Jump to content
  • GUESTS

    If You  want access  to member only forums on FM, You will need to Sign-in or  Sign-Up now .

    This box will disappear once you are signed in as a member.

Recommended Posts

Fished Big Pine for the first time this holiday season.  Caught a few pike and two small walleyes.  I'm not looking for spots but I've never fished a lake that is pure sand with no weeds.  I fished a first break one day and from 12-25 fow I didn't find any structure and I drilled a ton of holes.  Tried a sharp break the following day and same results but no fish.  Do you just have to set up and the fish roam around?  Do you have to hit mid lake structures?  Both of the spots I tried were shoreline breaks.  Heck we caught more shiners then walleyes this weekend!  Ice was 8" in both spots I fished.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haven't been out there myself but my son and his buddies have a bunch. "you can punch a hole anywhere right now and catch walleyes" is the report. Maybe try again.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Get used to it cause you get a lot of people that look but no one reply. Try some of the humps that are away from the shorelines or corners in a shoreline break my best luck has always been in the afternoon to after dark good luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks.  We tried north shorline didn't do too bad a lot of misses but pretty slow.  Do you guys find dead sticks work better then jigging?  All of our activity was on jigs not one hit on a dead stick.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last year the shoreline break 12-14 FOW nothing but low lying sand grass jigging a small crankbait tipped with minnow head. They would come in and crush the bait like a tackle thieving slimer, watched it on camera.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did you actually see weeds on camera?  We were finding weeds here and there but nothing more than 2-3 here and there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very sparse, not enough to really amount to much cover. Lots of perch in the areas we did well on walleye, assume that's why they were there.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When we were fishing the north break we actually were catching shiners 3-6" guys so figured the walleyes wouldn't be too far away.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was just wondering how the ice conditions are on thw lake? How many inches? Driving out? Any bad spots?  Thanks for any replies. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't been back since New Years but they were parking on the ice at that time and pulling wheel houses out so I'm sure most places you can drive but obviously don't be the first explorer in an area without checking ice thickness.

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Chill62 said:

 I'm sure most places you can drive but obviously don't be the first explorer in an area without checking ice thickness.

This is a Great reminder ,  Too many people just assume that with the 2 cold snaps that the ice must be thick enough by now. Check the ice thickness for yourself and keep yourself out of harms way. :2c:

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A friend of mine was on Big Floyd by DL and had 12.5" of ice and he wanted to try Little Floyd so he jumped over got out a bit and decided he should check the ice thickness.  Drilled a hole and had 9.5".  He was in the process of packing up to get the heck off the ice and a full size vehicle pulling a double axle drop down fish house flew by him as he was trying to wave them down.  Please take time and checked.  I checked my favorite hole Friday because friends were saying 7.5-8" and I was out two weeks earlier and had that amount at that time.  I drilled and found 10.5" and flooding right next to shore where a portable had been fishing.  Got 50 feet away and had 12".  I played chineese fire drill all the way to my destination to make sure.  Did it suck?  YES!  BUT I know I have safe ice the whole way across the lake!!!  Lake of the Woods they are still finding 6" spots on the lake!

Best advice I can give a person is buy a scoop that has the inches marked on the scoop.  That way you know exactly how thick the ice is instead of estimating it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Son was out there this past weekend and said people were driving everywhere. Obviously you want to avoid the inlet outlet areas.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you everyone for the replies. I am always a safety first kind of guy. Was just wondering what to expect when i head that way. Thanks again. I'll let you know what i find. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/18/2016 at 5:52 PM, CASTnBLAST said:

Son was out there this past weekend and said people were driving everywhere. Obviously you want to avoid the inlet outlet areas.

 

Thanks for the update!  I'll be out there on Sunday I guess helping setting a fish house up.  Neither of us have set this house up so I'm hoping to make it back to Fargo by noon! lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was out on Big Pine early (thursday)...many shelters and spearing houses occupied for a week day... there is a big push to take pike big and small on Big Pine as the pike populations are extremely high. saw many spearing houses by 9 am that had at least 1-2 pike and a few anglers with at least 1 pike... one angler was on a crappie run at 18 feet    

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will also be out here this weekend, chasing some walleyes. We usually have pretty good luck. Thanks for all the updates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Anyone know what the North Access is looking like?  Gotta get a fish house off of the lake and curious what I'm getting into on Saturday

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was out there Satruday morning.  North access was car friendly still.  While out on the ice there were spots were 3-4" of water were sitting.  We were able to get our fish house off of the lake easy but there was a giant lake around it 3-4" deep.  When I did pull the house away from where she was sitting I had a tire on the trailer drive across the frozen hole last used on Monday and it broke open.  The water was flowing down the hole like crazy.  North side only had a few fish houses but the crappie hole to the east had a few houses still.  Ice looked good for all things considered.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

