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Tonka --

I have heard a lot of that this year. A lot of people have been losing them half way up. Are they small or just biting short?

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They were decent fighters. Saw one on the camera over 20. Largest caught was 17. Only biting half the minnow. Shoulda hadsome stingers.

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Quote:

I have heard a lot of that this year. A lot of people have been losing them half way up. Are they small or just biting short?


50% of the hits I've had on bait I've lost. 100% of the hits on chubby darters and jigging raps were caught. I use baitless more than baited.

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Scott ND --

Have you had much luck on the Chubby Darter? I get some chasers, but they won't hit my chubby.

There is a qoute for you.

No really, my chubby and rapala has not worked very well.

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I got a couple of fish on my jigging rap this past weekend, but the biggest performer so far for me has been the angel eye jr.s.

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Dead --

Never in my life have I caught anything on my angle eye or my swedish pimple. I'm glad somebody is catching a few.

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Well fellas, this is my first visit onto this sight - I know what you guys are thinking, "oh great another newby who just wants to mooch info."

Anyways, my buddy and I are heading over to Pelican soon - we are both avid Devils Lake fisherman, but we did well on Pelican in the Fall. We did well actually more on the South end just on the inside turn of that first major point there - we are thinking about going back to this spot, but it sounds like the north end is producing as well... Good luck to all!

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I have always had luck on chubby darters. The first time I dropped a gold/orange #4 in at Big C. last week it didn't even make it to the bottom and POW...18"er. I also got a 19" on Sunday on a 1" blue/silver jigging rap (the older one) Nothing on minnows. I use no bait on the darters/raps.

I've also noticed the action on the darters on my new LX5 and have worked the snot out of them only to realize after dropping to a 1/32 #12 jig with a micro tail that it was 3-4" perch! I can't believe how small of a target the LX5 picks up. I've got to re-educate myself so I'm not preying on all the blips I see on the screen.

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Whats a jigging rap. can you show me a picture. I am familiar with the chubby's, they worked for me on Leaf last weekend for northerns.

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jigging_rap_chb.jpg

This is from Rapalas web page. They show the colors and a Macromedia Flash movie.

I've used them for 20 years (or since they came out confused.gif) and they work!

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Thanks ScottND

I guess I have seen them before but not sure what they were called. do you just jig them like a chubby? do you tip them with anything. Minnow head or tail?

Thanks

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Most of the time I don't put anything on them because, like the chubby, it messes with the action. If I do tip them it's usually a perch eye or wax worms.

I start with raising and dropping 2' while 6" from the bottom. Then hold at 6". Then I'll drop it to the bottom and wiggle it on the bottom and raise it 6" and hold. Then slowly back to the bottom and up 6" to a foot a few times. They usually hit on the hold.

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Thanks minneman - I let you know how we did tomorrow - we are leaving for Pelican by 1:30 today - hope the ice is okay. The spot my buddy and I want to hit seems like it is a mile off the place we are getting onto the lake - we might try to drive the shoreline all the way... We are going to play it by ear...

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Well, my buddy and I got to Pelican by about 3:30 PM yesterday - to our great surprise, there was access to the lake right at the spot we wanted to fish - We ended up catching 8 eyes total from about 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM - we dropped 5 back in as they were all 10 inches and we kept two 15 inchers and about a 13 incher. We stayed until 9:00 PM and couldn't buy a bite after 6:30. My buddy was using a green and yellow ice jig that had a red hook tipped with a minnow hooked through the back. We also had a dead rod with a plain hook and minnow that produced a few. Also, because this old timer up in Devils Lake swears by a gold Kastmaster and a fish head, I had to give it a try - to my surprise I caught two eyes on that as well. Probably the most notable part of the trip was when I was teling my buddy about these things we catch back home called mud puppies - I swear, not 10 minutes later, I pull up about a 12 inch muddy puppy - I couldn't believe it... Anyways, along with our 8 eyes, and 1 mud puppy we probably missed another 2 or 3 half way up the hole. There wasn't much size to the walleyes, but it was a fun outing. Good luck to all.

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I plan on hitting big C. tonight so I will put up a post later.

Action has been slow to steady. Small fish. Just enough to keep you going back, but not enough to keep you from thinking about other spots.

Good luck guys.

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Hit Big C. on Saturday and the same result. Two bites, two 12 inch walleyes. Pretty slow.

Anyone else getting any?

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Dahitman, I just had lunch with a couple of guys who have been catching(so they say) a lot of Walleyes on Big C. They have been using Chubby darters(hot perch?) in 17-22 ft of water..That is all the info I got out of them...

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Steel -- thanks for the update. That is hard to believe. Ddi they say if they have had any size? Any idea where they were?

I keep catching small ones, but they are hard to count.

Thoughts?

