May 15, 2025 "Upper Red Lake Walleye Report"

On Tuesday, I promised to provide an update about our scheduled return trip to Upper Red Lake. The subject, to experiment more with presentations for walleyes, and whether or not crankbaits stacked up favorably against my preferred jig and minnow, or jigs and plastics presentation.

Okay, so we returned to Upper Red Lake on Wednesday, and we did fish with a variety of crank baits. The problem today is that I still can’t clain to make a 100% accurate comparison between the two presentations. Why not? Because once we started trolling with the fast-swimming lures , my crew took a liking to the presentation, and we never gave up on it for the entire day.

For one thing, they enjoyed the simplicity of using my line counter reels, once we figured out the right depths and speed, all they had to do was let the lures out 63 feet and hold on to the rods. They enjoyed too the intensity of the walleye strikes, unlike jig and minnow presentations, there is little doubt about how long to “finesse” a strike or knowing when it’s the right time to set the hook. When a fish strikes, reel it in, it’s pretty much that simple.

Essentially, the specifics about the fishing report are the same as they were yesterday. We still found walleyes scattered in small packs spread along the shoreline breaks. The seet spot was in 7 feet of water for me. If I explored deeper than about 8 feet there were very few fish and if I explored water any shallower than about 5 feet, there were also very few fish. So, I straddled the line between 6 and 8, doing my best to hold the depth at 7 feet on the nose.

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of “favorite” trolling lures, and figuring out the best crankbaits for any given day always involves experimentation. Yesterday, we experimented with a number of crank baits, including Salmo Hornets, Rapala’s traditional Shad Raps, Lindy’s clone of the Wally Diver, Berkeley’s Flicker Shads, and Rapala’s Husky Jerks. All of them caught at least a few fish, but there were three stand outs among them. Here they are in the accompanying photo, a chartreuse, green-chrome Flicker Shad, a purple-chrome Flicker Shed, and a “clown color”, Husky Jerk. Once we dialed in speed and distances, these lures did the lion’s share of the walleye catching on Wednesday.

My preferred trolling speed ranged between 2.5 and 3.1 mph and we tried to keep the lures running about a foot or so above the bottom. Like I said, 63 feet behind the boat seemed to be the magic number.

In terms of the size of fish we caught, I can’t say that trolling the lures improved, or didn’t improve the average size of the fish. To me, the mix of sizes was about the same as it had been on Tuesday while we were jigging. There were a large number of small fish in the 10-to-13-inch range. a fair number of keeper size fish in the 15 to 16-1/2 inch inch range and a handful of fish over 17 inches. We boated maybe 10 or 12 of them. The largest fish we caught on Wednesday was 22 1/2 inches, and it was an outlier, the rest of the over-size fish were 18 to 19 inches in length.

So, whether you prefer jigging or trolling, is how you should determine your approach when you visit Upper Red Lake. The trolling presentation turned out to be what I’ll call a great equalizer for my crew yesterday. Sometimes they struggle with jigging because it requires a lot of attention to detail. If you struggle with the finesse of a jig and minnow or a jig in plastic lure, you might find trolling more relaxing.

We have some turbulent weather headed our way, so water conditions will likely change soon. But for what it’s worth, the weather was warm, with very light breezes yesterday and the surface water temperature rose dramatically throughout the day. When we started fishing in the morning, water temperatures were about 60° and by the time we were done in the afternoon, had risen to almost 70°. I expect them to settle back into the low 60 degree range today. — Jeff Sundin, The Early Bird Fishing Guide Office Cell Call or Text 218-245-9858 or Email on Facebook on X

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May 14, 2025 "Upper Red Lake Walleye Report"

The walleye fishing on Upper Red Lake was different from what I’ve experienced in past seasons. It was good, or at least “good enough”, but didn’t dazzle us with any spurts of sizzling action as it has in past years. That may be on me, in that I never found a hot school of fish, or it might be that environmentally, the lake was different from typical opening weeks.

Surface water temperatures were cold, especially in the morning. Along the south shoreline near Morts Dock, 56 degrees was the low reading and heading west toward the rock pile varied between 57 and 58 degrees. In that region, walleyes were present, but widely scattered; we’d pick an occasional single, but never encountered a “school” of fish.

When we moved east, stopping near Roger’s Campground, we found somewhat better action, but still, no larger groups of fish. From there, moving further eastward, results varied slightly, but we similarly “slow-but-steady” until about 2:30 PM. That’s when water temperatures warmed into the 61 to 62 degrees range, and walleyes appeared to respond favorably. From then, until about 5:00 PM, we did have a few spurts of action, even a double or two before we ended the day.

What was still different, for me, was that even during the best period of action, I didn’t find any schools of fish up on top of the shallow flats. Instead of finding them in 3 to 6 feet of water, they seemed to prefer the 7-to-8-foot range. Maybe, if I’d spent the entire day fishing that “deeper” water, we’d have had more periods of faster action? I don’t know the answer to that question yet, but I will before the end of today. That’s right, we’re heading in that direction again this morning.

While we’re there today, I’ll check out another possible reason for our slower than average performance on Tuesday. “Crankbaits, if you’ve got ‘em, are working better than jigging right now. I’d fish crankbaits instead of jigs and minnows.” Advised by Mike at Mort’s Dock when we launched the boat. “Well, I don’t have any cranks with me.” I replied. “I guess you better stick with jigs and minnows then”, Mike responded with a chuckle.”

Jigs, 1/8-ounce sizes, tipped primarily with shiners was our main presentation. At times, I ran the same jigs tipped with Ripple Shads too. The pink-white version of their 3-inch size worked fairly well. The other colors that I tried were not as productive for me, but did land a few fish.

Okay, that’s the quick report from yesterday, and now ‘m in a rush to get out the door. I’ll expand on today’s report after I learn whatever I learn during the trip up there today. — Jeff Sundin, The Early Bird Fishing Guide Office Cell Call or Text 218-245-9858 or Email on Facebook on X

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