Favorite la crosse early ice spots…

I am wondering where people’s favorite first ice is in the la crosse region. I know the crappie are great on lake Onalaska before you can drive out with your vehicle. I also went over to Tomah and fished the bogs for the first time last year!!! We pulled out some HOGS and I can tell you that is the first place I plan on going this year. If you stop in at the bait shop in Tomah, the owner can really point you in the right direction. He helped us out a lot!!! We went to Denis Rezin’s / Raisen’s (sp?)place where you paid $3 dollars to fish for the day, but there are other places you can fish where you don’t have to pay. We went there just because we had seen a tv show that was filmed at his place and they were slaughtering them!!! I am new to ice fishing the area and am looking for a couple helpful hints if you got any. I can’t tell you how fired up I am about the ice coming!!!!

Later, Ted

Try shady maple just south of lacrosse. It has a great early perch bite as well as late. jig ’em up or tip em up!
PS…there are some big walleyes there…we pulled a 7.9 out of there a couple years back on the tip up…3-4 feet of water! creapy coming through the hole when you are expecting a 10 inch perch!

i don’t know about early ice but i know later on stoddard has been known to produce quite a few gills

Thanks for the posts guys. Big fish, I have never even heard of fishing walleye with tip-ups!?!? What type of set up do you use? Trebble hook with a minnow? You also use tip-ups for the perch? Is the set-up different with those? Talk more soon…Ted

hi,
actually, we were not fishing walleyes when we caught this beauty. We were fishing perch with small blood red gamakatsus tipped with crappie minnows. I remember that day..we caught 11 jumbo perch for the fryer and a bunch of small gills and the monster eye. Yes walleyes are actually often fished with tipups. probably more often on lakes than in the river however. I would think to just drop a pike minnow down on a straight shanked hook with a couple split shots. when you are tip up fishing, think of it more as still fishing…Of course a walleye is going to pick up that little minnow when it is sitting there on the bottom squirling around..anyway, i like shady maple as an early ice spot…stoddard is ok, but we never really had exceptional results there in the early season. I like it best at stoddard when the ice is thick enough to drive out to the other side of the islands where you can really get into them. Last year really wasnt a good year but i am excited to see what we can do this year.
goose island sucks on early ice because it is crystal clear and you can see the schools of gills. They spook so fast without the snow on the ice…dont know what they do on onalska…it seems like thats where all the talk is coming from..but everytime we go there it always sucks…not to mention all the talk about people falling through up there scares me just a little bit…
good luck…Let me know if you need any help…ill see you out there this winter

hey cade remember last year down at stodard when i got all wet and almost fell through that 10″ hole that was drilled down there. and to top it all off we didn’t catch jack squat! THAT SUCKED @$$ !