Lake Of The Woods Ice Fishing Weekend

roundoar03 (54)in #travel • 6 years ago

This past weekend I spent 4 days in the northern most part of Minnesota. Me and four other guys rented a cabin at Ballard's Resort in Baudette on Lake of the Woods. For anyone familiar with this lake it is one of the premier fisheries in the entire country. The weekend was filled with friendship, fishing, eating and PLENTY of drinking.

Our first day out the fishing was slow, but steady. We caught about 13 keeper Walleye/Sauger (aka eaters), but also caught Tullibee and an Eel pout. I will post picture of these fish down near the bottom of the post. You can eat them, but they are not our cup of tea. Along with catching fish. We caught a buzz as well finishing a whole case of beer from 9am until 4pm. Those are called bottle bass and typically are ALWAYS biting :)

The resort picked us up shorty after 4pm and we made the 40 minute ride back to shore on the Bombardier. A lake ice car with tracks pictured below.

That evening we spent at a neighboring resort bar drinking the night away with all the other guests. After a full day of drinking on the lake I personally didn't make it very long. I was in bed before midnight.

On Saturday we went out fishing again. MAN was it COLD! The high for the day was -6 degrees Fahrenheit but with the wind it felt more like -30. Any day above 0 is a decent day around here. Luckily our ice houses are heated nicely, but you still have to go outside to "take care of business" if you know what I mean. The fishing was pretty bad this day. We caught a couple really small Sauger and only about 2 keepers. But per usual the bottle bass kept us busy and we emptied out the box.

Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday. It was actually -27 degree today so we decided to take the day off fishing and just relax. Relaxing lasted until around 11 when we got the itch to bar hop and grab lunch. We hit up a couple resort bars until the game started around 5pm. Our neighboring resort offered free food and door prizes so we went there for the first half. The second half we watched at our resort. This night did not end with any grand night out, but we didn't crash either. We drank at the resort bar until around 11:30 then finished what we had in the cabin while watching Flee Market Flip till 1am. If you haven't seen the show its pretty funny. At least its pretty funny after a day of drinking.

Monday morning we packed up and made the 5.5 hour drive back home. These types of getaways are great battery re-chargers. We escaped the crazy happenings in Minneapolis with the Super Bowl being hosted there and did whatever we felt like doing.

Tullibee