Lake of the Woods & Upper Red Lake New Years Weekend 2005 The big combo trip! Many consider the Upper Red Lake/Lake of the Woods ice fishing trip the ultimate ice fishing experience in the state of Minnesota, if not the ultimate trip across the icebelt. A number of months ago, I pitched the idea to fellow FishingMinnesota ProStaffer Dan Thiem. "Dan," I said "How about a weekend of ice fishing in my shack on Upper Red Lake with a potential day trip or two to Lake of the Woods to catch walleye?" The answer was most definitely yes! Both Upper Red Lake & Lake of the Woods are experiencing decent ice conditions right now. I found 16" on both lakes wherever we augered holes. Snow cover might be a problem for those without 4 wheel drive. The snow is pretty drifty and the deeper drifts pose a problem. The trip kicked off at Roger's Campground on Upper Red Lake. We arrived around noon and settled into my shack for an afternoon of fishing and hopefully an even better evening. I had warned Dan before the trip that the crappie bite was most definitely "off" right now but we'd catch enough walleye to stay busy and have fun. I was right. Our first evening produced no crappies but numerous walleyes in the 16-18" range.

We awoke Friday morning to a very early alarm clock. We had an hour drive up to Lake of the Woods to meet up with one of my good fishing pals, FM ProStaff "fiskyknut" a.k.a Norm. The walleyes were biting early we were told and we sure didn't want to arrive late. After picking up some of Lake of the Woods finest Emerald Shiner minnows from Log Cabin Bait and paying our road fee at Adrian's Resort, we were on the ice and popping into Norm's friend Jim's ice shack. We open the door to see Norm pulling up a nice 16" eater walleye. "Just in time!" he says with a grin. Dan & I settled down and we started catching walleyes immediately. Most of the fish were of "eater size" with no big ones caught this morning. Our morning walleye bite was in very shallow water, depths ranging from 8' to 14' and we were fishing off of Adrian's Rd near Pine Island.

We stayed shallow until my dad arrived and then relocated to the deep mud to try and find some saugers. Confidence was not very high as every fishing report I've heard from deeper water has been very poor. Our results were the same, not many fish caught and not many fish marked on our flashers either. So we pulled the plug on the deep mud and headed back shallow for the evening walleye bite. Once sundown neared, those shallow water walleyes started feeding again and we had our fun catching more "eaters". When the action started to slow at dark, I had a couple hits on my deadstick rod and hooked into the Sturgeon you see in the photo. It took about 4-5 minutes to get it to the hole and were we ever excited!! That was my first sturgeon through the ice and my biggest sturgeon I have ever landed at 42" long!! Sweet!! Saturday morning comes and Dan & I find ourselves on Lake of the Woods once again, hoping for a repeat of the previous day. I fealt that the walleye action was a little slower but it was still pretty consistent. Then the door opens and there is Norm holding this "24 Inch Roundy" that he just caught in 8' of water. A quick photo and she was released. 2 minutes later, Jim Ekholt pulls a 23" walleye as well from the shack we were fishing in. Unreal! Once the morning bite slowed, "Walleyejon" John Berns showed up and we spent some time holehopping deeper water between 14'-20' and managed to jig up a few more walleye for the pail. All I can say is the weekend was a blast for both myself and Dan and it was great to spend some time with Fiskyknut, Walleyejon, Jim Ekholt and his son Justin. A big Thank You goes out to Jim & Justin for their hospitality. Jim rents out a few of his private ice shacks in the winter and he does his best to keep them on fish. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Jim if you are looking for a shack or sleeper shack on Lake of the Woods. Please contact me, I can pass along the info.