The walleye catching on both Winnie and Cutfoot continues to be great. It is not at all uncommon to hear reports from our guests about catching double digit numbers of fish on an average outing.

When it comes to catching big numbers of “keepers”, many have been perplexed. But even while there aren’t many folks reporting limits, most folks are catching enough eaters to provide for the traditional family fish fry.

Anglers with the best records for catching the smaller keepers tell us that the trick is to stay away from the crowds and explore fresh territory.

When you think about it, avoiding the well-known, crowded areas it makes a lot of sense. Whenever there are a lot of people fishing over the same school of fish, pressure on those keeper size fish is intense. After a day or two, many of the most willing biters have been removed and the remaining neutral or negative fish become much trickier to catch.

By nature, the larger “slot-fish” need to eat more and are more prone to being active under less than ideal fishing conditions. The result; folks who continue to fish pressured areas catch an increasing number of protected fish while the number of keepers in that area continues to decline.

We borrowed some information from one of the local guides who was on the lake this Monday. Spot-hopping, according to him has probably been the best strategy for increasing the number of keepers he adds to his customer’s creels. On Monday, he spent the entire day in Cutfoot Sioux, moving from one point to another catching and sorting fish until by the end of the day his crew had accumulated 10 keeper size fish.

Watching the wind and selecting spots where it will provide a good drift is one of the keys to his strategy. Look for every flat, point or weedbed where there’s a quartering wind that will allow you to control your drift along the breakline.

Make one initial drift to assess the number and size of fish on that spot. If there are active biters on a spot, you will only need one drift to find out. Whatever you catch on that first drift dictates whether you’ll make a second pass or not.

It may seem silly to move around so much, but consider this. Are you better off spending 3 hours on a single spot hoping for fish to find you or will you have more fun spending 2-1/2 hours searching for fish if the reward is 30 minutes of great walleye action?

Facts from the lake on Monday included surface water temperatures that were consistently below 65 degrees. The warmest area was 64.3 degrees and the coolest was 63.5 degrees. Partially due to the cool temperatures, water clarity is better than it was last year at this time, especially out on the big lake.

The added clarity means that cabbage patches are developing quickly and there are several expanses of very green, very healthy vegetation to explore. Walleyes, especially the smaller size fish are relating closely to the cabbage patches.

The best presentations for walleye over the past few days have been Lindy Rigging using leeches and wiggle worming using 1/8 ounce live bait jigs tipped with night crawlers. Anglers using jig and minnow combinations are catching some walleyes too, but fishing with minnows right now encourages a better pike bite than it does walleye.

Crappies no longer inhabit spawning areas, any of them that did spawn have moved out into the cabbage patches too. They are biting best during very early morning and very late evening. Creeping along the weed edges, casting small jigs tipped with artificial action tails will produce the most fish.