Lake Winnipeg reports?

revolutionz

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Heading up there this weekend, only my 2nd time going up there. First time was about 3 years ago I tagged along with a buddy and some guys he was going with, didn't have shit for luck.

Wondering if anyone has been up there recently...tips or gotchas? Staying in an AirBNB type thing near selkirk, will probably get on at prudens. We'll be on sleds. Hoping to catch at least 1 tank!
 


MuskyManiac

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The ice is very rough this year, lots of little ridges all over. The access at Warner is very nice right now, cleared of snow, large and smooth.
 

Jigaman

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Like MM said, rough ice. Closer to the mouth there are huge areas of rough piled up ice. I've made two trips so far. First was early december and caught a bunch of nice eaters but no big ones. Second was early january and struggled to find fish but got a 27" and 29". I might fish Sunday. Weather looks great
 

Chas'n Tail

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I know nothing first-hand, but got a good report recently that said the lake is on fire right now. Don't know a thing about the ice conditions other than warner road is a good access point as of now. Very curious to learn how you do if you would be willing to share. Might try carve in a late march trip for a quick weekend.
 

R@nger_BO@TS

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we were up last weekend and the best time of the day for us was 7-9 and 1-3 and the rest of the day was pretty much one here and one there, fishing was alright over 2 days we got around 30 are biggest was 25 but had a couple buddies that got 5 over 26.
The best bait for us was rippin raps it did not matter what color, about 75% of the fish we marked we caught and the rest would just look at it and go back down but the fish that did bite slammed it
good luck #$%^&>
 


BRK

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we were up last weekend and the best time of the day for us was 7-9 and 1-3 and the rest of the day was pretty much one here and one there, fishing was alright over 2 days we got around 30 are biggest was 25 but had a couple buddies that got 5 over 26.
The best bait for us was rippin raps it did not matter what color, about 75% of the fish we marked we caught and the rest would just look at it and go back down but the fish that did bite slammed it
good luck #$%^&>

I can echo nearly the exact same results except most of our catches came on spoons rather than swim baits. My trip was a month ago. There was no morning or evening bite, but rather mid morning and mid afternoon.
 

dakotaeye29

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How are snow levels on the lake? Tracks only or will chains get you around?
 

Coalburner

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I wouldn’t go on that south side of the pressure ridge when going onto the ice at chalet beach - we went north of it and about 4.5 miles out and did really good. Access out there on north side is really good but if you go south it is very rough.
 


Coalburner

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I can echo nearly the exact same results except most of our catches came on spoons rather than swim baits. My trip was a month ago. There was no morning or evening bite, but rather mid morning and mid afternoon.

Crazy! I couldn't get anything to bite on spoons although I was mainly just flashing them occasionally with my dead line. I caught everything on purple, pink, and blue lipless rattle baits from about 6:30 in the morning to about 9:30. Picked up a few throughout the day and then around 3:30 we started to really get into them again. Out of the 20 fish we caught 16 of them were on lipless rattles, 2 on jigging spoons, and 2 on salmo rail shad. Only started using the salmo (rail shads?) toward the end of the trip but they seemed to do well immediately.

- - - Updated - - -

Heading up there this weekend, only my 2nd time going up there. First time was about 3 years ago I tagged along with a buddy and some guys he was going with, didn't have shit for luck.

Wondering if anyone has been up there recently...tips or gotchas? Staying in an AirBNB type thing near selkirk, will probably get on at prudens. We'll be on sleds. Hoping to catch at least 1 tank!

Just a tip in case you didn't know - you have to remove all of the barbs from your hooks and you cant drink on the ice. You most likely will meet with the game wardens while up there. I would get my license online and make sure it is printed off and in the pocket of your jacket. The gas stations have weird hours - some have licenses and some don't - some have bait and some don't - not much for tackle either up there outside of any bigger towns. You can go in on Werner road and most likely you can drive right on with your pickup if you don't want to use your snowmobiles. I feel like pop up ice houses are the way to go up there as well. I would also try to bring all of your beer or tobacco with you as they have crazy taxes up there.
 

Captain Ahab

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If you have live minnows, you better not bring them off the ice with you. They had a big minnow bust up there a few weeks ago. Even wrote guys up with frozen shiners. A $670 fine. They later said they would nullify the frozen minnow tickets. The CO’s don’t mess around about barbs or beers either especially if you are not Canadian.
 


Lungdeflator

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Link please to those of you purchasing online. I haven't found anything. We are going up March 11-15 this year, probably just stop and get licenses along the way.
 

Joatmon

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You purchase them online but they still mail you a license and that takes a few weeks to get. Mine took about 3 weeks this year. It depends on how busy their office is. Let me see if I can find a link.
 

CWS

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You purchase them online but they still mail you a license and that takes a few weeks to get. Mine took about 3 weeks this year. It depends on how busy their office is. Let me see if I can find a link.

Right, I know about that....classic Manitoba always behind the times. I read somewhere they are coming out online this spring.
 

billfish3r

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Like MM said, rough ice. Closer to the mouth there are huge areas of rough piled up ice. I've made two trips so far. First was early december and caught a bunch of nice eaters but no big ones. Second was early january and struggled to find fish but got a 27" and 29". I might fish Sunday. Weather looks great

I'm going there soon as well and hopefully there will be a nice bite.
 


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