Winnie Tips and Tricks

Good evening esteemed sporting colleagues

I will be making the trek to Winnibigoshish during the first week of February. I’m not looking for any specifics just some pointers that may help while there. Our primary focus will be on perch during the morning and then walleyes in the evening. The game plan is to target the perch on shallower flats in the 10 to 16 foot range. I guess, my hope is to get an idea for tactics for these perch, types of baits that work best, color patterns, natural bait (minnows, eurolarvae, wigglers) etc. We are staying at Nodaks and I anticipate they will be helpful in giving some pointers in our quest. I’m just opening this up to the vast knowledge base of many of the IDO Minnesotans and Winnie veterans. So if you can find it in you heart to give a Winnie newbie some guidance I would very much appreciate it. Thank you in advance!!!

Heading up there Thursday out of highbanks, weather turn should make for a good bite in the humps im hoping!

coming out of the river channel they will have roads plowed kind of heading straight east, some heading up the west shoreline. We hit the weedy spots right out and start heading north from there. Keep moving, you will see the channel drop off and that can be good for pike up on the shallow flats off of that channel. Sometimes finding that one small hump can change your day. Best to stay away form the herd and stay away from the crowds. Use your GPS, go deeper when it’s a cold front.

Thanks for all of the advice, hopefully I can put it all to good use and maybe even add some tips or tricks of my own when I came back.

Agree with everything feathers said. I’ve only made it up once, but it was same time frame as you will be.

Pink uv slab raps kicked butt, and small perch jigging raps(the light pale ones). White jig and crappie minnows also worked for meat.

Big ones did seem to hang on spots. Humps not all that big can hold good fish. And it gets pretty maddening trying to figure out a pattern bc there’s a million humps out there. Just got to drill and hope to get lucky.

21 feet deep out of High Banks we slammed perch the past few days. We also had 5 walleyes but they were all in the slot so they went back. It was a blast. Couldn’t get bait down fast enough. We got our limit and headed home early. Green spoon with a minnow, or minnow head worked awesome. Hardest thing was sorting through them. We caught so many we decided we were only keeping ones over 9 inches. Ended up with 40 between the 2 of us. Was a fun time. Started about 7 or and would bite good until 11. Then am they started back up again at about 2 until dark. Non stop action.