Lake Winnie and Cutfoot Sioux Fall Fishing Report September 7, 2025
Summer is gone and fall rolls into the Lake Winnie region with vengeance. Since our last report, surface water temperatures have declined 10 degrees on average, more than that in select areas. Revealed on the screen of this fisherman’s Humminbird graph, 60.8 degrees was the surface temperature on Winnibigoshish near Stony Point on Saturday. For a moment, a reading of 59.8 degrees flashed across the screen, shown in a separate photo below.
Image of graph screen showing Lake Winnie water temperature on September 6, 2025
The hydrothermal nosedive, brought about by overnight air temperatures in the low 40s and high 30s on Friday-Saturday, is likely to moderate once the weather stabilizes. We do expect to see a rebound that should bring them back into the mid-60-degree range.
Walleye fishing, prior to this cold front had already been better than it had been during the weeks previous. As you’d expect, the action was best on cloudy, breezy days. But even during calm weather, our guests were picking up fish, albeit at a slower rate. The trend, typical of Winnie’s late summer, early fall period was encouraging because it is an early indicator of the start of our “fall walleye bite”. Once folks begin catching some fish on the so-called “off days”, we can count on great fishing when conditions turn favorable.
Image of Jeff, on Lake Winnie fishing trip September 6, 2025
Walleye fishing on the lake this weekend provided more clues that an uptick in walleye activity has been triggered by the falling temperatures. Evident too, was a trend toward one of the classic fall fishing patterns, jigs and minnows. According to one of the local guides, jig and minnow presentations were far better on Saturday than were trolling spinners, his previously accepted best presentation for walleyes. “Just to be sure, we switched back to using spinners in an area where the fish were hitting. On a block long trolling pass, no fish were caught. As soon as we stopped, and resumed jigging, the action picked right back up again,” he commented.
The location, revealed in another screenshot, shows fish of all shapes and sizes that were holding over the tops of mixed wild celery, also known as eelgrass, coontail and other vegetation. Perch, walleyes, northern pike and rock bass cohabitated, and struck at random intervals. Smaller fish dominated the activity, but occasionally high-quality fish were boated too. Both the walleye, and the perch you see pictured here were caught in the same area, within minutes of each other.
Fish over vegetation on Lake Winnie September 6, 2025
The size structure of walleyes from the 2023-year class is improving. Throughout the summer we’ve been monitoring and documenting their growth. This fish, measuring in at 14 inches, is typical of fish from that year class. It is not unreasonable to harvest some of these fish for a meal, and we expect to see some of them in the fish cleaning shack this fall. That said, it would be nice to preserve some of them for one more season so as to let them spawn next spring. Besides the benefit of producing more fish for the future, their average size will improve for the 2026 season, making that an ideal time for harvesting them.
Lake Winnie Walleye class of 2023 now reaching 14 inches
Perch, notably absent from many of our summertime reports, are now showing up in better numbers than before. There are lots of fish in the 6 to 8 inch size range, but also in the mix there are perch in the 10-to-11-inch category. Don’t expect to find giant schools of keeper size fish, but most anglers will gather a batch of a dozen or so good ones on a typical walleye fishing outing. Will targeting them produce larger catches? Maybe, but we haven’t seen evidence of that so far, we’ll keep you posted of those changes.
Lake Winnie Perch
Because of the windy conditions, many anglers spent the last few days fishing for panfish in both Cutfoot and Little Cutfoot Sioux. Nobody has reported catching large numbers of them, but most folks are getting enough fish to make them happy. Crappies, for example, have been available, but not in large numbers. The trade off has been that the average size of crappies is good, with fish in the 11-to-12-inch range in the mix. Most of the better catches have come from Little Cutfoot, rather than big Cutfoot.
Presentations for crappies vary by the day, some folks are catching them by trolling. Spinners, jigs tipped with plastic twirl tails and small crankbaits are all being used to catch fish from the small, scattered schools of fish suspended throughout the water column. When encountering larger than average schools of fish, vertical jigging and slip-bobber presentations have also been effective.
There is no key depth, no key location either; watch your electronics for random packs of fish that are spread out horizontally around the lakes.
Sunfish are more widely dispersed and may be a better alternative for many. The average size of sunfish has been good, with good numbers of harvestable fish in the 8-to-9-inch range. Remember, Cutfoot, Winnibigoshish and all connected waters are now subject to a special regulation on sunfish. Anglers are allowed to harvest no more than 5 sunfish per day.
During mid-summer, trolling spinners tipped with leeches or night crawlers is a good search tool for locating sunfish. But now, with cooler water temperatures trolling should be viewed as a search tool only. Anglers who encounter sunfish will produce better results by stopping the boat, and fishing vertically. Tight lining, using a jig, plain hook, or small jigging rap to fish vertically are good presentations. Tip your lure or hooks with small, cut pieces of night crawler. Hold steady, sunfish prefer slow-and-stationary presentations.
Lake Winnie Northern Pike, Rick Ford September 6, 2025
Northern pike fishing continues to be productive, and in recent days they have provided good action. Most folks are getting pike as they fish for other species, but they could easily be targeted as a primary species. Located in and near the same shallow vegetation where other fish are found, try casting large swim baits. Shad style bodies in the 4-to-6-inch size range are good too, and so are large, shallow running crank baits or jerk baits.
Folks have commented that the northern pike coming from Lake Winnie are well fed, and they are fat. This is good because shorter fish, with heavier girth make better table fare than longer slimmer fish do. You can prove this for yourself, try using a fat 20-to-21-inch fish for blackening. If you harvest a larger, 26 inch plus size pike, use it for broiling, or better yet, to prepare a meal of “coconut pike delight”.
We’re entering an exciting time of the season. Fall colors, cool water fishing patterns and heightened fish activity will combine to make the coming weeks enjoyable. Stay in the loop, we’ll provide updates whenever conditions on the lake change, or enter a new phase.