Lake of the Woods Fishing Report

Walleye was on the menu last weekend after our first successful day on Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota. My fishing trip was based out of Sportsman's Lodge, an overall great experience anchored by 3 great friends, a lot of laughs and competitive Risk games. Our experienced guide set us up in a large, well-heated fish house in approximately 24 feet of water. Armed with the provided fathead minnows, we landed and kept 8-10 walleye and sauger mix. Our largest slot fish was 21 inches with our best keeper being a solid 19 inches. I caught a great 16 inch sauger that tasted great that night on the frying pan. The second day we caught less keepers totaling out at 4 total. We were hoping to slam them, but from our guide's reports, it was a slow biting day. We did hear from our other friends that the fish were biting better in deeper water and that shiners were the ticket. Our best producing jigs were gold redeyes, green glowing jigs and sometimes buckshots would pull in a fish or two. We caught a lot of smaller fish over the 2 days and schools of tullibees gave us some surprising and much needed action. A guide in the next house down landed a 40-50 pound sturgeon and I have a few photos of that coming to the blog soon. The bite was light, however, when we jigged hard, we were able to call in a few biting fish. It was a great couple of days and I really needed to catch a few fish. Mission accomplished!