NW Angle report

[stjoeguy]

Our group of 8 guys just got back from Sunset Lodge on Oak Island up in the NW Angle of Lake of the Woods. Fishing was slow but we all had a good time. Half of the guys had little or no ice fishing experience. One of the guys is from Virginia so after riding across the ice from Young's Bay out to Oak Island he can now tell his southern buddies he's officially an "ice road trucker".

The first day the temp was started about 15 and fell throughout the day with a 20 mph wind. We rode the bombardier out about 35 minutes to our fish houses on the Minnesota side to fish for walleye and sauger. The houses were over 26' of water. Like I said, fishing was slow. We were in two houses and early on one of the guys came over from the 2nd house and said they had a a 33" fish. One of our contests was for the biggest walleye so we thought the contest was over early. It didn't take long, however, before someone confessed that the fish was a northern. Turns out the biggest walleye was 21.25". I think it was the only fish in the slot. We wound up with around 16 walleyes and 10 saugers to bring home in addition to the 7 we had as appetizers one night. The smallest fish contest was won by a 6" walleye with a couple 6.25" close behind. We also brought home a few jumbo perch and one big tullibee.

Then it got cold overnight and the next day was -15 but little wind. That second day we fished for crappies in houses on the Ontario side in 32' after about a 45 minute bombardier ride out. Again fishing was slow, but the crappies we got were very nice. We wound up with 26 crappies. The smallest two were about 12" but the rest were all nice 14" slabs. Biggest was 14.25" so the action was slow but the crappies were good sized. The bite was very light so many times there was no bite detected until you felt the weight while lifting the jig.

I like Sunset Lodge because of the option of fishing both the Minnesota side and the Canada side. We had the meal plan and all the food was great. Nice bar, too. Our fishing could have been better, but hey, that's fishing.