WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
January 17, 2008

Mother Nature is sending her best shots as of now with the Winter extremes. From those balmy 40 or high 30 degree days to now those -40 degree days, one can't hardly believe what those fish must think. Even with the weather extremes that seem to come nearly every other day, those fish need to eat like you and I. The fish typically settle in for the long winter and what this means is a shorter window of activity, again in many ways like you and I.

So with the days getting longer and the bite getting shorter, now is the time to think about that multi-specie approach or maybe switching gears some and chasing panfish. It seems that the window of activity for panfish remains short, but they have many more activity windows throughout the day. The best part of panfish is the fact that they typically hold in the same area and same part of the water column, no matter the day or weather. If one waits them out, your bound to hit 2-3 windows of activity in a day.

With some many folks heading to Red Lake for those big Crappies over the last 5-6 winters, many of the local lakes are filled with some great sized Crappies and Sunfish or gills. Finding the panfish, more times than not on many of the smaller lakes in the area is fairly easy. Find the deepest hole and they shouldn't be too far away. Look for most of the active fish suspending from 5-to-15 feet off the bottom. Here a simple presentation of small plain hook or frostee, tipped with a small Crappie minnow or wax worm will provide a number of bites and action.

If you're still in pursuit of the Walleyes, the action has hit the mid-Winter wall, with most action at the primetime window, which normally happens during the first light and better yet that last 1/2 hour of light and shortly after dark. This is a common theme for most area lakes, but not necessarily the norm for all the lakes.

The Winnie Walleyes are following the pattern from above and one interesting tidbit on Winnie as many of those deep Perch holes are starting to become everyday producers and the average size of the Perch are better this Winter then the last couple. So if you're heading to Winnie, look for the multi-specie approach to yield the best action, but if you're looking for a more consistent bite, look no further then those panfish lakes.

Lake ice is gaining depth, so please use caution and I still recommend ATV and snowmobile travel. The lakes are filled with large section of slush and it seems to be causing ice variations.

Until next week, good luck and stay warm,

Sean Colter
member of NMGL
seancolter@seancolter.com