Lake Puckaway Wisconsin- Walleye fishing report

Ice fishing for walleyes on Lake Puckaway Wi.on Jigging rapalas.

We set up by the mouth of the Fox River which empties into Lake Puckaway . The deepest depth in the lake is about 5 feet out in the middle of the lake . The Fox river runs throught the lake and continues on to Lake Winnebago system. Where we set up for the night was in water depth was averaging 3 1/2 feet of water with 20 inches of ice in the area. We set tip-ups along the channel of the river and set up for jigging about 50 yards from them at about 4:00 pm. Sunset was coming and prime time fishing was about here. We are setting our golden shiners 6 inches off the bottom on the tip-ups. Our first flag was up and took out 3 feet of line and was dropped. Reset the tip-up and went back to the tent to start jigging. The same tip-up went up again this time the fish was turning the spindle on the board nice and steady. When fishing such shallow water our footsteps can somtimes spook these fish just from the cruching snow on the ice. So I told the daughter to move nice and easy to the tip-up and it stopped but then it made its 2nd run with the line which is a good sign that the shiner has been swallowed. Here,s the picture of the first fish for the night.

After setting the tipup again it was time to get down to some serious jigging. We were using St. Croix ml jigging rods with sweedish pimples and jigging rapalas. The favorite colors for the pimples are gold and silver in various sizes. For the jigging raps we were using the 2 inch size seems to work the best in the perch and blue colors. Both baits were tipped with fathead minnows and we were using just the head of the minnow . For hooking the minnow head on the trebble hook , hooking the head of the minnow upside down is a trick we use with good results. The jigging method we use was to bounce the jig on the bottom to stir up the bottom to make a small cloud of the settlement of the lake bottom. This will draw the walleyes into your area. This shallow water fishing just before dark is a blast sight seeing fishing for walleyes. Just as it was getting dark but could still see the jig down the hole in comes a nice walleye to ivestigate after just pounding the bottom. She puts your nose right up to the jig and backs off ,so I flip the jig and start to raise the bait up higher and she finnally grabs it and out she comes and a nice eye it was about 18 inches. We got a few more jigging and on tip-ups.

The ice conditions on the lake are declining fast as of writing this report . Yeasterday we had temps in the 50 and high winds as well. They are talking rain for tonight and possibly maybe cooler for the weekend. A car went throught the ice this weekend and where we were fishing at the mouth yesterday the river was starting to open up in lots of spots. We moved our shacks to safer ice and will pull them off tomorrow. Just to early for spring . Be safe out there and take care. Heres a picture from last friday night of freind that were fishing with us.