Today's Feature Fishing Report: Jeff Sundin - May 15, 2026 "Discovering the Discover-Able on Upper Red Lake"

Before Thursday, I hadn’t fished on Upper Red Lake yet this season. Several of my friends had already fished there and offered me guidance. Some advice about the methods they’d used to catch walleyes was very specific.

One of them arrived there last Monday, prepared to catch fish on jigs and minnows. “We drifted, trolled and fan casted using the jigs, but weren’t catching that many fish. We saw a couple of folks anchored up and catching walleyes using bobbers. As soon as I stopped my boat and set up my crew with bobbers, we started catching fish left and right. I’d say the catch ratio was 5 to 1 bobbers vs jigging.

In another conversation, the advice offered was about a fishing trip on Wednesday. “When we got to our favorite spot, we spot-locked the boat and rigged our lines up with slip-floats and jigs, tipped them with lively rainbows and fan-casted the surrounding area. We did catch a few fish, but we could see other guys trolling with crankbaits and they were doing better. I rigged up my crew with crankbaits and when we started trolling, we caught a lot more fish. I wish I’d been trolling from the beginning of our trip; we would have done a lot better.” He advised.

Okay, so on Wednesday evening, I’m preparing to take my crew up there the next morning. Naturally, I go to the tackle shop and stock up on bobbers and shallow running crankbaits. I don’t want to get caught off guard, so I buy plenty of both.

On Thursday morning, my crew and I begin the trip trolling crankbaits. Flicker Shads, Husky Jerks, shallow running rebels, Salmos, a little bit of everything. We caught a couple of fish, but it was clear that today, trolling hard baits was not the magic solution. My next move would be fishing with bobbers but first, I wanted to locate a spot with good potential. So, to explore the shoreline, I set my crew up with 1/8-ounce jigs and nice sized fatheads. We drifted along the breakline in water depths of 4 to 7 feet in search of a likely spot.

Within minutes, Kelly caught a nice walleye and not long afterward, she followed that with another one. Then I caught one, and then Kelly caught her 3rd one. Long story short, drifting with jigs worked well enough for us that we used that presentation for the rest of our trip. So, all of my stocking up on cranks and bobbers was basically unnecessary, at least for that day. The takeaway for folks headed to Red Lake in the coming days should be to prepare several presentations and be ready for experiments.

The water temperature was cold, 49 degrees during the morning hours, rising to just over 50 degrees by late afternoon. Baitfish began appearing on the screen of my graph late in the day, but even then, small, scattered schools of minnows were the norm. I never observed any of the giants clouds of shiners that we sometimes see along the shore.

The water clarity was poor, strong winds stirred the lake up and visibility was maybe 18 to 24 inches, not much better. Unfortunately, there’s a brisk and gusty west-southwest wind in today’s forecast. If that prediction comes true, it could make for a tough day on the lake. Historically, it takes the lake a day or two to settle down after a big blow, so even the weekend action could be hampered.

The fish we caught were of surprisingly good quality. There were a good number of fish in the 15-to-16-inch range, and not very many really small fish. There are a very healthy number of larger fish, over 17 inches. At the fish cleaing station, we heard reports of folks catcing fish up to 24 inches. Joyce caught our best walleye measuring 21 inches. Because of the current regulation, 1 fish over 17 inches, we were required to release a dozen or so, over sized walleyes. That didn’t stop us from harvesting a legal limit of fish, but it did take all day long to sort through the herd, and capture enough 15 to 16 inch fish to fill liits for the crew.

For me, the longer-range outlook for Upper Red is good, and I’ll plan another trip up there as soon as the weather becomes more stable. Without doubt, I'll have more updates for you in the near future.

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Lake Winnie Cutfoot Sioux Fishing Report May 14, 2026

"On the opener, a strong, gusty wind out of the north required anglers to earn their fish! With both surface water and air temperatures still in the low to mid 40-degree range, the atmosphere had the feel of early spring. Photos of anglers we received featured folks bundled up in warm winter fishing gear. As cold as conditions were though, fish were caught!

The 2018-19 walleye year class, as we anticipated, was well represented in this opener's catch. On Saturday, many boats landed upwards of 30 to 40 fish, with most of them landing within the protected 18-to-23-inch slot sizes. Walleyes measuring 19-to-20-inch fish were most common, referring directly to the well-known and very large class of 2019. Some of the more experienced anglers reported a catch-to-keeper-ratio of 5 released fish for every 1 fish harvested.

Sunday featured slightly more of the smaller, "Keeper" fish which made an appearance in ..." Read Full Report >> May 14, 2026 Bowen Lodge Lake Winnie Cutfoot Sioux

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