Sounds like the bite is still great. A number of nice walleyes even big ones are coming early and late in the day. If your heading up this weekend, the 15-20 foot water seems to be the best bet for the eyes. The day bite is stilll holding strong in the 23-28 foot range. Use caution up there and stay on the roads.
Happy holidays and good luck.
Sounds like a mixed bag bite is happening over the Pine Island area yet. I have not been up there for a couple of weeks, but some of the guys around home have and this report is coming from what I have heard lately.
Most of the fishing is taking place in the deeper water from 30-32 feet. It sounds like there is a nasty ice ridge before getting to this deeper water, mostly ATV’s and sleds are crossing the ridge. Reports from the deeper water are numbers of small fish but plenty of eaters. The 20-25 range is still producing some decent numbers, with an occasional trophy. In fact one group caught 2 over 10 lbs in 25 feet on Saturday. The majority of eater and bigger fish coming from the shallower water are suspended. Hot baits over the last few days are the two tone pink and white jigs or just the plain white jigs. It still sounds like a good bite, but one must work for them. Jigging is the key, the dead stick approach is getting outfished badly. Also, the blind anglers are getting outfished by the Vexilar anglers. If you don’t have a Vexilar, its a essential investment for ice fishing….I can’t imagine fishing without one. Anyone headed up there anytime soon?
I will be on the road tomorrow to join a group of 41 at Ballards Resort. We will fish Friday and Saturday. I believe will be using 9 fish shacks and should be able to cover a range of water. I will try to get online before we return on Sunday.
Dino
We just got back from 2 days on LOTW. We caught a fair number of decent fish with lots of small ones. We stuck right around 28′.
We had a fun 2 days on the lake. We fished out of Ballards and were out from Pine Island about 2 miles in 29′ of water. We had a few nice walleyes up to 6 lbs and the largest pout was close to 9 lbs. One of the guys had a sauger that was 20″ which is long for a LOTW fish. There were a few other nice sauger that we were able to keep. I would say the bite is fair and each house came in with a decent pail of fish.
I had heard about suspended fish being caught and it was working for us also. We were seeing fish at 20′ and if you pulled your bait up to that level there was a good chance it would be a walleye. Each house had at least one Vex in use and all reported suspended fish being caught.
Dino
The last week or so the fishing has again showed itself as pretty darn good. The Pine Island area is holding a number of fish with a mix of small fish to keepers and those ones were all after. This last weekend Jeff Sundin and Tim Dorholt (Members of the Northern Minnesota League of Guides)brought there families up there and had a great trip. Those small fish maybe be pesky but it makes for a better outing especially for the kids when the rods are bending consistently throughout the day. The bite seems to be happening from 11-4:00 PM in the 24-34 feet. The Red Glow and GOld jigs tipped with a shiner or shiner head seems to be the ticket. One thing to note is the snow depth up there is considerably deeper then what it is around the Central part of the state, sounds like the wind has made for difficult travel in spot due to some pretty healthy drifts.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.