Cut Foot Sioux/Winnie Trip

Hey All,

Me and dad will be swinging up to CutFoot Sioux this Thursday staying through Saturday. It looks like the temperatures will be dropping, but that won’t stop us from getting out there and giving it a go.

Another forum member recommended Cutfoot this time of year to me. I am looking forward to giving it a try. This will be the first time fishing CutFoot/Winnie, so any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. We won’t be staying on the lake, so we are also open to trying some smaller bodies of water if the wind keeps us off the bigger lakes.

We will be targeting walleye, crappies and perch while we are up there. I haven’t really had the best of luck fall fishing in previous years, so I am hoping that I can turn my luck around on this trip.

Thanks in advance,

Joe

Hopefully poor weather conditions mean that fish will have the feedbags on! Looks like I will be digging out the winter gear.

Thanks to a couple of the forum members for the private messages. I think I have a pretty good game plan put together. Just a matter of staying warm out there now.

We will be staying at White Oak, so I will try to post updates when back at the hotel to let you all know how things are going.

Thanks,

Joe

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Good Luck Joe!

I’ve done really, really well at this time of year fishing Cutfoot rigging big minnows in McAvity Bay. Work the steep breaks and points where they meet the deeper water in the bay. Watch your electronics. Slow down when you mark a good fish and let that minnow do its dance.

Google map of McAvity Bay – https://www.google.com/maps/search/cutfoot+sioux+macavity+bay/@47.4902243,-94.0653167,16z

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Thanks BK and James.

Any recommendations on bait shops up that way?

James, how long of a leader do you recommend on a minnow rig? DNR site says water clarity is around 9 feet, so I would assume the leader doesn’t need to be terribly long. With the larger minnow, what size weight do you recommend? I haven’t rigged large minnows before, so this is all new to me. I am guessing that there is a fairly significant waiting period between the hit and setting the hook with these larger minnows as well.

Thanks,

Joe

I’m not a big fan of the really long leaders so I typically keep leader lengths in the 4′ – 6′ range. When rigging a big redtail I’ll usually opt for a half ounce egg sinker. The last time I was up in the area (two weeks ago) Reeds in Walker had the best redtails but that can change daily based on demand. Swanson’s in Hackensack is another good source. http://www.swansonsbait.com/

Well, we ended up not getting as much fishing in as we were hoping on our trip. Thursday was a beautiful day to be out on the water and we fortunately were able to spend the whole day on the water. We worked McCavity Bay almost the whole day. For a Thursday, there was an awful lot of boats back there. We marked fish and presented multiple bait/lure combinations, but didn’t ever get a set pattern dialed in. We ended the day with 15 crappies in the box. Average size was about 11.5 inch, so perfect eating size. We had the best luck slow drifting a small 1/16 ounce jig tipped with minnow. The fish were out in the deeper water, anywhere from 25-35 feet. McCavity Bay was beautiful. I could see a spring crappie bite being really good back there as well. We were tempted to hit the main lake and give it a try, but with this being new water, I had a hard time moving away from biting fish for the chance of a better bite. This is something I have a hard time with that I am learning to change. Back at White Oak, I hit the cleaning shack and took care of the fish.

I checked the weather multiple times before the trip and knew Friday and Saturday were going to be tough. When we woke up on Friday and went outside, we made a mutual decision that it wasn’t worth the fight. Winds were blowing close to 30 MPH, the high temp was only 38 and it was raining/sleeting. We were disappointed, but thankful that we were able to get some time on the water on Thursday.

On the way home, we stopped by Spire Valley Hatchery just for kicks. It was cool seeing the trout in the holding ponds. I chatted with the DNR there a bit about their operations and the lakes they stock in the area.

Though we saw a lot of boats in the bay, it didn’t look like anyone had a pattern dialed in. Lots of boats came and left throughout the day. We were really hoping that the bite would pick up towards sundown, but it was pretty consistent throughout the day. Water temp was 58 degrees.

Thanks again to the guys who helped out with tips. This site’s community is awesome. This won’t be the last time I hit Cut Foot. The lake has a lot more to offer and I am hoping to get to know it a lot better in the next few years.

Attached are a few photos of the trip. Crappie pic only shows 13 fish…I had already cleaned up a few before we decided to snag a picture.

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I spend a lot of time in that bay. After asking here about ringworms and their use in lakes I caught some nice fish using something I never heard of before…it’s called “pitching”. LOl!

In fact now that I think about it, it was 9 years ago on Sept 28th when I took Dad up there for the last time. He caught the only walleye in two days of fishing.

His funeral was exactly 9 years ago today.

Oh hey, don’t forget Little Cutfoot in the spring. There’s some monsters caught in the narrows at Cutfoot Sioux Inn. Don’t need a boat there either.

The areas we explored all looked like dynamite crappie areas. I am sure there are some absolute giants in there in the spring. I am going to try to get up there next spring for sure to give it a try.

Brian, reading about your time up there with your dad really drives home the point that it isn’t ALL about the fishing. The time spent together on the water are what give us the memories that last a lifetime. The fish are just icing on the cake.

-Joe