As my dad, Father-in-law and I headed North to Winnie on Sunday, the radio was telling us that its pushing 50 degrees below zero with the wind, but the toughts of catching those magnum perch and eater walleyes were not to stop us. We entered the lake from the East shoreline, and headed to the North and West to find a hump which we would be are spot, whether we were catching or not. A few quick holes and bingo we got the shouth edge on a small mid-lake hump that tops out near 22 feet.
This hump that we were fishing had 30-34 feet of water off all the edges. The bottom was a silty-sand, which seems to be an attractant to both the perch and walleyes right now. Most of the perch are feeding heavily on the silt flies or bugs, so concentrating on the softer bottom humps I feel will be key for the next few weeks. With the Vexilars in the water, My dad would find the first eater eye, only an hour into the afternoon. Here is my dad with 4 of the 18 fish walleye limit that would come from this silty-soft hump.
From 2 PM til an hour after dark the flurries would come and go. Most of the walleyes that were in the eating mood were those 13.5 to 14 inchers and they liked the looks of the 1/8 oz Buck shot Rattle spoon by Northland Fishing Tackle. It seemed that the Chartruese spoon with the red hooks tipped with a large chub minnow head produced best. Yet some of the walleyes liked the bobber and jig look. Key to catching most of the walleyes was location. Meaning if we had are baits to close to the bottom, less then two feet, the walleyes and perch would just look at it, but if we kept the baits up 2-3 feet off bottom and jigged them erratically, they would jump all over the offering. Here is a pic of the Dad’s, each with a few of their fish. Boy the pressure was on, as guiding these two is never easy.
Winnie continues to produce numbers, but if your looking for those better walleyes and perch number right now, it seems that the softer bottom structures are producing the best right now. The perch bite was not real good for us, but we were mainly after walleyes as we set up on the edge of this hump and if one would have slide down the edge in say the 30 foot area, one could have found some perch. Even with the walleyes ruling this structure, we did manage 8-10 keeper perch, so knowing this, it would have been a safe bet that if we would have moved deeper, we would have had the perch. Most of the perch fishing is happening in the deeper 28-32 foot of water, so if your heading to Winnie, look in that deeper water.
For some reason my pic won’t enter in the report, so here it is..boy what a crew, thanks guys its always fun.
Another good Weekend from Winnie. The walleyes again were are main pursuit and again we were fishing the same structure as last weekend. The focus continues to be soft-silty humps. It seems that some humps have numbers and I mean numbers of schools of small fry minnows and if you land on one of these humps it seems that the main bite is eel pout. Other humps are showing very few fry perch minnows and these one are filling up with mainly eater eyes and an occasional slot fish.
With the snow coming down in sheets at times, we found a consistent bite all day on Sunday. we did have a number of walleyes that just were in the looking mood, but over the course of 6 hours we managed to get 3 limits of nice eater eyes. We have started to see the 2002 class of walleyes showing themselves more and more. Most of these walleyes are only 8-9 inches long.
The better flurry of action is getting closer to the last hour of the day, but by 3 pm on Sunday we had caught 10 keepers and two small ones, so setting up during the day on top of the humps is worth it.
The down fall to getting on top is the lack of perch. I did try getting into some deeper water off the edge of this hump, but the snow, cold and wind made the pull behind house the better option.
The travel may get a little more tricky as we had about 6 inches of new snow fall on us last night, and maybe another 2 inches so far today. But with a few resorts plowing roads to the main perchin areas one can easily get to the perch. If your planning on coming up in the near future, you may need an extension.