“It was a tougher bite than past years up here,” lamented our Walleye Wisdom ice fishing trip to Lake of the Woods leader Ralph Kitson. Ralph had set up our trip with Arnesen’s Rocky Point Resort late last fall. My brother, Duane, friend, Tracy Hayward, and I drove up together on March 8th. Ralph’s group from South Dakota featured Pam, Mike, Brad, Chris, Don, and Keegan. Ralph treated us to our evening meal on Thursday plus provided breakfast Saturday to Monday–what a treat! We said our final good byes at the Lodge Monday night over a nice meal and conversation recapping our three days on the ice. Arnesen’s has large capacity snow machines which take you and your gear out to their heated ice houses. Each day, we went out about 18 miles to a reef north and west of their land location. “If you want to catch lots of small saugers and an occasional walleye, we were on the right spot for the first two days,” Duane commented. Arnesen’s guides moved us on the third day to fresh ice houses where we seemed to catch larger fish and fewer small ones. Our biggest walleyes were a couple at 21 1/2 inches, some saugers around 15 inches, and perch up to 11 inches. My biggest walleye was a 19 incher just below the slot limit! Everyone caught fish for three days contributing to Sunday night’s communal fish fry hosted by Ralph back at the cabin! We had a daily big fish contest for largest walleye, largest sauger, and largest perch. Our weather was blue bird skies on Saturday and Monday while Sunday was a complete white out with blowing snow on the lake. On our ride home Tuesday, we watched the snow and ice accumulation on the red Suburban blow off the hood and roof as the temperatures warmed up almost hourly. A special thank you to Ralph for taking care of our trip planning, cooking, and keeping us all thinking “positive”! Also, thank you to Duane and Tracy for helping with the drive up and back. By the way, this was Duane’s first fishing trip following his recent retirement. Will we do it again? Probably. But the snow is now about gone here and I’m watching big walleyes being caught on open water at Lake Erie from my Facebook pals. Think Spring! Spike
