All posts by JP Sweet

12-18-23 Update;Showtime

12-18-23 Update:

Hey everyone! Thank you for being patient as we’ve waited for mother nature to cooperate and freeze the lake up and let us begin our season! As of today (12-18-23) we are beginning the process of pulling our day houses out to the lake and will begin fishing customers tomorrow! Customers will be transported to and from their rentals during daylight hours. The guys report 6″-10″ of ice in the area we plan to fish to begin our season.

Captain Steve and the guys test fished in both 17′ and 20′ of water yesterday and reported a steady bite during the time spent fishing with several keeper sized fish coming up the holes! The boss reports chartreuse and multi-colored jigging spoons tipped with a half of a shiner to be the ticket!

If everything goes smoothly and the weather cooperates we hope to have the sleepers on the ice and ready to go after Christmas for customers to get in on the fishing action.

As for our access it remains closed to public travel as of now but we will update as the week progresses.

Don’t wait,book your early ice fishing adventure today with Sweet’s Fishing by calling 218-368-7323 or 218-395-0435!

12-14-21 Fishing Update

Hey everyone! Our first rental groups of the season have now been out for 2 days and have been killing it on the big lake! We have found 9-11″ of ice where we are currently fishing on Lake of the Woods and the fish have been snapping! Currently we are fishing in 17′-21′ of water and finding good success with the Walleye and Sauger biting often throughout the day and a few sizeable northern pike sprinkled in as well! The shiner run on Lake of the Woods and the Rainy River continues with fisherman reporting seeing shiners in their ice holes as well as the bellies of the fish they clean which hopefully means the fish will stay on the south side of the lake for a good while early on! We have immediate openings for sleeper and day house rentals before the Christmas holiday on the early ice!

As for our access we are currently allowing snowmobiles, ATV’s and Side by Sides out of our access not pulling trailers during daylight hours. No after dark travel is currently advised as is the case most every year during the “early ice” portion of the season. We have checked ice to rougly 1 mile out from the crossing and have found 9-11″ of ice in the areas traveled. When using the access please unload and load your gear in the north lot(The driveway with the track van in it) and pay at the drop box near the access! We do remind you to always check with your outfitter or a local bait shop before venturing onto the ice during this time of year as conditions will change daily. We do have a potential winter storm rolling in tomorrow night(12-15-21) so please be on the lookout for road closures here on the page!

For all fish house rental and road pass/access information please give us a call at 218-368-7323 and we’ll be happy to get you set up for the fishing adventure of a life time with Sweet’s Fishing on Lake of the Woods!


The Battaglia group checking in with this beautiful 41″ Pike caught in one of our sleepers on Monday 12-13


Matt R Checking in with this 29″ Walleye caught and released in one of our sleepers on Tuesday 12-14

12-10-21 Update-Go time

The title says it all, here we go! Sweet’s Fishing is on the ice for the 2021-2022 ice fishing season! We will begin taking limited reservations beginning on Monday, December 13 for sleepers and day houses with full scale rentals happening as the days progress!

Our access will open tomorrow morning at 9 am to snowmobiles and ATVs only. We have found 8-10 inches of ice in the area we have traveled so far so we ask that you please stay near the marked areas! Access hours will be daylight hours only until further notice. Please use the north parking lot to load/unload your equipment! Tight lines!

11-19-21 UPDATE

11-18 Update from Sweet’s Fishing on Lake of the Woods. The big lake was still wide open as of today with a windy weekend on the horizon it doesn’t favor good ice making conditions. The forecast does however clear up quite a bit by Sunday night with single digit lows forecasted along with daytime highs below freezing. With any luck that should put us on our way to seeing ice on the big lake!

The Bostic Creek is well on its way to freezing up but still has some open pockets on it. Again,the windy days aren’t helping those open areas to ice over but the cold temps coming up should finish locking the creek up solid early next week.

We have a few openings left for sleepers right after Christmas with prime January dates and weekends for the entire season filling fast so don’t wait! Get ahold of Steve at 218-368-7323 and book your 2021-22 ice fishing adventure with Sweet’s Fishing today!

We hope that everyone out there has a safe,happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday and we will update everyone as soon as we have an ice update when Lake of the Woods is iced over. Until then Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Sweet’s Fishing!

11-3-21 Update

Hey everyone, JP Sweet here with an update from Sweet’s Fishing on Lake of the Woods. If you haven’t noticed we have done a complete overhaul of Sweetsfishing.com and added a bunch of pictures that until now were exclusive to our Facebook page! We hope the new website outlay is easier to navigate and help you find your desired information! As soon as the regulations for the upcoming fish season is offically released we will be adding a rules/regs page to this website to help you, our valued guests plan your fishing adventure on Lake of the Woods! Our rates page has also been updated to reflect our new pricing structure for the 2021-2022 ice fishing season!

As of Monday our 2 new 5-person sleeper fish houses have been foamed and are now in the stages of having the interior installed! The 2 new houses will be around the same size as sleeper #11(The Carport House AKA The Not Blue One) and will be perfect to accommodate you and your crew as you chase trophy walleye this winter on Lake of the Woods.

The water temps over the weekend continue to dip with water temps on the south shore of Big Traverse Bay coming in at roughly 45 Degrees and water in the Rainy River sitting around 39 Degrees. We have had freezing temps during the overnight hours up here in Baudette and that will help us on our road to making ice! The forecast for the next 7 days doesn’t seem to reflect that however with weekend highs in the mid to upper 50s(just what you deer hunters want to hear!). However, the early calls for next weekend include highs in the mid 30s with lows at night reaching the low 20s!

As for the fishing on the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods we have heard reports of a steady bite on the south shore and a solid evening bite on the river! Fisherman are finding Walleyes will full bellies of shiners when they get cleaned which indicate the shiner run is in full effect as we kick off the ever important month of November here on the big lake! We will continue to monitor the forecast as we march on here in the month of November and will update everyone as we get a clearer picture of when we will hit the ice! It’s important to remember every winter is different in this aspect. Some years such as the winter of 2018 where we had houses on the ice on December 1st or the winter of 2016 where we weren’t able to begin our season until December 27th. Patience is key this time of year! Best of luck to all the deer hunters out there and we will be in touch soon!

10-17-21 Update

Hey everyone! Long time no talk! Our open water fishing season is coming to an end and that means the ice is just around the corner! The shiner run this year on the south end of the lake has been phenomenal and that should mean with a little luck at freeze up a fantastic ice fishing season is in store for us in 2021-22! We will also be adding 2 new larger 5 man sleepers to our fleet for the upcoming ice fishing season and we are excited to show off the finished product! Our books are starting to fill up fast and prime dates won’t last long! Book before November 1st to lock in at the current rates before the price increases take effect for the upcoming winter! Call us at 218-368-7323 today and lock in your 2021-22 ice fishing adventure on Lake of the Woods with Sweet’s Fishing today!

Last slot fish of the 2021 season. Can you beat it?