Lake of the Woods South Shore Ice Fishing, Snow & Trail Report

Sportsman’s Lodge

Baudette, MN

www.sportsmanslodges.com

800-862-8602

2/17/2010

Larger walleyes

The overall fishing has been fair, some doing better than others.  The fish haven’t been exactly jumping thru the holes lately, but we are still seeing some nice pails of walleyes and saugers come in and quite a few stories and pictures of some walleyes twenty-four plus too.   We are also seeing a lot more walleye than saugers being caught too which is unusual for this time of year, usually we see more saugers. 

Reef Fishing
 We have some houses about 8-10 miles outside of
Pine Island and some on the reefs. The reefs are showing a fair bite but nothing fantastic yet like the reefs normally do the end of February and into March.  It won’t be long and the bite should really start to take off! Stay tuned! As for now we are in depths between 28’-36’ and continue to move houses every few days to stay on the fish so we can give you the best fishing experience possible.

Fishing Tips

So what can improve your odds of catching a nice limit of walleyes and saugers? I would suggest gold, glow in the dark or anything real shiny for tackle, a vexilar and consistent jigging, some fish bite lighter than others so you got to be ready.  If you don’t have a vexilar, we do rent them for just $20 a day. Don’t forget to watch for those suspended fish on your vexilar and reel up and see if you can get them to bite, suspended fish are pretty common in January and February on Lake of the Woods.

Evening fish

Lake of the woods due to it’s murky colored water doesn’t normally produce very good fishing after dark however Sunday, February 14 it produced two very nice walleyes, Doug Dobson caught his 28.25 inch walleye at 9:45pm on a plain red hook and Laine Schmitz caught a 24” walleye at 11:30pm on a green and glow jig while staying in one of our Sleeper houses. Lake of the Woods is quite a lake and is big enough to always keep you guessing so next time you are staying in a sleeper house it may not be a bad idea to try the late night bite, you just never know what you might get.
Ice Conditions
We currently have good ice conditions. The current ice depth is around 32 inches in the areas we fish and travel. Our weather has been warming up into the teens and twenties during the day and single digits and below zero temps at night, perfect weather for good ice making. We plan to fish right to the end of the winter season, March 31 at this point.

Trail Report
Lake Trails
Excellent trail conditions this year. The weather and more than normal snow fall has really made the trails better than an average this year. Come enjoy it, we only have about a month and a half left.  The trails from Baudette to Warroad and Baudette to Oak Island are being groomed today and tomorrow. 

Land Trails

The groomers have been out all week getting the trails into optimum condition for the weekend in Lake of the Woods County.

March brings you a Winter Walleye Special!

Come up in March on a Sun – Thurs stay and book a 2 night 2 day fishing package or better and receive $25 off your package (on the already lower midweek rates) and a free $20 voucher for food, beverages or gift shop items. Sportsman’s Lodge Rainy River dates available are March 7-11, 14-18, 21-25 & 28-31. Oak Island dates March 14-18. Got a group of 8 or more? We will double the vouchers to $40 per person!