I don’t live in a convenient location to compete on the Bassmaster Elite Series. My hometown, Kenora, Ontario, is located a couple of hours north of the Minnesota border, nowhere near any of the traditional Elite Series stops. In fact, the closest venue to home where I have fished an Elite Series event is in Lacrosse, Wis., about nine hours away. We also get a proper winter with snow on the ground and ice on our lakes for about half the year, but for someone who enjoys fishing and the outdoors, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
We have some great bass tournaments throughout the open water season, and that’s where I caught the bug for competitive fishing that led me to the Elite Series. We also have great fishing for a number of other species. Throughout the year, there is always a good bite happening, even on the ice!
One of my fishing friends, Doug Wegner, is a well-known musky angler. He puts out some awesome YouTube content and does a bunch of guiding. If you want to catch a musky, he’s your guy. At the end of November, I got a text from Doug wondering if I wanted to get out fishing in the boat one last time. He had just wrapped up six weeks of straight guiding for muskies, and we were going to head out the day after he finished up.
Wegner lives on the south side of Lake of the Woods, while I live on the north side. It takes a couple of hours of driving around the million-acre lake to meet in the middle, which is what we did. I had fished with Doug before, so I knew what I was getting into.
He is hardcore with top-notch equipment, from his boat to the electronics to his tackle. The day we decided to go, the forecasted high temperature was 25 degrees. Ice was already forming in the shallow bays around the lake. He told me to be at the ramp at 7 a.m., about a half hour before daylight.
We ran a good ways out the lake and stopped on a point with the wind blowing into it. Before I stepped up on the front deck of the boat, Wegner sprayed it with a de-icer. He told me that if I fell in, that would be the end of the day! The first few hours only resulted in a couple of follows. He said we needed to go for a ride to check out another area. I was just along for the ride so I was up for anything.
To get where we wanted to go, the shortest route took us through a shallow channel, and when we entered it, we were greeted by ice as far as we could see. We were able to run some bigger water to get where we wanted to go. It was worth the ride because we caught muskies on the next three stops we made. We got into an area where we saw a bunch of fish on the electronics and had some good action.
Growing up, trolling with oversized crankbaits was the standard technique to catch muskies late in the fall, but today with the high quality mapping and electronics we have, it’s all about fishing specific pieces of structure and watching for fish on the screen. Similar to what anglers are doing for bass, these are just bigger, meaner fish. We used a variety of oversized soft plastics on big jig heads to explore a variety of humps, points and flats.
I have caught plenty of muskies in my life. Lake of the Woods is one of the best musky fisheries in the world, but going with someone who is dialed in and knows how to find them and make them bite, was impressive. I learned a lot.
We ended up staying out on the water until dark, then faced a 45-minute ride back to the ramp in the dark. It never got anywhere near being above freezing that day, but we bundled up and actually stayed warm. It’s a long winter in the North so you take advantage of every day that you can get out there.
The next time I’ll be in the boat will be when I head south to get in a little warmup before the start of the Elite Series in early Februrary. After a tough 2025 season, I’m ready to get back after it and catch some fish. In the meantime, I’ll be on the ice catching walleye and crappie.
