NWBuck
PMA Member
See if I can help breathe a little life into the fishing forum. My wife, son, nephew and I recently returned from a trip to Lake of the Woods. We did a 3 day charter trip out of Ballards, and it was great. Second time we've done this trip in recent years, and once again, it did not disappoint. Here are a few of the highlights.
Matthew's best walleye of the trip. Beauty of a slot fish about 26 inches.
My best...a little over 24.
Hunter with a perfect eater.
And eat we DID! In addition to having fish back at the resort a couple of nights, we took a break from fishing one of the days to enjoy a shore lunch with a couple other boats on a nearby island. Spectacular!!
Some of you may be able to relate to this next picture. Whenever my wife Chantal goes along, it's pretty much a given that she's going to catch the big fish of the trip. This time was no exception. On day 2 she boated this beautiful 29 incher...somewhere in the 8-9 lb. range. The slot on LOW is 19.5-28 (all must be released in this range), but you are allowed to keep 1 trophy fish over the slot. In our trips up north, this is the first over we've caught. She wasn't interested in having a fish join the other taxidermy in our home, so we took several pics and put her back to bend another pole!
Due to heavy winds, we had to fish in the Rainy River on day 3 rather than out on the big lake, and our guide got to visiting with the boys about sturgeon fishing...we even watched a nearby boat land a very big sturgeon after a 30+ minute fight. He gave Hunter & Matthew a few tips about how to target this prehistoric fish, and indicated that the best time to get them was in the middle of the night. So of course, they hit the dock at the resort about 11 pm on our last night there. About 1 am, Hunter landed this one. Somewhere in the 25 inch range. Not a big sturgeon, but he was able to check another species off the list. The blood spot on the head is where a parasite had been attached.
Overall a very fun trip! No doubt there are plenty of other great resorts up there, but props to Ballards for going above and beyond to help make the trip a success. We keep hearing about the tremendous ice fishing on LOW, so that will likely be the next trip up north.
NWBuck
Matthew's best walleye of the trip. Beauty of a slot fish about 26 inches.
My best...a little over 24.
Hunter with a perfect eater.
And eat we DID! In addition to having fish back at the resort a couple of nights, we took a break from fishing one of the days to enjoy a shore lunch with a couple other boats on a nearby island. Spectacular!!
Some of you may be able to relate to this next picture. Whenever my wife Chantal goes along, it's pretty much a given that she's going to catch the big fish of the trip. This time was no exception. On day 2 she boated this beautiful 29 incher...somewhere in the 8-9 lb. range. The slot on LOW is 19.5-28 (all must be released in this range), but you are allowed to keep 1 trophy fish over the slot. In our trips up north, this is the first over we've caught. She wasn't interested in having a fish join the other taxidermy in our home, so we took several pics and put her back to bend another pole!
Due to heavy winds, we had to fish in the Rainy River on day 3 rather than out on the big lake, and our guide got to visiting with the boys about sturgeon fishing...we even watched a nearby boat land a very big sturgeon after a 30+ minute fight. He gave Hunter & Matthew a few tips about how to target this prehistoric fish, and indicated that the best time to get them was in the middle of the night. So of course, they hit the dock at the resort about 11 pm on our last night there. About 1 am, Hunter landed this one. Somewhere in the 25 inch range. Not a big sturgeon, but he was able to check another species off the list. The blood spot on the head is where a parasite had been attached.
Overall a very fun trip! No doubt there are plenty of other great resorts up there, but props to Ballards for going above and beyond to help make the trip a success. We keep hearing about the tremendous ice fishing on LOW, so that will likely be the next trip up north.
NWBuck
