STRUCTURE-FISHING with Mark O'Neill

Lake of the Woods Fishing

Lake of The Woods Accommodations

Rod and Reel Resort (Sioux Narrows area) - http://www.rodandreelresort.com/
Shangri-La Camp (Sioux Narrows area) - http://www.shangrilacamp.ca/
Crawfords Camp (Sioux Narrows area) - http://www.crawfordscamp.com/
Tomahawk Resort (Sioux Narrows area) - http://www.tomahawkresort.com/

Witch Bay Camp (Kenora area) - http://www.witchbay.com/

Lake of The Woods Guides

Darcy's Guide Service - http://www.darcysguideservice.com/

Lake of the Woods Report

9/9/19 Spent 8 days on LOTW over the Labor Day holiday with a group of six fellow anglers. My time was split between doing some walleye fishing and also participating in my first tournament, Bassin' for Bucks. Both were fun and productive, but ultimately we had to withdrawal from the tournament because of a bout with what appeared to be food poisoning. But I have to say, I learned a lot about tournament fishing, the build up, the planning and also about how the team must have a common direction and be able to adapt to changes. I also learned that I have much to learn about bass fishing on LOTW, as most of my time is usually spent fishing for walleye when I am there. But regardless, it was a very educational event for me as I got to fish areas on the water that I had never fished before and also use techniques I had never applied before as well.

As far as the fishing, the group caught a lot of fish during the trip including walleye, SMB, LMB, crappie, perch, pike, sauger and also a few run-ins with some muskie as well. I did not spend as much time walleye fishing as I normally do on LOTW, but the fish I did catch were very solid fish with the bigger ones coming from the Whitefish Bay area.

The highlight of my week came on the last day fishing by myself when I landed my fish of the week, a 29 inch walleye that weighted in at just under 10 pounds

So my 2019 LOTW season has come to a close. The entire Midwest of the US and lower part of Canada experienced one of the most bizarre weather years I have seen which caused fishermen this year to be very adaptive. Having to be adaptive is not necessarily a bad thing though, as it causes one to fish in manners and places outside one's comfort zone and in the end one learns things that one may not have known before.

6/9/19 Images from our spring 2019 LOTW trip, the weather cooperated and we caught a ton of fish including walleye, perch, smallmouth, pike, sauger and lake trout. No one in the group experienced any issues with their boats, trailers, etc, which is always a plus.

I was able to put the Lowrance Livesight transducer through some final testing before release, I have to admit the downward view is amazing when vertical fishing, the coverage area is greatly improved over traditional sonar.

It will be interesting to see where this technology leads, but I have to admit it is amazing to see the fish live as the are chasing ones bait.

Thanks again to the folks at the Rod & Reel Resort for all their help during our stay and of course also to Allison for the great food.

9-10-18 Did two trips this year to LOTW this year, the first in early June and then one last week during the first week of September. Much of my time on the first trip was spent breaking in and rigging my new Ranger 620T, but I still did manage to get in some quality fishing. Had success with plenty of walleye, some Lake Trout, perch, SMB and of course some pike action.

On our September trip, I did not have to worry about rigging, so it was all fishing. Once again the walleye did not disappoint, with high numbers of walleye and smallmouth caught by the group. First fish in the boat for me was this nice walleye below, but the issue was we were catching primarily nice solid 14 to 17 inch walleyes on main basin reefs, but we lacked numbers of larger fish.

So what did we do, we started with a clean slate, used our electronics and went after new areas and depths. Well it worked as we found nicer fish and then at the same time discovered new fishing waters.

What we also discovered was that primarily in Whitefish Bay, we were fishing too shallow. I was marking larger fish in the deeper 34-36 foot range off of the reefs, but in the early part of the week, we could not get those fish to bite. Well by the end of the week that all changed and we were able to connect with those larger fish

Lesson learned from this trip, never get comfortable just fishing the same old areas you are used to fishing on each trip, try new waters.

9-7-17 More than likely my last trip to LOTW for the 2017 season, but honestly this is my favorite time of year to fish this great body of water. Spent five days on the water doing some fishing and some testing of some new units and software. Fishing was very good with numbers of walleye, pike, smallmouth and perch caught. Lake trout fishing has been challenging since the spring on LOTW, only heard of one nice fish being caught during the time i was there.

Much of my time on the water during the trip was spend testing, where many times I am by myself. This can make getting quality pictures a challenge and once in awhile, netting can also be a challenge. I lost my fish of the week, a nice 29-30 inch class Whitefish Bay walleye right at the side of the boat. Had a long fight (I thought it might have been a trout), the fish was resting at the side of the boat, reached for my net and the fish gave one last head shake and there went my jig out of his mouth! Oh well, was fun to catch and it is always an experience to fight and see a fish in that size range.

