Fishing Report September 2025
September 29, 2025
We caught a nice limit of 15"-19" walleyes again today, along with a 30" northern pike under beautiful blue autumn skies. 20-21 feet of water was the magic depth and big minnows was the walleye's preferred bait. The fall weather has simply been outstanding, and so has the walleye bite, so get out and enjoy it while it lasts. It looks to me that the fall leaf colors are just approaching their peak.
This next week may be my last week fish guiding on the water for the 2025 season as I begin to transition into hunting with my britany spaniel, Jersey, for a couple months. I will fish a few more days in early October, and then be back on Woman Lake with the first ice in December. I would like to thank each of you who fished with me this year as we enjoyed a truly great fishing season. Once again this year, Woman Lake proved what a tremendous balanced fishery it is, providing us big walleyes, monster size smallmouth bass, slab crappies and bluegills, and big northern pike. I wish you all Good Luck fishing for the balance of the open water season, and hope to see you again in 2026.
September 22, 2025 - Autumnal Equinox / First Day of Fall
We are enjoying stunning fall weather on Woman Lake as well as very good walleye fishing and beautiful fall colors. The walleye bite seems to be agressive one day, and subtle the next, but it has been steady most every day, particularly in the morning. The fish we are finding have been on sandy bottom shore related main lake basin points and shoreline breaks in 20-24 feet of water. I have added a few photos to the "Catch Photos" section of this website, so you can see what we are catching. Get out on the water, it is the very best time of the year.
September 17, 2025
The walleye fishing on Woman Lake has finally picked up to typical late September standards, with nice fish caught whenever we have decent weather. The fish are somewhat scattered but we are enjoying an aggressive bite on big minnows. 20-21 feet deep seems to be the preferred walleye depth this week, at least during daylight hours. I did not observe any adult loons on the lake at all today, so I suspect they have now all headed south for the winter. I also heard a wolf howl from my cabin deck this week, just after sunset, which is something we do not get to enjoy here very often.
September 8, 2025
The weather is beginning to feel a little bit like Fall on Woman Lake, and the walleye bite appears to have begun to pick up with the cooler lake water temperatures. We caught 4 very nice 18" to 20" walleyes this morning along with 5 smallmouth bass fishing redtail chubs in 20 feet of water. Our smallmouth were all released and a reminder to fisherman that the harvest season for smallmouth has closed and is now catch-and-release only. Surface water temps are currently holding around 64 degrees. This is a positive improvement from what we saw in much of July and August. We caught our fish today on both main lake basin structure and shore related points. I expect the walleye bite to continue to improve throughout the next month whenever we have stable fishable weather. Some of the adult loons have already departed for their winter habitat along the Gulf Coast, while others are staging to migrate south on the next good wind. The young of the year hatchlings, who are full size now, will be left in a confused state until they figure out mom and dad are not returning. Most of the youngsters will then depart in October, some as late as Thanksgiving, and will eventually find the Gulf Coast themselves. They will all return to Woman Lake next spring soon after the ice goes out.