Lake Winnibigoshish Receiving “Heat Dividend” Fishing Report June 6, 2021

As anglers, we don’t often think of hot, sunny weather as an advantage for fishing. And, truthfully, in the short run, the heat wave has caused some challenges for folks trying to catch walleye during the daytime. But for fish populations in Cutfoot, Winnie, and connected waters, there will be huge dividends paid in the form of stronger growth rates because of the above average temperatures we are experiencing right now.

Bowen Lodge Facing Lake Winnibigoshish

Over the past few days, surface water temperatures have been shooting up into the high 70- degree-range. In fact, on Saturday, the water on Winnie, out front of our resort reached above 79 degrees, nearly passing 80 during the late afternoon. Algae blooms are increasing, water clarity is decreasing and thanks to that, fish are finding their way into shallower water.

The benefit to our guests is that walleye are becoming easier to catch during bright conditions without having to fish deep water. Walleye are beginning to inhabit more traditional structures like rock piles, shoreline breaks, deep weed patches and even some of the mid-lake bars and humps.

Water Temperature On Bowen Flats 79 Degrees June 5, 2021

Key water depths are now in the 12-to-16-foot range and key locations are the lakes large, mid-depth flats. Large areas where water meanders from the shallow shoreline toward the lake’s deep-water basin. The more space there is between the shoreline and deep water breaklines, the more important “structure” becomes. Anything that gives fish a reason to pause and feed, could be considered structure.

Small rock piles or patches of gravel are scattered around on the flats and can hold fish, so can isolated patches of vegetation. Less obvious to anglers, but still especially important are areas that contain semi-soft, marl. Marl is that sticky stuff, a sand-clay mix that can cling to your anchor and be hard to wash off.

Fish love marl because it is where insect hatches occur. It can occur anywhere, so don’t get hung up on any particular location or water depth. Instead, use your electronics and your eyes to discover areas where insect hatches are occurring. Whenever there’s a good bug hatch, you can bet that fish will be nearby.

In a typical summer, insect hatches would trigger changes in feeding preferences and force anglers to use different presentations. While some of our guests have begun using Lindy Rigs and live bait, many continue to catch walleye on jig and minnow combinations. Although, shiner runs are pretty much over now, fish are still responsive to minnows as bait. This will last for a while but will vary day-by-day. Carry a little bit of everything instead of stocking up with a lot of a single bait.

Trolling with spinners is a mainstay presentation during the warm water period and some anglers report good results using spinners tipped with minnows right now. Shoreline breaks and structure on the flats are good locations to try setting up your spinner behind a simple bullet sinker. On deeper structures, bottom bouncers can be used to place your spinner in the strike zone more precisely.  

Panfish and bass have been active in shallow water, but are primarily in full-scale, nest protecting mode right now. There are few if any female fish milling around the spawning grounds. Male fish are glued to the nests, protecting them from invaders. Now, there’s no harm in keeping an occasional handful for supper, but as anglers, it’s up to us to help preserve enough of them to ensure good fishing into the future. Ethically, it’s a good idea to take a few of the smaller fish and release the larger, bulls.

In case you have not heard, the sunfish limit for Cutfoot Sioux has been reduced; anglers may now harvest a daily limit of 5 fish.

Crappies, for the most part have moved away from spawning structure and can be found on the weed flats adjacent to deeper water. Right now, early morning and late evening are key times for catching them. Once they are finished with their prime-time feeding runs, they are fickle and difficult to catch. If crappies are important to you, get up early and fish for them before you start looking for other species. If you don’t like to get up early, then plan on fishing later, during the evening twilight period.

Perch are inconsistent, most of the ones we see are being caught by anglers using jig and minnow presentations, incidental to walleye fishing. Lindy Rigs tipped with live minnows will work as an alternative and soon, using spinners will become key in terms of producing good perch catches.

