Zippel Bay Resort’s Spring Pike Tournament

Some anglers don’t realize that the pike season on Lake of the Woods never ends!  That’s right, because we are border water with Canada, our pike season goes all year long.  That gives anglers a fantastic opportunity in April to take advantage of monster pike who are somewhere along in their spawning ritual.  And in Lake of the Woods, there are a lot of big pike!

MN DNR info from a 2013 fisheries lake survey verifies the presence of a healthy trophy pike fishery.   Lake of the Woods is managed for a high-quality northern pike population, with a significant component of “trophy” northern pike over 40 inches long. To monitor the size structure of the northern pike population, it is sampled every 5 years using trap nets at known spawning sites. The northern pike population continues to be one of high quality, with 19% of the adult population at least 35 inches long, and 5% of the adults 40 inches long, or longer.

During the spawning season, pike head to shallow bays, ditches and streams to find the right conditions to lay and fertilize eggs.  There are many areas around the lake and on the Rainy River pike spawn, and one of them is Zippel Bay.

Zippel Bay Resort has an annual pike tournament the last weekend of April.  This year’s tournament is made up of two person teams and is a two day tournament based on weight.  The past two years has been won by the female team of Katie Berg and Katie Pieper.  Each of the past two years, they caught a pike over 40 inches to add to their winning bag of fish.

Katie and Katie already are getting their boat ready for this year’s tournament.  If you want to have a blast in April, check out the pike tournament at Zippel Bay Resort or just go fish pike on your own.  You truly have an opportunity to catch a pike of a lifetime.

www.LakeoftheWoodsMN.com