A group of us guys are going up to Red Lake Wednesday morning. Wondering what the bite has been like and where we should go out of? Any hot tips? Lure colors? Morning or evening bite? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advanced. Tight lines!
aint been there in 5 plus years but here are the basics
red on red
if it don’t glo it don’t go….stained water
get away from noise….its shallow
fish roam the bottom transitions but they are anywhere as it is a big ol bowl
the dusk bite has historically been good to us
fish bite late…..very late. some of our biggest came after 3am
call the resorts on conditions……good luck
Definitely call the resorts before you leave. Conditions are difficult to say the least. Tons of snow and not the greatest of ice. At least one resort has closed for the season and others are starting to talk about it.
Who closed? I wonder what they do with their customers? Road passes? Houses that stayed out?
Like Munchy stated call ahead. You will need sleds to get around we were just up last weekend and it was a ghost town. Slush in a lot of places.
The two lures I have setup are perch color jigging rap and red buckshot. Plain red hook on the bobber rod. Deadsticks did not do so hot last weekend. Jigging caught almost all the fish. Very aggressive fish. We caught a lot of fish anywhere from 5ft to 11 ft. Picture is from a morning of fishing
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Check this before you start packing.
As shown above greater Minnesota Rentals is closed for the season. West wind is not allowing wheel house this week through the up coming weekend so basically closed to wheel houses until further notice. Hillmans road has been closed for several weeks haven’t heard if they reopened or not. That leaves Beacon Harbor, Rogers, Morts and Jr’s. The only one out of them with any recent info on Face Book is Jr’s and they sound almost like business as usual which I would be cautious of in comparison to what else is being reported.
My house is at Mort’s and also am planning to go up tomorrow. Mort’s was not allowing wheelhouses out as of last weekend and I will call them today to see what the status is. Most people are now heading up to LOTW and not even considering Red due to all the bad reports.
I think we are going to see resorts change their policy in regards to letting people hunker down on the ice during storms. When storms are coming if you’re on the ice they will want you off and no access if you want on. Hundreds of houses and trucks on the ice during the storm just exacerbates the problem of snow drifting and weight on the ice adding to the slush problem. Not to mention clean up is much easier for the resorts if they don’t have to spend the next day or two getting people plowed out and off the ice.
We had a group of 4 out last Tues and Wed (1/14-1/15) and stayed in a fish house. There are deep slush pockets everywhere and very deep snow. We were fortunate to use an outfitter with track vehicles to get us on and off.
Fishing was tough. In 2 days our group caught only 12 keeper walleyes and 7-8 nice perch. We tossed back about a dozen eyes 13″ or less Biggest fish was 19″. We were on about 12′ of water.
We had a lot of “lookers” sniffing our lures and minnows but it was very tough to coax them into eating. Fish were extremely negative.
It seemed like light penetration was an issue with the ice layer, slush layer and over 20″ of snow allowing little light under water.
All of our fish came between 8:30 AM and about 4:30 PM both days. Once it was dark the bite ended. We had 8 rattle reels down both nights and not a single bite either night!
The fish we caught were pretty evenly split between dead stick with live minnow or 1/8 oz rattle spoons with minnow heads.
Definitely call ahead to see what’s open. Conditions weren’t getting any better.
Also Remote Red Lake is stating anymore snow and they might have to shut down for the season.He does not maintain roads just uses tracks.
Ghost town up there Friday for lunch we were the only people in West winds. On the way home Sunday they had no one in the parking lot either. Bartender was saying they might not open back up for wheelhouses and just have their rentals and keep up those roads only.
Talked to a group of guys that went last thursday-sunday and only caught 2 fish on red. He said it was painful being in a big shack and that was the resort that just closed. Also the ice he said was only 12-13″ thick be careful if you go there.
We went to LOW and fish conditions there were not the best also could have been b/c of the storm but we caught around a dozen 12″ walleyes with only one 18″ keeper. Also as of friday things were starting to flood on the roads as snow was starting to pack up made it scary for us as we had no way off other than to drive through 30′ of 1′ slush… This was seen on the sides all over the main road. And with all the houses seeing going up there I bet it will start to be like Red soon…
This year does bite.
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Also Remote Red Lake is stating anymore snow and they might have to shut down for the season.He does not maintain roads just uses tracks.
That’s crazy. We’ve used him and his track vehicle is no joke. FYI – we would go back, Johnny P is a good dude.
We have a group of 7, fishing portables and staying at Red Lake cabin, we’ve been here since Sunday and conditions are tough. Most holes we pop are gushers, and flood the ice creating about 3 inches of standing water and slush.
We have found some good ice that doesn’t flood, but it is on an old plowed road where wheelhouses used to be. Its been our only saving grace so we can at least fish. We’re set up in 10 fow on the break line.
Fishing has been pretty much an evening bite, from 3 pm to sunset. We did pick off a couple at sunrise but real slow for most of the day.
We’ve caught 15 keeper walleye ranging from 15″ to 21″
Released 2 short walleyes, 2 pike and 1 perch.
It’s been red Lindy flyers and Tumbler spoons on the jigging rods and Demons below bobbers. Seems like they fish prefer smaller presentions.
Buddy was up Friday to Sunday in one of Portavilla’s houses out of Rogers. Three folks caught 5 eyes total, lost about the same number.
Gonna be a tough rest of the season on URL.
I’m headed up with the same bud to LOTW this Friday, sounds like we will have lots of company out there…
I called Morts today and they said good to go. I didn’t waste his time or mine asking a bunch of other questions. They can tell you anything they want about the conditions or the bite and you won’t really know until you get there.
I need to go up and check the houses out and make sure everything is where we left it last time anyhow. See what happens when I get there.
Rob G, where were you out of that had the slush? Haven’t seen nor heard of 1 foot of slush to drive through on LOW!
Adrians turn off the main road, right north off pine island, less than a mile I would say. I heard it was river-bends plowed road I believe and we only went in on that road for 1/2 block, but the main road there had it also when we left and the plows only had it as a one lane in/out on Sunday. But i’m sure they did something by now but was curious why they dont they put bridges out right away when they see stuff like that as it seemed to get worse fairly quickly.
We also decided to go to another place and when a V plow came through and plowed a new road that roads entrance started to flood a little thankfully he didn’t come back and it seemed to heal over night.
But a lot of pockets of slush water could be seen on both sides of the road all over going in/out.
Cyrus roads were great! We traveled the road half a dozen times over the last week and there no issues with slush covering the roads. There was some rough spots leaving today but no complaints!
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