Northern Pike have provided a lot of action this week and can be found in almost every water depth, on a variety of structures. Whether you are jigging, spinning, or Lindy Rigging with live minnows, pike will find you, so it isn’t necessary to go out of your way to setup for them. They have been running nice size too, with good numbers of fish in the high 20 to low 30-inch range being caught.

As the week unfolds, we’ll be watching conditions, so be sure to check back for updates about seasonal fishing patterns. In the meantime, good luck out there!  

Bowen Lodge Winnibigoshish - Cutfoot Sioux Fishing Report May 26, 2021

After a weeklong warm up, a slightly cold, cold front interrupted progress toward early summer walleye patterns on Sunday. Walleyes that had already moved onto deep water structure stayed where they were, but there was not much change in numbers. According to incoming reports, small, scattered packs of larger, mostly female fish were all that could be turned up out there.

Surface water temperatures rebounded nicely afterward, hitting the 65-degree mark on Monday. Walleyes resumed their migration, in fact picked up their pace, we believe. By late in the day, larger schools of smaller male fish started showing up on some of the prominent bars and deep-water points.  This is good news, because these migrating fish have been found in water depths of 15 to 22 feet.

Until now, many have relied on the most popular destinations for walleye action, the steep, shoreline breaks adjacent to the Mississippi River Channel. Because those fish have been holding in deeper water, 26 to 32 feet. Catching them with the expectation that they can be released unharmed, is not realistic and certainly not an ideal scenario for nurturing the maturing population of 2018 and 2019-year classes.

Warming water has helped in other ways too, insect hatches have started up and algae blooms are giving the lake a little extra color.

 There’s nothing better for starting up a mid-lake “structure bite” than a good bug hatch! Larvae, developing over the lakes soft-bottom flats, attract minnows and small fish. Those baitfish in turn, attract larger predator fish and before you know it, there is an entire food chain set up around the lakes numerous bars and humps.

 Focus primarily on fish using the upper edges of the structure. They are both easier to catch and easier to release. Easier to catch because aggressive, feeding fish typically move shallow to do so. Fish that you mark on your electronics in deeper water are more likely to be negative or neutral at best. And if they can be caught, releasing them safely is more difficult than it is to release fish caught in shallower water.

Algae blooms are critical in many ways, not the least of which is that they help darken Lake Winnie’s clear water.

One thing we learned in 2020 was that when the lake’s water darkened thanks to heavy algae blooms, fish behavior changed for the better. As if somebody flipped on a light switch, walleyes moved into “pre-Zebra Mussel”, shallow water haunts that were popular with Bowen Lodge guests 20, 30 and 40 years ago. Fishing shallow water bars, weed patches and the popular 8 to 10 shoreline sand breaks was as good as it ever was.

While the water is still much clearer than it was last summer, we have noticed this week, that certain areas of the lake do show signs of increasing algae blooms. We’re hoping for a nice long stretch of warm weather to help intensify both algae blooms and insect hatches. Which brings us to the last point about both, walleye growth rates.

Winnie is already known for having growth rates that are well above average when compared to other lakes in the region.  Algae is food (zooplankton) and the more of it there is in the water, the faster young fish grow. That faster growth rate is what we’re looking forward to more than ever this season. Soon, walleyes from the 2018-year class will begin crossing the 14-to-15-inch mark and that will be a fabulous development for visitors to the lake.

Planning a Memorial Weekend walleye fishing trip to Winnie won’t be difficult because fishing patterns remain simple.

The jig and minnow bite is still very reliable. Set up your 6 to 7 foot, light or medium-light fishing rods with 6 pound test line, 8 pound test at the heaviest. Pack a variety of jigs in the 1-8-to-1–4-ounce range. Shiners are widely available right now and they do work well, so if you like them, then use shiners. But, if you can find large fatheads or rainbows, they will perform equally well for walleyes.

Lindy Rigs are producing fish for folks too, so bringing an array of walking sinkers in the ¼ to ½ ounce size range, along with a few packs of Lindy Rigs, some in the #6 leech and night crawler size, some in the #4 or #2 minnow size will get you started.

