Upper Red Lake. Stop, Drop, Rattle & Roll.

I know these reports are normally filled with amazing fishing, gigantic fish and an entire page of just how great any given body of water is doing. This report will be slightly different as Upper Red Lake itself is doing very well even if the fishing has been challenging. Yes I the guide and outdoor adventure capitalist said the fishing has been poor or shall we use the famous fishing reference of “neutral”. Drastic changes in the weather patterns, a huge amount of forage on the move along with heavy snow cover has driven the walleye super producer known as Upper Red Lake to a slow down and some may say to a screeching halt this last week. Good thing that was last week and the fish are starting to move again!

For those of you willing to accept the fishing can slow down from time to time know that for every action there is a reaction and things are starting to react under the ice of Upper Red Lake. With a few days of steady weather and successful anglers paying attention to their electronics and taking alternative approaches are seeing decent fishing today. With the walleye suffering from some sort of depression a changeup is needed to trigger those lazy fish into aggressive strikers. As the majority of the walleyes show signs of a negative attitude you need to ask yourself why would you concentrate on pouty fish; let’s find some happy ones. Time for the curve ball..

Not every fish in the lake will be negative or neutral at once and we need to find the tough fish. Fish that do not relate to structure and fish that basically are the hardest to catch will be your best bet on any large bodied water such as Upper Red Lake when they are coming out of a negative bite. Ignore the structure related fish and forget about fishing where there is food. We have all heard that “90% of the fish are in 10% of the lake” correct? Disregard the efficient well fed fish that use structure to fill their bellies; we need to find the dumb starved fish or the missing 10%. Seek out the nomadic wanderers. As hard as it is to accept this odd theory it worked for me again today.

How I have been approaching this situation is very simple. Pick out any deeper water area preferable over mud or clay ignoring the classic gravel and rocks and spend a half hour at each spot calling out the active fish before moving on. The way I see it the majority of the forage base such as shiners or young perch are relating to structural elements making fish within those areas not only negative but full to the gills. Fish the vast expanses where they are still hunting for their food using long range sound and sight to target their prey. With a simple rattling spoon and a close eye on the flasher you will see that Upper Red Lake is producing some nice fish using the “Stop, Drop, Rattle and Roll”. These lost yet hungry walleye are reacting well to the alluring sound of the rattling spoons and they will travel a long distance to verify the easy meal that a rattling spoon mimics. Drill one hole and do not waste time with a second, drop down the rattling spoon tipped with a petite minnow head offering, rattle it around for a few good jigs then watch and wait before rolling onto the next distant spot. Today I found within minutes of any one stop I could tell if I had active walleyes willing to commit to my presentation via my flasher. With the super fine target separation capabilities of the Marcum line of flashers I was quickly able to discern the differences between neutral bottom hugging fish and the slightly elevated aggressive fish. Once these biters came into the playing field I utilized all the futures of the rattling spoon to entice a strike. Today I was using the Lindy Rattl’N Flyer spoon with its hard side to side wobble on the fall along with bright glow colors to pluck out the active fish before moving to the next spot. If the fish refused to separate that ¾” off the bottom I left them behind for another day trying not to get hung up on inactive flasher blips. It was truly a day where every fish was exciting from the time it appeared on the flasher screen until it appeared for its above ice measurements and inspection.

For those willing to accept they may have slow fishing while waiting for rattle reels to go off will have just that on Upper Red Lake right now but those with a careful eye on the flashers and a shaky hand on the rod will see some incredible fishing as we begin our turn into the famed February Upper Red Lake winter walleye bite.