The Big Stone Lake Area Chamber of Commerce can field your questions about lodging, entertainment and fishing. Contact them at 1-800-568-5722 or www.bigstonelake.com.

LAKE OSAKIS

Here’s another case where sunlight struggles to pierce the water by summer. Lake Osakis, at 6,270 acres, has a Secchi disk reading of only 3.5 feet. That’s hazy, actually, hazy green from the algae.

It clears in the winter, however. But that doesn’t matter much to the weeds. Deep weeds aren’t part of Osakis’ battle cry, or Smith’s. He goes deep, plumbing depths of 25 to nearly 40 feet of water. Banana Bar is a fine pick, as are Johnsons Bar, Center Bar, and various features between Moon Bar and Crow Point.

If there are weeds to whack, they’re to the north in Manthey’s Bay, and out near Half Mile Bar and Bower’s Bar to the south.

Osakis gets stocked with walleyes. It takes 6 or 7 million fry a year. The overall population is down a smidgen since the late 1990s, though. On the upbeat, the size structure sticks out. Most fish are over 15 inches. Perhaps the 15-inch minimum harvest size has bettered overall sizes?

Contact the Lake Osakis Resort Association for lodging information, 1-800-422-0785 and www.lakeosakismn.com.

MILLE LACS

Acreage is the theme. Genz points out that the daytime walleye-feeding phenomenon is largely a function of big lakes. He has experienced it all across the Midwest, thus the foundation of a pattern.

By winter, 132,000-acre Mille Lacs is clear. I’ve personally seen a chip in my lure at over 15 feet, and watched walleyes — painfully — pass by at 20 feet. Regardless, bites change at lunchtime, but you have to go deep or bury in the weeds.

Genz motors for the mud. Mille Lacs’ miles of mudflats offer infinite possibilities, and they hold fish from first ice through the end of the season. By day, Genz drills along the breaklines where the mud’s 20- to 25-foot crests cascade to depths of 30 to 35 feet. Stick to the slope, he says. But if they aren’t there, he takes to the upper-20-foot range and applies it to the adjacent basin. During the day, walleyes will suspend over the basin at the same level as the mud break.

One of my most recent daytime forays on Mille Lacs involved no less than 30 hookups between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Two guys. The mudflats. Overcast skies with low barometric pressure. And an unbelievable bite.

Renowned guide Dick “Griz” Gryzwinski is a guru of the flats, too. But he also champions an inside prototype. By dawn, dusk or day, he’s able to extricate walleyes and alarmingly giant pike from surviving cabbage beds. Nine to 12 feet is his typical range, with favoritism shown toward the southern and western shores.

Gryzwinski will make you tired of catching fish. Try him at (651) 771-6231. For lodging, consider Izaty’s Resort at 1-800-533-1728 or www.izatys.com.

RAINY LAKE

I could retire here. It’s more than a lake; it’s a lifestyle.

By winter, Minnesota’s share of Rainy Lake is in Christmas card form. Log cabins blow billows of smoke through snow-glazed pines. Snowmobilers caravan in the distance. A cluster of Fish Traps pitch over a walleye-laced reef.

Rainy Lake guide Barry “Woody” Woods says crappies, walleyes and northern pike combine to craft Rainy’s wintertime bounty.

In middle to late winter, Woody searches for walleyes on reefs and sharp breaks in 20 to 50 feet, as well as areas with both moving water and useable ice. Reefs are rampant along the Minnesota side. About every point and gap leading into a bay offers associated and productive offshore structure. You’ll run out of weekends and vacation days long before you’ve exhausted potential spots.

Rainy’s tannic-stained water encourages walleyes to forage by day. Woody, like Genz, seldom fishes at night. He doesn’t have to.