They are getting harder to find by the day.  Water warmed up fast this year and I think the shiner bite is about over.  I fished with crawlers and leeches last weekend and had good luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was using shiners and the shiners went deep but I didn't try and leeches or crawlers, I did see a guy up shallow speed trolling with crawlers killing them.  In the 45 min we tried to stay near them they picked up about 8 keepers and threw back a few slot fish.  Jig and shiner seemed to be too aggressive but a lindy did good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



  • Similar Content

  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • Brianf.
      I'm not there, so I can't tell exactly what's going on but it looks like a large area of open water developed in the last day with all of the heavy snow on the east side of wake em up Narrows. These two photos are from my Ring Camera facing north towards Niles Point.  You can see what happened with all of snow that fell in the last three days, though the open water could have been wind driven. Hard to say. .  
    • SkunkedAgain
      Black Bay had great ice before but a few spots near rockpiles where there were spots of open water. It looks like the weight of the snow has created a little lake in the middle of the bay.  
    • LakeofthewoodsMN
      On the south end...   Thanks to some cold spring weather, ice fishing continues strong for those still ice fishing.  The bite remains very good.  Most resorts have pulled their fish houses off for the year, however, some still have fish houses out and others are allowing ATV and side by sides.  Check social media or call ahead to your favorite resort for specifics. Reports this week for walleyes and saugers remain excellent.   A nice mix of jumbo perch, pike, eelpout, and an occasional crappie, tullibee or sturgeon being reported by anglers. Jigging one line and using a live minnow on the second line is the way to go.  Green, glow red, pink and gold were good colors this week.     Monster pike are on a tear!  Good number of pike, some reaching over 45 inches long, being caught using tip ups with live suckers or dead bait such as smelt and herring in 8 - 14' of water.   As always, work through a resort or outfitter for ice road conditions.  Safety first always. Fish houses are allowed on the ice through March 31st, the walleye / sauger season goes through April 14th and the pike season never ends. On the Rainy River...  The river is opened up along the Nelson Park boat ramp in Birchdale, the Frontier boat ramp and Vidas boat ramp.  This past week, much of the open water skimmed over with the single digit overnight temps.   Areas of the river have popped open again and with temps getting warmer, things are shaping up for the last stretch through the rest of the spring season, which continues through April 14th.   Very good numbers of walleyes are in the river.  Reports this week, even with fewer anglers, have been good.  When temps warm up and the sun shines, things will fire up again.   Jigs with brightly colored plastics or jigs with a frozen emerald shiner have been the desired bait on the river.  Don't overlook slow trolling crankbaits upstream as well.   Good reports of sturgeon being caught on the river as well.  Sturgeon put the feed bag on in the spring.  The bite has been very good.  Most are using a sturgeon rig with a circle hook loaded with crawlers or crawlers / frozen emerald shiners. Up at the NW Angle...  Ice fishing is winding down up at the Angle.  Walleyes, saugers, and a number of various species in the mix again this week.  The bite is still very good with good numbers of fish.  The one two punch of jigging one line and deadsticking the second line is working well.   Check with Angle resorts on transport options from Young's Bay.  Call ahead for ice road guidelines.  
    • CigarGuy
      With the drifting, kind of hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing about a foot and still lightly snowing. Cook end!
    • PSU
      How much snow did you get on Vermilion? 
    • Mike89
      lake here refroze too...  started opening again yesterday with the wet snow and wind...  very little ice left today...
    • Hookmaster
      A friend who has a cabin between Alex and Fergus said the lake he's on refroze. He texted me a pic from March 12th when it was open and one from 23rd when it wasn't. 🤯
    • SkunkedAgain
      I don't think that there has been any ice melt in the past few weeks on Vermilion. Things looked like a record and then Mother Nature swept in again.   I'll give my revised guess of April 21st
    • leech~~
      As I get older it's really not just about sending bullets down range.  Some of it's just the workmanship of the gun and the wow factor. The other two guns I have really wanted which I'll never have now because of their price, is a 8mm Jap Nambu and 9mm German Luger.   Just thought they always looked cool!  
    • jim curlee
      I had a guy hit me with a lightly used 1969 BAR, he wanted $1650 with an older Leupold scope. More than I think they are worth, I made an offer, he declined end of story.   You know if you look at the old brochures, a grade II BAR sold for $250 in the late 60s, $1650 would be a good return on your investment.    Why would anybody want a 50 year old gun, they are heavy, have wood stocks, and blued metal.  I guess mainly to keep their gun safes glued to the floor. lol   You can probably buy a stainless rifle that you never have to clean, with a synthetic stock you never have to refinish, is as light as a feather, and for half as much money, perfect.   I'm too old for a youth gun, although I've shrunk enough that it would probably fit. lol   No Ruger 10/44s.   Jim      
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.