Ballard's - Lake of the Woods, Minnesota

Hurray for March!

Hello sportfans.  And welcome to the weekly sparkle here on Minnesota’s Lake of the Woods.

Ice conditions…  Good.

Snow conditions…  Good.

Fishing action…  Ah…  For this past week…  Let’s call it anywhere from “poor” to “great”.

Yep.  Just like a yo-yo we’ve been bouncing up and down the fishing action grid for about the past four to five days.

From shack to shack the bite has really been hit and miss.  Some houses reporting the best walleye ice fishing ever.  Others reporting somewhere in between.  And on the lower spectrum, the duller end, it wasn’t such a great day type of response.  Which for our guides really can be summed up quite easily.  We are lacking consistency.

The good news is that some of our shacks are producing limits of walleyes.  This tidbit bodes well with most anglers.  But when you are lacking that overall consistency then it’s time to assess the current situation.

Right now we are sitting west of Knight and east of Garden.  Similar fishing circumstances in both locations.  Our monrning bite has been non-existent.  And the real fishing has been taking place from 2p on into the afternoon.  But that’s more than likely the result of your typical winter walleye bite.  Get them early in the day.  Or late in the afternoon.  And because we are traveling such a great distance it’s hard to cover both ends of the peak hours.

Our conclusion?  At least for now…  The guides met at lenght this morning and have decided to send some flyers back toward the mud-flats.  We need to find better overall numbers of fish.  And we also need to see a better mix of sauger in our walleye equation.  Maybe walleyes in the a.m., sauger mid-day, and walleye again toward later afternoon.  In a perfect world that is hopefully where the shacks will find a new home.

I would have to predict that this move will take us away from the reefs.  Seeing how they have really started to dry up for us…  We are not screaming “retreat retreat”.  But it’s most likely best to make a move right now.  Better overall fishing is what we’re looking for.

We have lots of fishing to do during the month of March.  As the only walleye game in the state of MN right now…  We’re hoping that a solid game plan will carry us through these final four to five weeks.

Hard to believe that winter has gone by this quickly!

So…  With that…  The great chase continues.  If you plan to be here this coming weekend I’m not sure you will see the likes of Garden or Knight.  But one thing remains.  Our guides have never sat idle waiting for fish to come to us.  We’ve got over 300,000 acres of water out there to work with.  And on Lake of the Woods, everyday, the walleyes and saugers are biting somewhere. 

As we re-locate one 8” hole at a time it will be interesting to see which produces better.  The March mud-flats or the distant reefs.  Time will tell.  Hope you’re here to add to the excitement!

Set the hook.