Guests who fished during the opening week of walleye season found a classic post spawn, cold water pattern on Lake Winnie. 

It has been a couple of weeks since spawning walleyes made their move through Little Cut Foot. With the spawning run completed, female walleyes have already moved out and were found migrating away from Cut Foot and into the big lake. At this stage of the season, fishing can be a little “hit and miss” and that’s what we’ve observed so far.

Because of the cold water temperatures, there was little incentive for most of the migrating fish to move shallow and feed. Instead, they closely followed traditional migration routes along shoreline breaks and along the river channels. Anglers who found and fished along those migration routes were rewarded with good catches.

Areas that produced well for our guests included the gap, the Mississippi River channel, the Three Sisters and the north shore between Farley Creek and Stony Point. The key depth we’ve heard mentioned repeatedly was 9 feet, but there were fish caught as shallow as 5 feet and as deep as 16 feet. Almost all the fishing activity was focused on shoreline related structure. 

Anglers did not stray from traditional presentations, 1/18 jig heads tipped with minnows is an early season mainstay for Winnie and Cutfoot. Some folks also fished with Lindy Rigs tipped with minnows and reported success, especially when they marked fish on their electronics that would not respond to more aggressive jigging styles.

Perch were active over the weekend too, many of them appeared to be in “pre-spawn” condition. Females had not yet dropped their eggs and were fat and aggressive. There is no telling how long the perch action will last because their spawning run should begin in earnest very soon. But most folks who catch perch this time of year do so while they are in pursuit of walleyes. When we run into them during spring, we consider them a bonus.

Later this summer, perch fishing could receive a lot of attention on this page. Over the past couple of seasons, the huge population bubble of small perch began to decline. As the numbers dropped, the average size went up and over this past winter, there were good numbers of good size perch caught on Winnie. 

Panfish anglers didn’t show up in large numbers over the weekend — they rarely do. But looking ahead at the weekend forecast, it won’t be surprising if we see folks checking out the back bays and shallow water flowages. Crappie spawning won’t begin until water temperatures warm up, but they may move in for a short time to feed before that happens. Warm, sunny days would move them shallow, while cloudy days would push them to the breakline.

Shiners have been in short supply so far and the predicted warm up would be a welcome sight for minnow trappers who work on Winnie. We’ll keep you posted about shiner runs as they progress and let you know when we have them for sale in our bait tanks.