In addition to the fishing and testing, I also did a lot of the leg work for an upcoming webinar I will be doing entitled "SonarCharts Live with Lowrance Carbon 12 on New Waters" on October 19th. I fished many new areas I had never fished before on LOTW and was able to get some just incredible results.

6-14-17 Traveled to Sioux Narrows, ON last week and stayed at the Rod & Reel Resort once again from June 2nd through the 9th. The fishing was very good with high numbers of fish caught every day. Many very solid walleye in the 16 -17 inch range, obviously they had a very good year class that produced a very healthy number of fish in that range which is good to see for the future. Overall size of the fish were down on this trip, but our group did manage a number of fish in the 23-26 inch range.

We had a variety of species that were caught including walleye, perch, pike, sauger, SMB, lake trout, whitefish and two muskies caught by accident. The walleyes were somewhat scattered with the larger walleyes caught in Whitefish Bay being in very shallow water as compared to the deeper walleyes caught in the Sunset Channel area. SMB were on fire and could be caught casting in the shallows, but many were caught deep as well.

An added bonus for me in fishing the Sioux Narrows area is having the ability to also fish the deeper waters of the Whitefish Bay area. One of my favorite types of fishing is using my Lowrance electronics to sight-fish the deeper water for lake trout and whitefish. We did manage to catch a few, which is always an added bonus of a LOTW trip.

So of course it wouldn't be a Canadian trip without a shore lunch. We have been doing these for a number of years and have them pretty dialed in at this point. Everybody in the group helps out and that helps things go pretty smooth. We did manage to do two during the week and they are a nice change of pace where we can get together and talk about the days results.

Once again we had a great trip! The accommodations and food were great at the Rod & Reel, the weather was good (we didn't have any severe storms), fishing was fantastic and we had great company. Who could ask for anything else out of a Canadian fishing trip.

Until next time....

7-21-16 Was in the Sioux Narrows area with a group from Walleyes Unlimited USA from July 16-23rd for their annual outing. Fishing was very good with the group catching a mixed bag of walleye, smallmouth, perch, lake trout, pike musky and sauger.

Walleye fishing was productive, with a number of walleyes being caught. We did not find the big girls, but did manage to catch a number of fish in the 24 to 25 inch range.

The weather started out very nice, but after a few days we were hit with the same very warm weather that all of the Midwest had been experiencing. With that warm weather, storms can also be a part of the equation and we got hit with a big one. Using the Lowrance weather module to track the storms, I could see the storm quickly grow and I knew we had to head for cover. All of the group got through the storm without incident and it was also a great test for my new rain gear and boat. I have to say, my new Cabela's Guidewear Xtreme rainsuit is by far the best rain gear I have ever owned. Going through this storm while motoring on a tiller boat, upon returning to the camp I was completely dry underneath the rain gear, pretty amazing! The Alumacraft Competitor 205 Tiller handled the squall very well, no issues with the high wind and waves, only issue was that I could not see five feet in front of the boat!

So in addition to fishing, I was also there testing some new software updates for various Lowrance and Simrad products. Being on LOTW is a great way to test these updates considering we are on the water all day long for a number of days. The new Alumacraft 205 Competitor Tiller is set up to handle multiple MFD's and is also wired so that units can be switched out and changed to try numerous combinations easily.

So one can't go to Canada without having at least one shore lunch. Been doing these for years so they are pretty fine-tuned at this point. It is a nice way to break up the day a bit and get together.

This was a great trip with good company, fishing, food and accommodations.

I will be posting some of the Lowrance screen shots and such later from the trip, but here are some more images.

7-11-16 I will be heading up to LOTW later in the week to the Rod & Reel Resort in Sioux Narrows, ON with a group from Walleyes Unlimited, USA for their annual trip. Should be a great week, how could it not when we are on Lake of the Woods!? So in addition to fishing, some of the group will be doing a SonarChart event for Navionics where we will be accumulating more data on this great body of water. So the cool thing is once we are done, the data we collect will be available for all from Navionics.

For anyone that has fished LOTW, there is very limited data available, especially on the north side of LOTW. Up until recently, this is what was available for most on the northern side of LOTW:

Navionics is now adding data to Canadian waters, and some of that data is coming from SonarChart events such as what we will participate with later in the week. In the end, the LOTW and Canadian chart data will continue to evolve and improve from Navionics as a result. So here is what the same area now looks like on the most recent Navioncs charts:

6-5-16 Traveled to the Sioux Narrows area in Ontario for the first trip to LOTW of the 2016 season. Fishing started slow, but picked up after we had some rain and storms move through. We caught walleyes in 4 to 40 feet of water in the beginning of the week, as they were very scattered at that point. By the end of the week, the fish finally started grouping up and the primary depth range then turned out to be the 26 to 30 foot range. In the end, the walleye fishing was very good and we ended up with a few 100 plus walleye days in the boat as the fishing conditions improved throughout the week. The walleye of the week was a nice 29.75 inch caught in 35 feet of water.

