January 1st, 2020 Fishing Report and Ice Report

Happy New Year! We have had some crazy weather rain, snow, sleet, and back to snow! The rain took the snow off the lakes so there is little to no snow on the ice in the Annandale area of the state! This is good for Ice Making. I checked the ice and found 8-12 inches of ice mostly 10-12 and I expect with little to no snow the ice making shall make some progress over the next week! I expect to be seeing a few cars driving out on the lake in the next few days. As far as the ice conditions up on Upper Red Lake most resorts have closed the accesses due to flooding on the ice and opening back up the ice roads. I am seeing some reports from lake of the woods. It seems the reports I am seeing from Lake of the woods the ice roads are holding up well and open for business.

Fishing has been good. The best crappie bite has been from 3:30-6:30 early evening. The walleyes have been moving out deeper into 26-29 Feet of water during the day and moving back into 16-19 Feet of water during the low light hours. We have our small guide shack two bunk sleeper house out on a crappie spot that has been producing some nice crappies. Tungsten jigs tipped with Wax worms and crappie minnows have been working well. While the camera was down in the house we have walleyes, crappies, small mouth, pike and sunfish all moving under the house.

If you would like to book a guided outing or a rental please call! Leave a message if we do not answer as I am most likely out on the lake or doing snowmobile rentals.

 

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12/26/2019 Fishing Report and Ice Report

It has been a busy week with the Christmas Holiday and all the family gatherings! I had a customer do a hook and go rental up to Upper Red Lake with our Ice Castle before Christmas. This was the first Ice fishing trip this family has ever done and the first time they have ever been ice fishing! I gave them pointers and told them to give West Wind Resort on Upper Red Lake a try and they did. They fished for two nights and three days. The first day they set up in 8 Ft of water. It was dark out so they did not venture out to far and decided they would wait until the morning and go farther out onto the lake. In the morning they woke up and moved the house out about 1.5 miles and fished in the dirty broken ice and caught fish. I am not sure how many fish they caught total but for the first time ever going fishing for this family it sounds like they did pretty good! As far as Ice goes this area of Upper Red Lake is sitting on 15-16 inches of Ice. Pictures below are from the customers who just got back. Special thanks to the Sandoval family for the business. Also one advantage to doing a hook and go rental is you can go to a fishing destination that has favorable Ice, Fishing, and weather conditions.

I have another customer that left this morning to go to Upper Red Lake. I told them to give West Wind a try also! As far as the ice around the Annandale area I have not been checking ice much as I do not think we have gained much ice. Last time I was out I was finding 8-9 inches of ice. I plan on going out Friday to check a few lakes. We do have our 4 hole guide shack open for $100/day and it is on Walleyes.

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12/12/2019 Guide Shack Is ready for Customers

Today We had 6 inches of Ice on one of the lakes we guide on. So we took out the Guide shack. I have it set up on a sunken log. We put the camera down and saw three big small mouth bass, a crappie, and I then saw a walleye move in and caught it. This guide shack rents for $100 for the day. Call to reserve your rental.

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12/11/2019 Ice Report and Fishing

Well we have had some cold weather this week! Felt good to set the hook ona few walleyes today. I measured 5-6 inches of ice today. I am moving my 4 hole guide shack out on the ice tomorrow and staging it for the weekend. There is about 2-3 inches of snow on the lake. We are getting another inch or two tonight according to the weather machine. I am predicting by the middle of next week we should be around 10-12 inches of ice assuming the snow does not insulate the ice to much. Upper Red Lake is allowing wheel houses out so if anyone wants to rent the Hook and go rental it is ready to go for the weekend.

As far as fishing went today I caught 4 walleyes two keepers a 19 inch and a 17 inch, a 31.5 inch cat fish that was the largest catfish I have every caught while ice fishing was fun getting it through a 7 inch hole, I caught a 19.5 inch small mouth along with a 16.5 inch small mouth, Saw one school of crappies pass by about 3-4 feet off the bottom of the lake. I left my phone at home so couldn’t take pictures of the giant small mouth and the giant cat fish! Anyways the two walleyes pictured below are from this morning! We still have the guide shack open for this weekend. Call to reserve 320-310-9089

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Only a few days until we start our 2019 /2020 Ice Fishing Season

Wow it has been awhile since I have posted a report. Looks like we are going to have a long Ice Fishing Season this year. I am going to hold off until after the weekend to check ice as I am going to spend this weekend Bow hunting one last time before I make the big transition into the ice fishing. This Season we are doing things a little different. The last two seasons we guided with the Sno bear. This season we lowered our guided Fishing pricing down to $200 for a half day and $300 for a full day. We will be guiding this season with the following Yamaha Snowmobiles, The 4 hole Guide Shack, and Otter Portables. We have pricing set up for multiple day packages per person also. As far as the Ice Castle Fish Houses at this time I am only taking reservations on our Hook and Go Rental. This House is the one posted in the video. This Ice house is for the family that wants to go to a fishing destination of there choice.

Check back next week for a ice and fishing report!

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6/1/2019 Fishing Report

Well we have the cabin rentals up and running along with the boat rentals. We had a family send us some pictures of some fish. They found some nice crappies, a 34 inch pike and 3 walleyes! They had a great time. Pictures below are from the guest! If you are interested in a cabin or lake home rental let us know!

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February 18th, 2019 Fishing Report

We set out to find the Pike and Walleye this past weekend! We had around a foot and a half of snow on the lake so the plow and tire chains came in handy. I think its time for new tire chains as I broke 3 links and had to bolt the links together to keep on going. I think its also time for some new tires on the Ford Plow truck as we have been putting on miles this year hitting lakes all over MN. I plowed out spots for 6 groups this last weekend. 5 groups on a shallow 1000 Acre lake primarily fished for bigger pike and walleye. The other house was in 24ft of water fishing for crappies and walleye. The house on the smaller lake caught 6 walleyes and 6 pike 3 pike in the 22 inch – 26 inch slot that had to go back.