Leeches and night crawlers have begun working on mid-lake structure but using larger than average minnows is still by far the best Lindy Rigging bait. This is especially true whenever the bite is “off”, negative, and neutral can watch your fast-moving jig and minnow slip by without flinching. But these fish have a much harder time snubbing a lively minnow moving s-l-o-w-l-y past their noses. So, if you’re at the bait shop and spot large shiners or rainbows, pick up a few, they might come in handy.

Perch are where you find them right now, most of them are being caught as a byproduct of walleye fishing. We have noticed that many of the larger perch are caught in areas where insect hatches are occurring. The relationship between perch and bloodworms is well-known. So, if you’re on the lake and experience a midge hatch, bugs that look like mosquitoes but don’t bite, you’re in the right neighborhood. Midge, is the adult version of the bloodworm and marl, a semi-soft clay-sand mix is where you’ll find them. This combination could be found in virtually any water depth.

Crappies are currently on either side of their spawning run right now. Some of them have already moved into shallow water, finished spawning, and have left the shallows, while others are still fanning beds. Shallow fish might be tricky to find this weekend, but some folks probably will. For Bowen Lodge guests though, staying right here in Cutfoot will probably be the best idea. The late evening bite should be reliable, fish the weed edges in 6 to 10 feet of water using slip floats, small jigs and crappie minnows. The fish move about an hour before sunset and the action could last for 45 minutes, give or take.

Northern pike are hitting, but they too are being caught by folks while they pursue walleye. But, if you were in the market for a larger pike, try rigging a large sucker minnow below a slip float. Position along cabbage patches, rock piles or neat the steep breaklines on shoreline related, main-lake bars like the Bena Bar, Horseshoe or Center Bars. Larger pike are loners right now but can be caught by anyone who’s persistent enough to look for them.

We’re looking forward to a classic Memorial Day Weekend with weather patterns all over the map but appear to be generally cool. Anything from cool, breezy, and grey, to sunny, but crisp. So, bring your rain suits, warm jackets and waterproof shoes.

Again, we love eating fish and we want you to enjoy a family fish fry whenever you can. But we also think it’s good not to go overboard on the 2018-year class of walleye. So, let us give you one more, “conservative minded” sales pitch about the class of 2018 walleyes.

We suggest helping them in their journey to adulthood by setting your own, voluntary size and bag limits and then sticking to them. Keep a few for a meal, release a few to provide seed for another season as we prepare for what will be an amazing few years of fishing on the big lake!

Cheers and happy fishing, we will be seeing you on the lake! And don’t forget, if you’re in the neighborhood, stop in and say hi, we’d love to chat and give you a tour!

Cutfoot Sioux and Lake Winnie Walleye Fishing Report

Our guests ushered in the 2021 walleye fishing season in style. Great weather, good fishing, and a fresh sense of comradery made our resort a happy, dare we say delightful, place to be?

Typical of many openers, Bowen’s Bay and Cutfoot Sioux were about as far as our guests needed to go to catch walleyes. But some folks like to travel first, then fish, and for them, Big Winnie did not disappoint either. There were schools of fish on all 4 corners of the lake, so depth and presentations varied depending on which area folks discovered.

Mike and Lisa Lindholm with nice Lake Winnie opening day walleyes.

Although the 2018-year class of walleye has dominated recent conversation, there were still plenty of larger fish in the mix too.

 The accompanying photo of Lisa and Mike Lindholm was typical of what many anglers enjoyed this weekend as well. A healthy smattering of fish from the 2013-year class helped keep the cameras clicking while folks gathered some of the 13 to 14 inch 2018s for family fish fries back at camp.

 On the south end, walleyes were stacked up along a steep shoreline break. To the west, they were straddling a slow tapering breakline between the shallow flats and deeper water. Up north, walleyes were holding in a trough formed by the tailwaters of Third River Flowage, the large flat between Stony and Mallard Points. To the east, folks found fish along the Mississippi River channel and on the weed flats in Tamarack Bay.

