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Feb. Fishing


Walleye #1

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Am thinking of coming up to URL in early Feb. How is the fishing normally for walleyes and crappies at this time of year??

Also any advice on chasing northerns with tip ups??

Walleye #1

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That's one of the best times of the year to snag Walleyes and Crappies on Red...

You'll snag a pike or two anywhere on that lake... But from what I know, pike fishing is best closer to shore in shallower waters.

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The northerns are generally chasing smaller fish out in the main basin during Febuary. You can set your tip-ups close to your house and have a shot at a nice pike...

but you will have an even better chance jigging a crappie minnow on a 16th oz. jig attached to a snoopy pole, them pike just love that set-up! grin.gif

The walleye and crappies can usually be patterned by then... It just takes more work to find and stay on the crappie schools these days.

Good Luck!

Ken

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Quote:

pike fishing is best closer to shore in shallower waters.


Once the ice grows to a thickness of 8-12 inches many changes take place in the shallows of Upper Red Lake. The main change that affects anglers is the amount of sunlight penetrating the now thicker ice and light snow cover. What this does on Upper Red is kill off the already fragile wave beat weed beds. Once the weed beds and bottom based chara begins to die of the D.O. (dissolved oxygen) levels get all whacked out for a short time. Now this affects the entire bio mass within those areas. Simply if you are having trouble breathing and the food has left you would move on correct? Well the food chain in shallow takes a small retreat to deeper water. First the small fish such as shiners and minnows leave since what little cover they had is no gone and consuming oxygen as it decays so they move out deep. The predators are soon to follow into the dark deeper waters.

What I believe takes place is a nomadic winter for pike. They follow the shiners and small perch out to the deep basins only to discover whitefish, crappies, suckers etc, an entire world to all for the chomping! They simply find themselves in the deeper oxygen rich basins with an all you can eat buffet going on, would you leave?

Pike will hang around in the deep holes getting fat and getting ready for the one thing that brings them back to shore, the spawn.

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