Lake Winnie — The Boat Next Door Was Dragging Suckers

Every lake has that one boat. You’re working for every single bite, and over yonder two guys are netting fish like they got a group discount. Most of us just stare and get quietly bitter about it. On Thursday, when their paths crossed, Jeff Sundin asked them what they were doing.

That conversation is the best part of his Oct. 16 Fishrapper post about his Oct. 15 trip on Winnie. It also hands us a clean split for the rest of the fall: one way to fish for supper, and one way to fish for the camera.

For supper: crawlers on light jigs

Sundin’s own boat (crew: Steve Johnson and John Benton) still did better with night crawlers than with jigs and minnows. Worms have been his first choice in recent reports, and Thursday didn’t change his mind.

• The setup: a 1/16-ounce live-bait jig with a short crawler, or one pinched down to about 5 inches.
• The motion: the same wiggle-as-you-go retrieve he’s been writing about all fall.
• The bite: when a fish grabs it, he holds the rod still for about 10 to 15 seconds, then sets the hook when the timing feels right. Most fish stuck without him having to let line out first.
• What came in: mostly walleyes in the 16- to 17-inch range, which he ties to the 2023 year class. Keepers, in plain English.

He’s straight about not knowing why. Maybe the worms appealed to smaller fish. Maybe he just found the right school. He doesn’t pick one, so neither do we.

For the camera: big minnows on a Lindy Rig

Now the neighbors. They weren’t jigging. They told Sundin they were trolling Lindy Rigs with sucker minnows, and a hand signal put those at roughly 5 to 6 inches. That’s a minnow about the size of a gas station hot dog. The guy running the boat said the bigger minnows seemed to be outfishing the smaller ones.

What they were catching: mostly big walleyes in the protected slot, plus, as Sundin quotes the driver, “a couple of eaters.”

So Sundin tested it. He rigged one rod with a golden shiner about 5 inches long, and it got hit within a minute or two. A second big golden got hit too. He didn’t have many big minnows on board and his crew wanted keepers, so the test stopped there. Two bites is a hint, not a study. He stopped there, and so do we.

His bait list for this approach, in his own order of preference:

1. Redtails (his favorite, though he admits they’re hard to find) or creek chubs
2. Sucker minnows if you can’t get either of those
3. Oversized golden shiners or lake shiners, which he says are worth trying too

Fun footnote: on Oct. 13, a commenter on Fishing Reports Minnesota (Fishrapper’s public Facebook page) had already said Winnie anglers “should have tried river chubs.” Sounds like that person knew something.

About those slot fish

Sundin says a lot of the anglers he compared notes with were griping about catching too many protected fish. On Winnie and its connected waters, walleyes from 18 to 23 inches go back right away, with one over 23 allowed, per the MN DNR special regulations. If you go the big-minnow route, plan on a lot of releases. Bring a good net and a camera that’s already turned on.

What the water’s doing

• Minnows and young perch are crowding the shallow water, which Sundin had at 53 to 54 degrees. That’s a little cooler than the mid-to-upper 50s in Bowen Lodge’s season wrap.
• Walleyes are feeding up there, with some pike and perch mixed in. Sundin says that situation is improving, and Thursday’s walleye bite felt a bit livelier to him than recent weeks.
• Jig and minnow isn’t dead. He watched other groups catch walleyes on it Thursday. It just wasn’t the winner in his boat.

What comes next

Sundin said Friday’s crew, grouse hunters taking a day off from the woods, would probably fish closer to Grand Rapids instead of making the drive to Winnie. He also promised a rare Saturday morning report. We’ll read it before we say anything about it.

How to use this next to the last few cards

Keep the season wrap for depths and the spots to skip, and the Little Stony card for the DNR’s stomach and year-class notes. Use this card for the Oct. 15 update: 53–54 in the shallows, crawlers still best for keepers, and a big-minnow rig that a neighbor boat (plus two quick test bites) says can find big fish.

Our read (speculation, labeled as such): if the shallows keep filling up with small perch, a bait that’s bigger than everything else down there might simply be easier to notice. That’s our guess, not Sundin’s conclusion. This is one guide’s day plus one conversation with another boat, not a lake-wide survey. Check current MN DNR regs before anything goes in the livewell.

Sources

• October 2026 Fishrapper reports — “Observing the Observe-Able on Lake Winnibigoshish,” Oct. 16, 2026, Jeff Sundin (trip date Oct. 15, 2026)
• Regulations: MN DNR fishing regulations, Winnibigoshish Lake and connected waters special regulation
• Prior cards: Lake Winnie — Season Wrap, Shallow Perch Clouds, and the Bars That Went Quiet and Lake Winnie — Forty-Five Minutes at Little Stony, and the DNR Looks Inside the Bellies