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Well, my buddy (where_my_jigs_at) and I bypassed Pelican this past weekend to hit lake Jewitt which is about 10 minutes north of Fergus - we got out to the lake at about 9:00 PM and hit the lake real quickly out in front of his inlaw's house. We caught 5 small walleyes in about 30 feet of water. The following day we had a crazy awesome day - We probably caught and kept 30 Perch and threw back another 35+ . The biggest Perch was about 11 inches. We also caught about a 34 inch pike on a frozen smelt. We were hoping to have a nice walleye bite that evening, but only managed 2 very small walleyes - all of our Perch came on dead sticks with crappie minnows and our walleyes came on dead sticks with the bigger walleye minnows (fatheads).

My buddy was throwing the camera down every so often and we just saw hoards of Perch and one real nice 20 inch walleye - we happened to plant ourselves on a real nice size underwater boulder in about 20 ft of water that the fish were swarming around - probably the most notable fish my buddy saw on the camera was what he said was a 4 lb bass that almost touched the cmera as it swam by!

Also, the ice conditions there were fabulous. The ice was about 16 inches thick and to our great surprise, we were driving on the lake all day - it was very solid out there...

We are looking at hitting up Pelican this evening - after being able to easily drive on Jewitt, we will automatically be wanting to drive on Pelican. That may be a bad move though... Any reprots about the ice conditions out there would be great! Is there still that huge slush layer yet? We didn't have any of that out at Jewitt. Good luck to all out there! If you want a little change up, even just to get substantially better ice conditions, Jewitt is the place to go...

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There is still quite a bit of slush on Lizzie. I was on Big C the weekend before last and there was some slush out there also. The fishing was also slow. I only managed two small walleyes and a couple smaller Northerns. The fish have seemed to be negative pretty much all year and the ones that have been caught have been pretty small. I have yet to go out and find some actively feeding fish.

Crappieking, have you been out on that lake that I saw you on lately? Have you heard any reports from out there. I almost went there yesterday, but decided to give Lizzie a try. Good luck to everyone and be safe on the ice.

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My buddy and I decided to go back to Pelican last night - at 5:30 PM we caught two back to back walleyes. One was 16" and the other was 15" caught on a dead stick and a minnow and the other one caught on a green and glow genz worm with a minnow hooked in the back. The action went dead until we caught another 15" walleye at about 8:30 PM and my buddy lost another of equal size half way up the hole. Both of those came on dead sticks with minnows as well. We were in that same spot in my earlier post about a week and a half ago... The biting was very sparse and sporadic (4 bites - three fish), but all in all, it was an okay night.

One other thing, the ice was about 16 inches where we were and it had no slush at all on it - The ice conditions have substantially improved over a week and a half. We started out the evening by parking on the shore and pulling the big ol sleeper out by hand - by the end of the night, we drove the truck out there and it was fine. Its good to be cautious, but dare I say some are too cautious...?

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Quote:

Its good to be cautious, but dare I say some are too cautious...?


I don't think you can ever be too cautious on ice, but I think one can definitely be more foolish. Keep in mind ice is never 100% safe, and everytime you go out you are taking a risk. It's just that by being smart and observant of the ice conditions that one can minimize and reduce those risks, to a level that they are comfortable with.

I think it's naive to think that because the ice may be 36" thick, that you'll never go in with a truck. It's just that the risk is much lower than say, driving on 8" of ice.

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Dead --

VERY good point. Taking a trailer is a pain in the lower region, but it is better than "getting dead" as my twin six-year-olds say.

Right, Dead?

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I don't have to worry about the trailer thing, because a lot of the lakes I like to fish have no motorized access, so you usually have to drag a sled in there by hand anyways...

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Oh, I definately see what you guys are saying - I mean, my buddy and I were cautious as well when we first got to the lake - we punched our holes and walked around the area and then came to the conclusion that it was solid ice for the truck - we went to lake Jewett this past weekend because we were hearing such bad ice reports about Pelican, but the ice was solid out at Pelican when we got there - my buddy and I both looked at each other and wondered about the validity of the ice reports...

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Not about the validity of the ice reports on this sight of coarse smile.gif , I mean reports we had been hearing in bait shops and whatnot...

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Fished Big Cormrant tonight of the West access in 25 feet of water and caught 3 small perch, a 10" walleye and a 20" sucker between four of us.

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He he....at least you caught something! My wife and I went to Brainerd for the $150,000.00 Worlds largest ice fishing contest on 1/21. There were 14-15,000 people on the ice and a 2.2 lb. tulibee won an 06 Ford 4x4 ext. cab pickup. A .38 perch was 100th place and won $10,000.00 cash. 150th was a .31 perch good for a 06 Polaris 500 Sportsman. It was a fun time and we'll be back again next year. My wife (who isn't in to ice fishing) even had a great time!!! shocked.gif

Well, off to Jamestown Res. to meet the FM'ers. for a ND get together. The fishing starts this afternoon but we are going to meet just south of the boat club at Noon for a cookout if anyones interested. There will be a grill on the ice.

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