The Walleye Experience Lake of the Woods Style By Gary Howey
Lake of the Woods lies along the border between Minnesota and Canada.
It’s an impressive body of water and the home of some of the finest fishing that you’ll find anywhere. When most anglers think of Lake of the Woods, the first thing that enters their mind is walleye, as this isn’t called the “Walleye Capital of the World” for no reason.
The walleye and sauger fishing on the lake is unbelievable with numerous year classes found throughout the lake.
Lake of the Woods is much more than just a walleye lake as it has excellent populations of muskie, smallmouth bass, northern pike, perch and crappie. And for those of you who want to go after “really” big fish there’s sturgeon fishing in the Rainy River
With over 6500 miles of shoreline, and 4,000 islands there’s a lot to explore on Lake of the Woods.
Fishing is excellent on all corners of the lake as the Northwest Angle, South Shore and Rainy River all offer excellent fishing.
With every trip to the lake, we find something more interesting and exciting going on in the area.
Two weeks ago, Larry Myhre, Sioux City, IA. and I made a trip up north to spend a little time with our good friends Nick and Deanna Painovich at Zippel Bay Resort.
We’ve fished several times with the folks up there and on every trip it seems like learn a little more about the lake and fishing.
There are numerous ways to fish the lake! When we were there, smaller boats probing the rock piles, mud flats along the southeastern side of the lake while others were working the rock piles and flats farther out into the lake.
The real Lake of the Woods experience is Charter or Launch Fishing on the larger 30’ vessels.
Over the years, we’ve jigged off them, trolled crankbaits and even fished with bottom bouncers, having excellent luck fishing no matter how we were fishing.
Nick is a launch boat caption extraordinaire, as he can put you on fish faster than anyone I know.
On this trip we did some drifting with bottom bouncers and spinners as well as downrigging while testing the new Lindy Shadling.
Nick, using his Lowrance GPS locator equipped with the LAKEMASTER chip, put us right on the structure that was holding the fish.
Nick would position the boat over the area that we wanted to fish with the bottom bouncer rigs and then using the GPS, skillfully guide the launch over the areas where the fish were holding.
Using this method, and it didn’t take us long to tie into some excellent fish, several of which, weighed in at 4 to 5 pounds which were released as well as our three-man limit of perfect eating size walleyes ad sauger for us to take home.
Since we wanted to test the new crankbait, we also trolled using downriggers along several areas with structure that had held fish previously.
Nick would slowly work the launch along the break lines over 30 foot of water with the downriggers set at 26 feet allowing the Shadlings to run at a depth that put our crankbaits just above where the walleyes were lying.
Trolling crankbaits, we caught our four-man limit of walleye and sauger in short order with the new crankbait, which will be available, the first of the year, accounting for all of our fish.
Lake of the Woods is a beautiful body of water with great fishing in a truly beautiful setting offering an experience unlike no other.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy all that the Lake of the Woods has to offer, it’s one that you’ll enjoy and a trip with memories that will last forever.
For more information on the Zippel Bay Resort and the fishing and hunting opportunities that’s available on Lake of the Woods go to www.zippelbay.com
If you’d like more information on the great outdoor activities on Lake of the Woods check out www.lakeofthewoodsmn.com