Ballard's - Lake of the Woods, Minnesota

Stretching out the bait fishing…

Hello sportsfans…  And welcome to the weekly blast here on Minnesota’s Lake of the Woods.

What’s hot?  The weather.  The fishing.  The fun.

What’s not?  I guess I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Early August has treated us pretty decent so far.  We’re still able to catch fish in the flats and on the rock humps…  But it is taking a bit more effort.

What?  More effort?  What say you?

Well here’s the skinny…  August has for a long long time been considered a great month for walleyes.  And it still is.  But what’s changing is “how we get ‘em”.

It used to be, in days gone by, that a whole lot of our effort was concentrated on trolling the flats with crank-baits.  AKA “downrigging”.  Well over the past couple of seasons this has gradually began to change.  For whatever reason the bait (hook-n-line) fishing has given us a new twist out in the mud, and consequently we are riding the wave.

If anything we’re just finding new ways to catch more walleyes with traditional methods that produce similar results.  Either way for the angler planning to fish with us in August we’ve got a host of techniques that we can throw at the walleyes.

Lately we’ve been drifting the mud with spinners and crawlers.  And on top of that we’re still finding fish on the rock piles in areas further north.  Again good numbers of fish and some quality action.

What we are seeing by “stretching out the bait fishing” is that some days you have to search a little bit farther and chase somewhat more aggressively until you find that active school of walleyes that you are looking for.

In a nutshell…  Right now…  You can catch walleyes trolling, drifting, or jigging.  Kinda the best of all mixed into one.  And each day is different as to which technique might be best.

Good bets?  The mud in 30-32 feet of water from Morris to Zippel to Long Point.  The reefs on Little Traverse.  That’s where we’ve been spending most of our time.

As far as the numbers game for fish counts we’ve probably seen a drop compared to July.  But the overall quality of the fishing is still quite good.  Where as we might have seen 80-100 fish per boat per day numbers in July…  Now we are seeing more 40-60 fish per boat per day numbers in August.  At least for the first ten days of the month… 

It will be interesting to see how the balance of August carries out.  And whether or not we’ll actually see the guides put the downriggers on their boats this summer.  Right now I’d have to say it’s about a 50/50 deal.  Some may and some may not.  I guess that’s fishing.  You just never know.

Either way…  We’ll be “gettin’ ‘em”.

Set the hook!