The other lake that I had 5 groups set up on the fishing was mostly a waiting game. I had two groups that really wanted to bag some pike and those two groups did not do as good as the other three groups. The other three groups did mostly catch and release so they put most of the pike back. That is the way it goes. We had sightings of walleyes on the camera last weekend but the walleyes just did not want to commit on the 1000 Acre lake besides one. Most of the walleyes we catch on this lake are 20+ inches along with some big girls 25 inches + so I feel that some of the lines that got bite off were the bigger walleyes. I kept hearing from a few groups that the hook sets felt like a giant log and then the lines snapped. Customers did say that they were not prepared for the bigger fish. I do still have one hook and go rental up on Lake Of The Woods so I look forward to hearing that report. Its always interesting to see sometimes customers go 300 miles on hook and go rentals and we end up catching more fish around home. Not always the case but that is fishing for you. Sometimes we see customers catch more fish on larger bodies of water and sometimes we catch more fish on smaller bodies of water. One thing I do know is we usually always catch something down in the Wright and Meeker county lakes.

For this weekend coming up we do have a sno bear outing open for Sunday. I have a guided package with 4-5 guys showing up on Friday. I am thinking we will chase crappies and blue gills and set up some portable shacks not far from the Grand castle for them to hop into for the low light hour bite for those bigger walleyes. As far as the 8 x 16 ice houses and the other grand castle they are all going on hook and go rentals. One is going to Mille Lacs and the other two are going up to the famous EelPout Festival. Today it was around 10 degrees and little to no wind so was comfortable out on the ice moving fish houses. As walleye and pike season will close at Midnight on February 24th we will then be on the crappie bite for the rest of the season.

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2/12/2019 Fishing Report and Ice Conditions

Well we sure have had lots of snow this year! The plow truck is getting some hours put on it. In the Annandale area we are seeing around 20 inches of snow on the lake now. Last time I checked was 22 inches of Ice. We might have a few more inches now. We have covered a ton of Ice in the last week. Over the last week we have been fishing on 4 different lakes. We are doing better in the Annandale area then the Leech Lake area so plan on staying in the Annandale area. We did a guided outing on Leech lake and hit a small lake off a logging trail and barely made it off that lake with a slush pocket the sno bear barely made it across. We did find the fish with the panoptix but hole hopping in 35 inches of snow can be a challenge and tire a guy out. So we caught a couple crappies and sunfish and decided to get back out onto Leech and try for Walleyes and Tulibee. The walleye fishing on Leech was slow for us. All I can say about Leech Lake is even track vehicles are struggling to get around up there so we are going to stick within 30 miles of Annandale area as the lakes are easier getting around on and the fishing has been better for us.

As far as customers doing hook and go rentals we are offering plowed spots with your hook and go rental with no extra cost in the Annandale area. This weekend we are running the sno bear Friday Saturday and Sunday. Monday we still have a openings for those of you with kids out of school give us a call! We have been fishing 19 Feet of water for Sunfish and crappies on one lake and another lake we are fishing Crappies in 43 feet of water.

This weekend we are going after big pike and big walleyes. I have saved a few spots for this weekend and am exited to see what this lake is going to produce! This lake also produces some nice Jumbo perch at times. We will be fishing 12.-13.5 Ft of water for the walleyes and pike. Give us a call if you want to get on some fish!
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January 30th 2019 Fishing Report

Wow the last few days the reel feel has been -60 degrees with a low temperature of -30 and I still have people out fishing. Its been a honor to bring out two American Veterans Ice Fishing for a non profit and a group from Oklahoma. Fishing has been on the slower side. The ones who have fished in the Sno Bear are catching more fish. I set up two Ice Houses in separate areas of the lake. The crappies and sunfish will not stay put. The pike just keep chasing them around in the bays. The sno bear has been the ticket to help catch fish by having 3-4 sets of holes for the sno bear to hope around on the same holes. Garmin Panoptix has been a huge help finding the fish and staying on top of them with the Sno Bear. Customers have been staying warm in the ice houses. Have had to swap out a few warm propane tanks with cold ones to keep the propane flowing. 18-20 Feet of water seems to be the best depths. We will see what tomorrow brings. This weekend we have really nice weather. We are going from one extreme to the other. -30 below to 35 degrees. I look forward to the sno bear outings Saturday and Sunday. Will be nice actually getting out of the Sno bear this weekend and doing some hole hopping! We did have about 4 inches of fresh snow on the lake the wind blew most of the snow off the lake. As far as bait we have been buying big tubs of wax worms as we have been releasing lots of smaller sunfish. Spring bobbers have been the ticket for the light bite.  Below is a quick video of what it looked like on the lake on January 29th, 2019 with the wind blowing. Days like this I realize how nice it is fishing inside the sno bear. Also a picture below my customer lost a lure to a pike and then caught the pike again so they got the lure back!

 

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January 26th, 2019 Ice Report and Fishing Report

We have a group from Texas and Colorado in town for work and they got to experience Ice Fishing for the first time. They have been catching pike, crappies and blue gills and it has been consistent even with the cold weather. I have a repeat customer coming in from Oklahoma on  Monday for a few days of fishing. We have 20-22 inches of ice on the lakes. We are fishing in 19 ft of water for the pan fish. We do have 6-8 inches of snow foretasted that is much needed so we can bank the ice houses. We do have guided sno bear outings available and ice houses open call to reserve a outing 320-310-9089

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