Multi species bonanza on Lake of the Woods

[Halversons on Crow Lake]

Sorry for the delay since our last fishing report but we have some good up to date info. First off the travel conditions on Lake of the Woods are not as easy as in the past. The ice road past Cyclone Point has been closed due to bad ice on the road itself. You are still able to park at the closure and go by sled from there. While on sleds we caution everyone that the drifts have hardened and are like little ice ramps. Travel is still comfortable at the right speeds. For those traveling by truck the ice road does still allow travel to Cyclone and also away's towards Wolf Island.
Reports on the Crappie bite have been mixed. What we are finding is we have to be mobile if we really want to stay on top of the fish. Drilling ten to fifteen holes on a spot allows you to cover the area by moving hole to hole. Seeing some decent size crappies the majority being females. Sand Bay is starting to produce and it has been a morning bite. The nice thing about fishing here is that an angler has the option of releasing a fish. This is due to the fact you are only fishing nineteen feet instead of the standard forty feet. Glow pink tear drop jigs tipped with a small minnow through the lips worked out well for us. When the crappie started to get finicky we went to dead sticking a lively minnow. With Sand Bay starting to produce we should soon start to see some action in Stevens Bay.
If your looking to catch big pike now is the time to target them. We have been fishing points adjacent to deeper bays and doing quite well. These areas right now have jumbo perch and the most unbelievable schools of tullibees we have seen. These guys are great smoked. The pike are cruising through the areas to feed and more often then not are willing to hit a spoon tipped with a ciscoe filet. Take the filet and salt it overnight and it will harden making an excellent tail for jigging. As for the jumbo perch and I mean jumbo they can at times be annoying but also just a blast on light tackle. We cleaned some for guests and they were awesome with no worms. The smaller perch still seem to have the highest concentration of worms but these jumbos are great eaters. We highly recommend it for kids as it seriously is non stop action. Mix that in with the hard fighting tullibees and even some of the seasoned anglers there had big smiles. Small 1/8 ounce jigs tipped with a minnow or plastic twister work well.
We are finally starting to see a consistent evening bite for walleyes. We are fishing twenty to twenty five feet of water. Humps and saddles have produced quite well. We are hearing reports of a few fish being caught at the falls also. Standard jig and minnow has produced. The do-all jigger tipped with a minnow has been an excellent choice also. We find the six to dark bite has been the most promising. As the season progresses anglers will have a shot at some monster walleye. We remind every one these are going to be spawning fish and should be released if possible.
Crow has remained fairly consistent on the trout bite. White tubes tipped with a shiner seems to be producing the most aggressive hits. We are seeming some nice fish caught and released. We are really looking forward to ice out fishing. For those who have never experienced ice out trout fishing it is a shallow water blast.
 Well good luck and hope to see you out there

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