Well I missed the morning bite and I figured I would just make an attempt at the evening bite.  I was planning to hit the local easy access community spot, but not really since I do have my own idea.  I usually see people show up for the evening bite as I am leaving, so maybe they know something I don't.  There were about half a dozen portables already occupying an area out there by the time I showed up.  However I do not plan to fish that area, the spot I am going to go too is just a bit away from there.   I drilled a hole and did a depth check and it came to 16 feet.  Nothing else on sonar so I figure it's as good as any, since I just want to pitch up camp.

As usual a one man set up and taking time to do it take me a good 20 minutes to 30 minutes, but I'm not really timing myself nor am I in any hurry.  I just normally take my time to hand drill the anchors.  It's not windy and probably didn't need it, however past experience proven to be my demise.  Had to watch my shelter blown down the lake while I was hole hopping.  At first I was like who's shelter is that, then notice it was mine.  There's no one else on the lake duh!  That was the worst walk back after chasing down the shelter and shouldering a flappy shelter walk of shame back.  Anyway I like to set up my foam flooring, set my spacing organization for one man happy camping.  

After clearing out my ice holes and finally settled down.  It was like no more than 10 minutes when I had a mark come through.  Teased the fish a little and it smacked my jigging lure.  Fish on with a little nice 14" walleye.  Well at least I wasn't getting skunked and that's always worth it.  I was now just staring at an empty sea again.  No marks, no activity under the ice, just my jigging lure.  So now comes my variety lures.  I wanted to really try the Sebile Vibrato as it seems like a good field test.  I was only using the smallest one at 1/8 oz.  It vibes solid bare metal and the drop did flutter a bit but still fast drop rate.  Baiting the treble hook totally killed the action and it was kind of useless.  Since I was just staring at an empty sea, I went back to my routine lure choices.  

So doing well with the Major Craft Jigpara Blade bait in 1/4 oz. weight so that one of the main choices.  The Lindy Rattl'n Flyer Spoon has always been a good producer for walleyes in the past so that was another main choice.  The Rapala Slab Rap is a good profile so that in in the line up too, both #4 and #5.  The Blue Fox Flash Jigging Spoon is a solid performer so that gets priority.  Now I know my jigging techniques for catfish, crappies, and perch, but I need to work on my walleye technique.  This trip was a big learning curve for me.  For one thing I don't really know how to work my jigging technique for walleyes.  I started with the normal crappie technique and it turned a few fish off.  So I finally figured to change it to quivering the jig and that proved to work and gotten another walleye.  Then I spent the next few hours just staring at an empty sea.  Well once in a long time I did see a fish mark come through.  I thrown my kitchen sink at it.

Eventually it was the old dead stick minnow and jigging to attract them strategy that worked later on into the night.  I totally botch up and didn't even bring a dedicated dead stick combo out.  So a jigging rod will be dead stick and it happened to be the Thorne Bros. Perch Sweetheart 32" custom with the Shimano Twin Power 1000XD spinning reel spooled with the Sufix 131 G-Core braided line.  Well it was so boring that I took a snooze.  Now normally I tether my rods so no fish would pull it into the drink.  I didn't do.  I woke up to a fish tugging on the dead stick.  Lucky catch.  Afterwards I notice that the fish would show up and swim away fairly quickly.   This sort of tells me, I'm in the wrong spot.  The long periods of dead sea and no signs of baitfish or any other activity.  Some jigging with the Major Craft Jigpara Blade bait attracted another walleye in the zone.  Again it turned away and went for the dead stick bait.  What I was noticing was that these late night fish were pulling and swimming a lot harder compared to the first fish I hooked into.  For sure it was giving the rod a work out as well as peeling drag from my reel.  I was kind of glad to have this set up being fortunate too.  For one thing I notice that the drag on this reel worked out far better than I expected.  Not start up pressure nor dip in pressure.  No jittery pulsation even with the drag clicking.  Even the solid one piece handle was giving me no play and it was direct connection to the overall combo.  The braid line remain very well managed and very well behave.  I thought my Stradic reels were great but this was like a jump like comparing my Stradic to a Sahara reel.

Overall, my walleye fishing skills is lacking.  I need more training in that respect and glad to have equipment that helps me where I'm lacking.