One generalization about the 2021 season so far is that fish are located significantly deeper than they were during the 2020 fishing season. That is because the water, especially in Lake Winnie is much clearer than it was last year. For now, it’s anybody’s guess whether the clear water conditions will persist this summer. That will depend on how much rainfall the area receives; how warm the water gets and how effective the Zebra Mussels reproduce this season. We will keep you posted about water conditions every week.

 Because the water is so clear, most fish have been caught in water depths of 15 to 22 feet. There were exceptions, anglers who hit the lake early in the mornings or stayed out late in the evening have found some action in shallower water. But during the daytime, conditions have been clear, sunny, and calm, 15 feet has been the minimum starting depth for most anglers.

Walleye Location Depends On Baitfish Habitat Click Image For Article

Clear water is slow to warm, but the trend is upward. Anglers are reporting surface temperatures ranging from 53 to 58 degrees on the big lake, slightly warmer in both Cutfoot and Little Cutfoot. Shiner minnows are responding to the warming trend and live bait trappers say that they began running in earnest about 5 days ago.

Schools of spawning shiners will be key to locating not only walleyes, but perch and pike as well. Assuming that we eventually get some cloudy, breezy weather conditions, baitfish along the shoreline SHOULD trigger periodic shallow water action. When that happens, all 3 species can be caught at the same time, using the same presentation. For an informative article about walleye location in relation to baitfish, click the image above.

Jig and minnow, as usual, has been the mainstay presentation for most anglers. Using ¼ ounce weights has been best for anglers fishing over the deeper schools of fish, 1/8-ounce jigs are better at the shallow end of the spectrum. Shiners have been plentiful so far and that is what most folks are tipping their jigs with. Large fatheads and rainbow chubs are producing fish too, so for jig fishing, don’t be afraid to use them as well.

Lindy Rigging has started earlier than usual for some, rigging large, lively minnows or air injected night crawler have added extra fish to their larders. Probably because of calm conditions, the slower, more methodic presentation is triggering strikes from neutral-to-negative fish. So, if you mark a school of fish on your graph and they snub your jig and minnow, try Lindy Rigs before you leave the area.

Walleyes and walleye fishing consume most anglers during the early season, but occasionally folks ask about whether crappies have begun spawning. The answer today is not yet. We thought that maybe we’d find some in shallow water on Monday, but an hour-long scan of the shallows didn’t produce any sightings. This is likely to change soon especially if the warming trend continues, we’ll keep you posted.

We love eating fish and we want you to enjoy a family fish fry whenever you want to, but we also think it’s good not to go overboard. So, before we end the report today, let us give you one “conservative minded” sales pitch about the class of 2018 walleyes.

These 2018 fish have the potential to provide years of great fishing, if we don’t pull out too many, too fast. Most, if not all of the 13-to-14-inch walleyes in Winnie have not yet matured. But they will this summer and if they are left in the lake, will spawn for the first-time next spring, just before the 2022 fishing season begins.

We suggest helping them along by setting your own voluntary size and bag limits and then sticking to them. Keep a few for a meal, release a few to provide seed for another season; it only makes sense.

During our formative years at Bowen Lodge, we made a lot of headway with anglers by promoting conservation. Ideas like voluntarily releasing adult, female fish and being selective about which fish made it to the fillet table. We would love to see that spirit of cooperation return to our lake and there is no time like the present to get it started.

Cheers and happy fishing, we will be seeing you on the lake! And don’t forget, if you’re in the neighborhood, stop in and say hi, we’d love to chat and give you a tour!

Lake Winnibigoshish Cutfoot Sioux 2021 Fishing Season Outlook

Well here we are, a week away from the Minnesota Fishing opener and anticipation for a great season on Winnibigoshish is high!

 Early data from MN DNR 2020 Fisheries surveys supports the widely held belief that walleyes from the 2018 year class now dominate the population of “catchable” size fish in the system. As the class of 2018 matures, the stage is set for our guests to enjoy good fishing walleyes this summer. And during 2021, we expect to see not only strong numbers of fish, but also improving size quality.

