Walleye fishing on the huge Red Lake is a unique experience. It's divided into an upper and lower portion, and only about half of the upper portion is accessible to most anglers. The other two thirds is part of a Reservation. It gets a good amount of fishing pressure, and 30+ fish days aren't uncommon. The daily bag limit is 3 walleyes, and 17"-26" Red Lake walleye must be released immediately.
It seems like we always time our ice fishing trips during cold fronts, which severely hurts the fishing. High temperatures barely broke 0°F, and lows were around -15 with steady 20-30mph winds that pushed the wind chill near -40°. We started out fishing near a group of people who had been catching a few walleyes earlier in the week over 5 miles from shore. After catching only a few the first day, we decided to move to an inside bend in the 15 foot contour near a half mile long hump that topped out at 11 feet. Once again, we marked fish and caught a few, mostly between midnight and 3:00am on rattle reels using green and white glow teardrops with a back hooked fathead.
A second move took us closer to shore, on the 15 foot contour adjacent to a couple small 13 foot humps within a quarter mile. We marked a ton of fish, and caught a few more, but nothing too special. We caught more perch in that spot, and our biggest walleyes. The biggest, around 22-23", was caught at 4:00am. Fish that we did catch on jigging rods were with pink/red glow jigging spoons and a 1/4oz green leadhead jig. Dead sticking got more strikes than trying to move the bait any certain way.
Even though the fishing wasn't the best this weekend, we did manage our limit of 9 keeper walleyes, plus a few slot fish over 17", and about a dozen bonus perch. We will definitely be back at some point. Not to mention, the stars are absolutely stunning on a clear night!
