Favorite dead stick lure for walleye?

For fishing in MN non-native lakes like we have in much of the metro and St. Cloud area I have never had near the amount of success with my dead stick presentation as I have on other lakes like LoTW where a Gem n eye will work most days. I have been on great walleye bites with the jigging rod so I know fish are there but the dead stick just doesn’t get hit very much.

So as I sit here waiting for ice why not talk about it…. what is everyone’s go to lure for the dead stick on walleyes? Particularly MN lakes.

Jeff B wrote:

For fishing in MN non-native lakes like we have in much of the metro and St. Cloud area I have never had near the amount of success with my dead stick presentation as I have on other lakes like LoTW where a Gem n eye will work most days. I have been on great walleye bites with the jigging rod so I know fish are there but the dead stick just doesn’t get hit very much.

So as I sit here waiting for ice why not talk about it…. what is everyone’s go to lure for the dead stick on walleyes? Particularly MN lakes.

The biggest shiner I can find, 4 to 5 inches long, fished on a plain hook 3 to 4 feet off bottom. If big shiners aren’t available 6 to 8 inch suckers would get the nod. Again, set them well above bottom.

Tingler spoon with a shiner.

Larger Golden Shiner on #4 Red Gammie with a glow bead. Depth from bottom varies from 12″ to 36″ depending on weeds or structure angle.

Plain red hook.

I haven’t icefished much, but when I do I’ve always had really good success, easily 2-1 with those I fish with what James and tapout eluded to. Bait higher in the column, but with a hook made from Northland. Can’t find it anymore, it was a glow hook, but had a firetiger color on it, orange, green yellow. Was in fleet farm clearance rack years ago and ran out now.

Been experimenting with river hooks this year and a red hook with a glow bead on the knot has worked pretty well. See Owner makes pretied rigs with same setup. This will be on my rod this year for ice.

Can someone give me a link to the Red Gammie? I tried to do a search and wasnt able to find anything.

Red Gamakastu(I’m thinking) octapus hook size 4 for fat heads up a size or two for larger bait.

Regarding how high to put the minnow off bottom, it can vary based on clarity and fish activity.

Here’s what I do: Start with the set line a foot off bottom. While I’m jigging, I pay attention to what I call the ceiling. This is the distance off bottom that fish will come to either strike the jig or turn and go back down. If fish are coming in 3 feet high and hitting the jig 5 feet off bottom, then I’ll run the set line 5 feet off bottom. If they are coming in on bottom, but hitting the jig 3 feet up, as long as the water clarity is better than a couple feet, I’ll put the set line 3 feet up. On days when fish just won’t hit the jig, I usually put the set line within 6 inches of the depth I’m seeing fish come in. On those days the fish are usually coming in on bottom so my set line is 8″ off bottom. On low activity days I may snip part of the tail on the minnow or put a sinker close to the hook, to minimize the minnows ability to get away.

I almost always have a Northland Forage Minnow on one of my dead sticks

hl&sinker wrote:

Red Gamakastu(I’m thinking) octapus hook size 4 for fat heads up a size or two for larger bait.

x2 with a splitshot 6-10 inches up. Primary used to be a demon but plain hook has been working better the past couple seasons. Rainbows or shiners depending on availability, cost, convenience, etc.

x2 with Fife. Spot on for how to make adjustments for the given day/lake/activity/etc. Good tip on how free to leave the bait too.

Last year at LOTW we found it had to be really tight, over 4″ off bottom and were getting less fish. Let’s say it was a tougher bite. Did a couple nights at Mille Lacs last year, one evening it was 6″, a couple weeks later about 18″. In both of these examples we had enough available lines to experiment and let the fish tell us what worked better.

out_fishing wrote:

I almost always have a Northland Forage Minnow on one of my dead sticks

X2

I’m mostly using plain hooks for walleyes on a deadstick and as Fife and Pat mentioned the presentation will vary based on the conditions but here are a couple general guidelines that I used…

During daylight and in clearer water I prefer red hooks.

During low light conditions and in stained water I prefer chartreuse or glow painted hooks as to add visibility.

Earlier in the year I prefer larger baits starting with 6-8″ or even larger sucker minnows at first ice, transitioning to shiners during the middle of the winter, and moving down to fatheads by the late season.

The larger the minnow the higher off the bottom I put it… The fish looking for a big meal are going to be aggressive and getting them high allows them to be seen from a distance. I’ll set my big suckers 3-4′ off bottom early season.

Single hooks for fatheads and small shiners with the hooks always sized so that the hook gap is at least double the width of the minnows back. A single VMC sure set treble hook for large shiners and up to 6″ sucker minnows, and a quick strike rig with sure set trebles on large sucker minnows.

All good replies. I can tell people are waiting around to get out. So to keep things moving let’s ads another layer of complexity to this….

This lake/area I fish has some pretty big pike. What I found last year was the few tip ups I got were taken by pike and not the over eager hammer handles..so I spent more time during the golden hour messing with them than I did fishing walleyes. Fun, but not the target. So when it comes to shiners vs sucker what do people think attracts walleye vs northern more when they are inhabitting the same structure. Funny thing is I rarely caught a northern on the Tingler spoon.

Curtis Shumaker wrote:

Can someone give me a link to the Red Gammie? I tried to do a search and wasnt able to find anything.

http://www.gamakatsu.com/fishing-hooks.php?pid=1014

@ James-

Do you use that large of bait on all lakes, or only major walleye factories?