Lake Ida

Getting back on lake Ida after a few years absence felt great. What shape is the fishery in?

I was pumped to get back on the lake that held my attention during the summer for 20 some years. I made a three A.M. departure from Wisonsin and headed for Besty Ross resort on Ida. The events from the prior days ARM event and the reports from Paul and Mary at Betsy Ross kept my mind busy most of the trip. My main target would be walleyes but a little fun with the gills would also be in the weeks plan.

The first day of fishing would be target walleyes and actually fishing water that I had not fished before. It was mid morning when we hit the water. This coupled with exploring new water kept our catch of walleyes limited. The good thing being, we found some nice panfish along deep weed edges. This would give us a few for a fish fry. For the late day fishing, I decide to head to more familar water on the other end of the lake. This worked out well because most of the evening we had action. More nice panfish, eater sized eyes and a couple of over 20’s that were released. The paln for the next morning was to head back to the same area. I felt I could dial them in and improve our catch rate. The morning bite for me has always been better for me, this trip was the same. The morning trips were pretty close to non stop action from sun up until around 9:00AM. This held true for most of the week if the sun was out. If it was cloudy or had a good chop, the fishing would still bite well into the afternoon.

Lindy rigging live bait along deep weed lines boated all of our fish for the week. Fishing with three to five people in the boat, I would run 5/8 down to 1/4 ounce slip sinkers. This would spread the lines out to avoid tangles. For snells, I used 6lb SilverThread in 6 to 10 ft lengths. Small colored hooks with a contrasting colored bead in front of the hook completed the rig. After the second day, I pretty much put the crawlers away and stayed with leeches. The smaller sized leeches were doing better than the jumbo’s.

Working the weedlines close to deep water and finding the thicker coontail weeds also improved the catch rate. Start in depths around 21 ft and work up into the weeds into 18ft. Then work out into the 24 ft range. We caught fish consistanly in this range and a few bigger ones out a little deeper.

For speed, go as slow a possible then cut that speed in half. The boats that were catching fish, including ours- were trolling so slow you would think they were anchored! Any faster and the bite ratio dropped big time. The bites you would get at a faster speed ended up being alot of missed fish.

For the week, my boat ended up with close to 100 eyes. Many being over the 20 inch mark like the 28, and close to 24’s in the pictures.

The panfish are all over in depths from 4 to 20 ft. You can take a break from eye fishing and catch some nice sunnies.

This fishery is in great shape for catching some big eyes. Most the guys I talked to were doing well with fish over twenty. Most were released, which should make this a big fish hotspot for years to come.