Lake of the woods

[goUofM]

Heading to Lake of the Woods and staying in a sleeper shack. We have done this trip several times and always had a blast! My question is would it be worth the hassle to bring shiner minnows instead of using the flat heads provided?

[Figure ate]

I was up there last week. The bigger your minnows are, the better. I brought some 4-7 inch sucker minnows and caught a ton of nice fish on them. If the shiners you get are big, bring them

[Steelshot Loaded Shotgun]

We always bring shiners with us.  A bubbler is needed for the bait box, unless frozen shiners are used.  We don't purchase our shiners at LOTWs, usually they are not available north of Kelliher, MN.  We have also had great luck with rainbow chubs if you can find them.

[Herms]

Any updates on how LOTW is doing so far this year?  A group of us will be going up in  weeks out of Morris Point to be specific.

[UFCreel]

If you have Facebook. Join Lake of the Woods Fishing. It has plenty of info and up to date reports.

[bboT]

We were up Jan 12-15 out of Morris Point.  Temperature took a sudden drop and barometric pressure was all over the place, we didn't fare well.  No one we met did either.  Fish would charge up to the bait and just stare mostly.  We only kept five sauger and one walleye the entire trip.  Mostly caught 10-12" sauger and far far below normal action, maybe two-four per person per day.  Not one on a shiner, even tried waxies, caught all on whole fatheads.  I would have liked to try suckers or rainbows, just something bigger.  Mostly bare red or pink hooks in the back near the head but a few on pink/white jigs through the head.  Tail hooking didn't seem to work.  Also barely jigging or just a dead stick.  Just an odd weekend for us all around.  Good luck all.