During the 2020 fall assessments, the arithmetic was favorable. In fact, DNR fisheries staff recorded the third highest walleye numbers observed in fall test netting. From Dave Weitzel, Grand Rapids Area Fisheries manager; “The catch was largely driven by a high proportion of age-1 and age-2 fish. Age-2 fish had an average length of 12.5 inches in the fall of 2020. This suggests favorable angling opportunities for the next few years as these fish continue to grow.”

Winnibigoshish is known for its above-average growth rates, so during the 2021 fishing season, that 12-1/2 inch average will likely increase by 1 to 3 inches, making those 2018 year class walleyes very desirable for our guests. Combined with the lakes natural ability to grow fish fast is that these fish have a lot of room to grow.

Weitzel; “The last strong year class was 2013 which was a large contributor to angler success. These fish were age-7 in 2020, with an average length of 22 inches and comprised 5% of the overall catch. Recent surveys show a period of low recruitment from 2014 to 2017, while 2018 and 2019 appear to be stronger.”

That 4-year gap in year classes means that competition for food is on the low side, providing an added advantage for those hungry walleyes born in 2018. The class of 2019, also believed to be strong, will grow this summer too and by fall, we should begin to see a wide variety of walleye sizes caught by our guests.

Ted Goodwin with “Big Winnie Walleye” 2019

Just because fish from the 2018 and 2019 year classes are so strong doesn’t mean that these are the only fish in the lake. There are still larger fish for anglers to catch as well. Even during a “slow” spawning season, some fish will always be produced and those fish showed up in fall test netting assessments too.

Weitzel: “Protected slot length fish comprised 17% of the sample in 2020. About one third of the slot length fish were from the 2013 year class.”

So, if 1/3 of the “slot-fish” were from 2013, that means 2/3 of them were from other years. We think anglers can expect to see good numbers of fish ranging in size from 18 to 23 inches, along with a healthy smattering of fish up to 26 inches for the photo album.

Perch are popular with our guests too and if the 2020 season was an indicator, 2021 should be a good season. Several years back, perch populations exploded, probably coinciding with several below average walleye classes. The massive amount of small perch was obvious to everyone who fished here, but last year, there was a noticeable shift in both numbers and size.

Winnibigoshish, a destination Yellow Perch fishery has a history of producing large fish. Fish over 11 inches are not uncommon and in 2020, we heard numerous reports about fish over 12 inches. Weitzel; “The catch for eight inch and greater perch has averaged 8.4/net and the proportion has averaged 34% since 2007. During the 2020 test netting assessments, Yellow Perch exceeding eight inches were sampled at a rate of 5.7/net and comprised 35% of the sample. This suggests roughly one third of perch caught while angling in 2021 will be of a size anglers elect to harvest.”

Northern Pike are another popular species with anglers and are well suited for Winnibigoshish and connected waters. We thought that our guests were catching pike of larger sizes during 2020 at least that was our observation.

Will the protected 22 to 26 inch slot result in a larger average size pike, who knows? One thing we do know is that anybody who wants to catch “eater” size pike on Winnie can certainly do it. According to the test net results, Lengths ranged from 15.1 to 28.8 inches with an average of 22.8 inches in 2020. With a bag limit of 10 fish under 22 inches, it doesn’t take long to gather enough fillets for fish fry, a plate of blackened pike or even better yet, coconut pike delight.

Panfish are important too, but for our guests, don’t receive a ton of attention until summer and fall. We’ll have plenty of time to bring you up to date articles and reports about panfish on Cutfoot and Winnie, so check back for frequent updates.

For now tough, the countdown to the opener has started and like most of our guests, we have walleyes on the brain!

By the way, if you’re in the neighborhood next weekend and want to avoid the large crowds, stop here and see us. We offer our boat ramp to the public for a modest fee and we’d love to see you.