Thursday morning came early for our first away-from-home camping trip with our two young boys. Of course, we had to drag the boat with, even if we weren’t exactly sure where we’d be going. With a mid-week headstart on many folks, we decided to scope things out and decide where to camp when we got there. We’d done some previous research, and decided that the Grand Rapids, MN area looked pretty good, and it wouldn’t be an adventure without at least some spontaneity right? It probably comes as no surprise that we settled on the Lake Winnibigoshish area to camp, with the abundant facilities and access to world class fishing.
Inspired by a recent post from fellow IDO staffer Chris Granrud, I took some of his hard-earned advice and did my best to keep things low-pressure and simple when fishing with the kids. Any serious fishing I’d do would have to be during nap-time, which proved as predicted, fairly slow. When fishing with them however, I had a bit more latitude to at least get out there, though we had to stick with those species that would readily cooperate. Namely, perch. That said, we didn’t have to settle for the typical 4-6” bait variety when on a lake like Winnie, we could do some different things to upgrade those fish into something a bit more enjoyable to catch.
Using the Lakemaster chip on my graph back at camp, I was able to scout a few areas remotely then plug in waypoints to make a sort of milk-run. As any of you with kids know, attention-span is a precious entity that you can’t waste once you’re on the water! Having a plan definitely helped, and so did scouting these spots heavily with the electronics before ever dropping a line. While fishing the main lake, we focused on spots that were just a touch shallower than what you’d expect mid-day walleyes to be in, around 15-18 feet. The tops of small gravel humps seemed especially productive, though there were still plenty of smaller perch on top as well.
Even though we weren’t interested in any fish for the pan on this trip, we were able to do a fair amount of “pre-sorting” by modifying our presentations slightly. That started first and foremost with the bait we were using. As during the winter, perch are notorious bait-stealers, and difficult to hook when finicky. When using a softer bait such as crawlers, even minnows, the perch were able to too easily pick your offering clean before ignoring it completely. We found that by using leeches we upped our hooking ratio, and spent less time re-baiting. Also, by using a 3/16 oz. H2O precision jighead with its wire bait-keeper, and threading the leech on the hook, we forced the issue to the perch, requiring them to inhale the larger hook to get the full leech. This also led to selecting for the larger perch in the school, with most of our fish in the 10-11” category. The end result was a productive couple of days on the water, even if we didn’t go after walleyes!
Joel
Bonus pics.
Looks like fun nice work Dad
Great job Joel getting those boys on some jumbos!
I’m betting a big perch to them is like a 10 lb. eye to us! 
That looks like a great family vacation Joel
I bet there was some hard sleeping after a full day of playing
nice report,we are heading up there in a couple weeks,where did you camp at? beach looked nice..
I second this question… Been looking for a place to camp for a couple days when we head up Grand Rapids later this year for a week.
So as not to let too many cats out of the bag, but in order to help out as much as possible, I’ll say that we spent about a half a day checking out all of the national forest campgrounds in the Lake Winnie/Cutfoot Sioux area.
This site will provide a great start in helping to determine what works best for each of you – Recreation.gov Site
Each campground has something different to offer, and truly, there’s a TON of great campsites here. I’d hate to deprive anyone of their ability to find what works best for them in all honesty. If you’re more into the fishing aspect, there’s sites that have a protected boat cove. If you’re more into the family camping experience, there are lots of sites that have nice swimming beaches and close access to other amenities. Like anything, the more time/effort you put into finding these places, the greater the reward will be.
I will say that these are mostly first-come/first-served sites, and getting there early, esp. midweek helps quite a bit.
There’s lots of helpful folks at the Cutfoot Sioux Visitors Center too, right off of 46, that would be another great place to start.
Good luck, and let us know how the fishing and camping is please!
Joel
we were just in a conversation with some guys who quit going to Winni because all they caught were dink perch. I told them this winter and the next will be two years in which you won’t want to miss a perch fishing trip. The numbers of solid 9 inchers last winter will be those 10’s and bigger this winter, and wait till next year! There are cycles in perch populations, as far as quality Winni us on the up-swing. Nice looking family trip, looks perfect.
I second that
Looks like great fun, Joel! Winni is a very cool lake for all species, and the camping opportunities are excellent.
I’ve been thinking of returning again, and you just made my decision a little easier.
I need a break from 
lol
Great work dad!!
Soooooo when is the fry??? 
Sheeze! I’ve never seen a guy with so many Dads!
Great report Joel!
Great report Joel.
We just bought a pickup camper and might have to head up and try it. My wife loves to fish but may just have the same attention span as your boys!
Joel:
Looks like you changed up based on the info you were able to glean or just saving that for a later date… Great looking perch!!!
Bear pictures are starting to filter in…
Mark
Dennis:
Nice! I think that area would be perfect for a pickup camper/boat combo. Let me know if you head up there and I’ll help out. Good to hear from you!
Joel