eyes through the ice

I was hoping to get some input from the group here. I know a spot that might have some eyes, but I am wondering how the to target these fish. We have an underwater camera and vexliar. After drilling a bunch of holes and hopefully marking some fish, what types of lures should we try. Do we need to have some minnows along? Any help on past experiences would be great.

Thanks guys

I would start by marking the fish. Once marked I would hit them with a jigging spoon tipped with a minnow head. I would also deadstick a minnow on either a rattle wheel, tip-up, or under a slip bobber.
It can’t hurt to drop the camera down and check out the fish you are marking just to be sure they are walleyes.
Remember that during the morning and evening hours the walleyes are much more active than throughout the day so I would definitely concentrate my fishing to those times.
This should be enough to pu a few nice wallys on the ice for you. I’m sure some of the others will also chime in on some techniques. Good luck.

Lenny Jamison

John, I might use the camera to idenify the walleyes. But once you have located them pull the camera, as I think that the walleye are the most camera shy fish there is. Once you have located and idenified the walleye I like to use the Vexilar and a jig/minnow head presentation. The weasel made by JB lures is my favorite jigging spoon. The Buckshot by Northland is also a good jigging spoon to try. The colors I use alot of are the green and orange. Some waters you will find that gold will work better. Use the Vexilar to find at what depth the fish are…..most times they will be near the botton 3 feet. Start jigging and watch for the fish on the Vexilar!!

Just a few points I hope that will get you started!!!

Good luck…….

If you are going to fish a area espicialy in the evening it would,nt hurt to drill a few holes to start to keep the comotion down at prime time. My first go to is the buckshot rattle spoons and minnow head and very your jigging motion till you find what they want if two poles are allowed a tip up can also be effective.Good luck

Thanks for all the great suggestions, hopefully this cold spell will snap soon and I can get out and drill some holes. I will keep you posted on any success I have.

I did have one question?

Quote:

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if two poles are allowed a tip up can also be effective.Good luck

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Would you use a full (live) walleye minnow on the tip-up

Thanks again for all the help… And of course if anyone has anything new to add please do

Yes I would use a live minnow you could dress your hook up with a bead or a colored hook.Try hooking minnows in a variety of ways tail hooking gives a little more wiggle dorsel fin a tight wiggle and through the mouth is a more suttle hooking Good luck

We have excellent luck with walleye suckers or small shiners on tip-ups. We tend to hook them about half way between the dorsal and the tail with a red treble dressed up with a glow bead. The beads we use are soft, and with a little effort you can slide them down over the eye of the hook to protect the knot. If you fish in MN, don’t forget to add a small spinner blade to make it legal.

Fatheads get lots of action on the same types of rigs (perhaps substituting a single hook or a low jig for the treble). They also tend to attract more perch and cigars. A 3-5″ bait will keep those smaller fish at bay.

Also, Joe K’s advice about doing your drilling in the afternoon so that you’re quiet at prime time is great. We hit the ice around 2:30, have all of our drilling done and the camp set up by 3:30, and then have 4-5 hours when all we do is mellow out and run down flags. Drill about 3 times as many holes as you can fill at any one time covering a range of depths. Then, you can move your flags around to follow the hot bite.

is it a river or a lake? two differnet styles. i fished at tremp and dresbach last year between 9 and 1 and would catch my limit in 1 hour or less. this is on the river with one style. i always use a whole minnow. the body doesn’t do good sitting on the ice. earlier this year in northern wi, on a lake with large suckers on tip-ups worked great. a different style of fishing there. i would reccommend taking somebody with you and the two of you can try different things to help target fish. move around and try different spots.

I second that observation, camara shy the ‘eyes are!!!! Take a look, then quickly remove the seeing eye because often you will not!!

Geronimo