The numbers were up as far as walleyes go, we caught many nice solid 16 to 18 inch fish, but we failed to connect with numbers of what I would consider the mid size fish in the 21 to 26 inch range.

There were also some nice bonus fish caught as well. We always try and spend some time using our Lowrance sonars to look for some lake trout and whitefish and we were not to be disappointed. My partner Geno hooked into a nice 31 inch lake trout and I was able to find some nice whitefish where we used the Lowrance sonar to sight fish for them, always a lot of fun doing that.

So our group had a great week and we caught a mix of walleye, perch (a number of 13 inch plus), smallmouth, sauger, pike, eelpout, whitefish, lake trout and even a few muskies that chased our fish and baits. I will return to the area in July and I am already looking forward to that.

9-8-15 Was in the Sioux Narrows area for a quick trip over the Labor Day holiday from September 4-6th, manager to get in three days of fishing in while doing some product testing.

Walleye fishing was very good and we spent some of the time targeting the larger walleyes closer to camp in the Whitefish Bay area with success. Lake Trout fishing has been very spotty this year, with many of the fish showing in the water column on our Lowrance units that would follow but not commit to taking the bait. Still a great weekend and a great way to close out my 2015 LOTW season.

7-21-15 Was in the Sioux Narrows area with a group from Walleyes Unlimited USA from July 11-18th. Fishing was very productive with the group catching a mixed bag of walleye, smallmouth, perch, lake trout, whitefish, pike and sauger.

Walleye fishing was very good, but the larger walleyes were in much shallower water than one would expect in July. Water temperatures were much higher than last year at this time and the water level has come up some and continues to stabilize.

Did some deeper product testing using a Simrad GO7 unit combined with an Airmar TM150 transducer which yielded great results. One can clearly see the one once jig being flaunted in front of the fish, does not get much better than this. Sight fishing for deep water fish.....

6-6-15 So I have returned from my first trip to LOTW of the 2015 season…. The water level is down, but rising slowly, so one has to be careful. Fish numbers for the week were way up but the overall size of the fish on the average was down some but still managed some nice fish like this quality 28.5 inch walleye shown below. Our group had much success with many other different species as well, many quality Smallmouth, Pike, Perch (up to 13 inches), Lake Trout, Whitefish and Musky (42 inches by mistake casting for Smallmouth). My guess is as the water temperatures rise some, things will stabilize. Still a great week of fishing and looking forward to the next trip in July.

28.5 inch Walleye

Sight Fishing for Lake Trout, I hooked into the largest Whitefish I have ever caught, as seen above on the screen shot from my Lowrance HDS-9 Gen 3

8-30-14 Was up at LOTW doing some mapping and new products testing for two days. Was out on the last afternoon fishing in Whitefish Bay. Who would of thought with a bright sky and in the heat of the afternoon with no wind, caught nothing but Walleyes between 22 inches and 28, great way to finish my LOTW season of 2014.

7-19-14 Had a group outing from Walleyes Unlimited USA in Sioux Narrows at the Rod & Reel Resort from July 12-19. The water level is up to the highest level in 50 years, but most resorts have adapted the best they can, but effect of this years weather will be felt for a few years unfortunately. The trip started out with high winds and rain for the first two days but then things settles down some. Walleye fishing was great as it always is this time of the year and the Pike were active as well. The water temperature is about 10 degrees behind last year and that combined with the Mayfly hatch being late this year, Lake Trout are shallower than normal and are co-operating as well. Ran into Musky Guide Darcy Finlan from Darcy's Guide Service at the docks, he has been getting it done for his clients for the big toothy critters, see image below for one. All in all, it was a great week and a great time to be fishing the big waters of LOTW.

6-8-14 So I have returned from LOTW…. The trip went very well, but started slow. The harsh winter I think has had a bearing on this spring, up at LOTW as well as the entire Midwest. At LOTW they went from ice on the lake to 60 degree water temps in about a two week period, I have never seen that before. At the start of the week the fish were very scattered and hard to catch consistently, they were in 4 to 36 foot of water. After a day or two, a front came through with rain all day and that seemed to drop the water temps and that helped. From there on out, the fishing just got better and better for the rest of the week and I am sure that pattern will just keep improving. I will have to say though, I think the spawn will not be very good this year, half of the walleyes we caught had not spawned and many of the males were still “milking”, even though we were in June with water temps in the sixties. The smallmouth were on fire all week and were still all pre-spawn, from what I see the class of SMB just gets bigger and bigger every year there. We did manage to get walleyes up to 30 inches and pike up to 42 inches, and everyone caught a mess of fish and had a great safe week.

Lake of the Woods Fishing

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