IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! => Walleye => Topic started by: diehard77 on Dec 29, 2002, 04:01 PM
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i live by a medium sized lake(about 2 mi. by .5 mi) with plenty of bays and rocky shorlines to fish for walleye but it seems that they only stay around for a good week or two. thats usually during first ice. after that i have an extremely hard time locating them. any suggestions on bottom structures or types of shorline i should lookout out for? i've got a vexilar on my side to find depth variances but so far it hasnt been good.
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I ussually have the most luck with first icve and a couple weeks before ice off during the day light and even better luck at night when walleyes are hard to find i can never find them maybe try for them at night, they gotta eat sometiem and thats probably at night more then anything
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If you are not fimilar with the lake structure get yourself a map of the lake. Look for holes with sharp leading edge drops. Usually after the ice gets thicker the Walleyes move to deeper water. I think it has something to do with water temp. I was told that by a well seasoned fisherman not sure if it is the reason or not.(80 year old man) We are catching them in 15' -23' of water and the deepest part of the lake is 34' (9 miles long by 1 mile wide). Early ice they were up in 4' - 8' of water feeding on bait fish.
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Definitely fish them in the evening. Not just an hour after dark but set up at 4pm and fish until at least 9pm if after a few outings nothing, then go 9pm-midnight or later. I always set up in 15+, usually up to 22ft .Unless there's a strong shallow bite. Each lake has it's quirks . now you have to try and figure a few of those out! Have fun and goodluck!
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You said you have plenty of bays - have you checked the dropoffs just outside of them? If you have an 8'-10' deep bay w/weeds and a dropoff to 20-30' just outside than that is where I would try. They usually don't go far from the feeding area. Another area to check is if you have deep standing timber. I've caught them during the day in these areas. The timber was in 15' of water and they were on bottom hugging the wood. Good luck!
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I agree with Lonewolf and mnfisherman. I think the most important things to keep in mind is very late and vey early bite . It is pretty common knowledge that the hottest walleye bit in the summer is at Night, all night. However, in the winter it is probably the most productive and hour or two after the su goes down, and an hour or two before the sun goes up. I am not sying that you won't catch them overnight, cause you probably will, but using these times will maximize your productivity without waiting in the cold too long.
Also, concentrate on drop offs, especially after the ice gets thicker. I would probably not even fish water shallower than 22 ft in a lake for them. If you can find ledges, you have a good bet. Also, channels in the lake weather from a creek or whatever, will hold them by the ton too. Just be careful, cause you might get a catfish there to. Seriously!