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They're biting!


Stick in Mud

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Fished the SE side from 10:30-2pm caught one small eye...Went up to the north side and met up with my buddy in his castle...Fished from 330pm-10am today caught 5 eyes(25,24,23,16,15) all from 11pm-1am... We were marking a ton of fish, but nothing I put down would get them to bite....Very frustrating.

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Rocky Reef was a tough bite today. I hear the overnight wheelhouse crowd did poorly, too. They caught some size, but numbers were way down. 

 

I ended up with 7- 17" walleyes and worked very hard to get them. Hole-hopped the entire time (8 hours) and drilled about 75 holes with one StrikeMaster Lithium Lazer battery, so I'm impressed with that. 

Edited by BassThumb.
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9 hours ago, Stick in Mud said:

Nice photo, BT.  How have you done on the walleyes with the new lure? 

Slab Raps are a lot of fun to fish, but you'll spook some fish with them, even with the most subtle jiggle. Still, lots of walleyes come take a look, so you'll get an idea of what's nearby.

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Thanks for the responses, guys.  For whatever reason I don't spend much time trying the more aggressive presentations in the winter.  I might have to give them a try this weekend. 

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After not fishing last weekend (gotta see the wife once in a while, alas), it was nice to get back to the Pond early yesterday afternoon.  Unfortunately, I got skunked. What makes matters worse, though...and much, much worse at that...is that my dad whacked them.  So not only did I catch zero fish, but my dad lost track somewhere near 12 or thereabouts.  Ouch.  :)

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Has anyone tried for pike on tip ups yet?  Hoping to give it a shot this coming weekend, but the reports I've heard are they have been far and few between for pike. 

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Last few winters, I've caught more Walleyes on tipups, than Pike.  I fish the west side of the lake, and it has stunk.

 

I'm glad the DNR, using robust scientific data, figured out that the Pike were the culprit in the decline of the lake (sarcasm).

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Has the bite dropped off? My 11 year old Son has been asking to go catch some Eyes. Don't want to drive 2 hrs to get skunked and have a disappointed kid. Any reports would be appreciated!!!

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3 hours ago, KadenBear said:

Has the bite dropped off? My 11 year old Son has been asking to go catch some Eyes. Don't want to drive 2 hrs to get skunked and have a disappointed kid. Any reports would be appreciated!!!

Don't get your hopes up. February is like the "dog-days" of winter. These last couple trips to Mille Lacs have been mediocre. Last trip I got skunked for the first time of the winter. Nothing like the wild early-ice trips before the brigades of Ice Castles hit the scene. Nonetheless, I'm headed out Friday morning at about 4am. The bar is set low. I just hope I can count the walleyes on one hand.

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About tip-ups:  Yep, I've tried them, and the walleye bite has been excellent early and late on BIG sucker minnows.  The pike bite has significantly declined in recent years. We have got a few nice ones this winter, but it's nothing like it was pre-spearing.  

 

Our houses have slowed down quite a bit, but we've also not moved them, so that's probably partially our fault.  We've also had enough good days/nights to keep us around, though on average we're getting significantly fewer fish than we were early on.  Overall, our experience mirrors what I've heard from others, but there are still the random reports of people really whacking them.  

 

I'll be up again this weekend, but there's no way I'll be chasing them at 4 a.m....unless you include rattle reels in that description. :)

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Had a great trip this Thursday-Saturday on the pond.  Contrary to what we'd been hearing, we did not find the bite to have slowed down.  For us, the key was not being remotely close to anyone.  Also, for the first time in a while, we were able to find walleyes during the daytime hours (although sunset was best).

Overall, we caught around 40 between the 5 of us, with our biggest 3 being 25" (pics below).  We also set up my buddy's dad and his friend in their castle about a mile from us (also alone) and they caught quite a few with two @ 26".  About 75% of our fish came jigging.

The other key was being mobile during the day, which was far easier Friday and Saturday with the balmy temps.

We caught fish in mud, gravel and rocks, in depths ranging from 35 to 15'.  

Great times in what may be the last trip on ML for the year with the forecast being so warm.

58a209f04d161_Feb2017me.thumb.JPG.301f42268925ed0a76e5136188d2fd38.JPG58a20a0734153_Mikeerased.jpg.3d57918c0046bdd23224a91a08099d34.jpg58a20a220d769_Feb2017Blaze.thumb.JPG.c8f859cbd8248bf904a14b24c972e6d4.JPG

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8 hours ago, DLD24 said:

Blurring out the lure, that's a first haha...Good report hopefully we have the same luck this weekend.

 

Haha normally I wouldn't care, but I really want to know what it is now. Looks like some sort of 3" lipless crankbait in a glow green color. I don't recognize it. 

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Great report, RCN.  

 

Good to hear they're still biting.  We picked up maybe...I dunno....15 or 20 this weekend, most coming from the fishhouse I moved into a new and relatively isolated spot.  I also got sick of the rattle reels going off so I pulled up the lines.  I'm just not that mad at them. :)  So I think you're exactly right; getting away from the crowd certainly works. My buddies were out hitting the mud flats all by their lonesome and claimed to catch exactly 72 over the weekend.  Whether that's an accurate number or not, I don't know (it sounds awefully precise to me) but there are still certainly fish to be had.  

 

DLD, with big suckers we sometimes run quick-strike rigs, but we typically don't get as many bites on them.  We've had better luck with big single hooks and trimming the tails of the minnows so they don't swim up to the bottom of the ice.  We also miss quite a few, but I'd much rather miss a few than gut-hook/kill them. 

 

 

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On 2/13/2017 at 10:57 PM, BassThumb. said:

 

Haha normally I wouldn't care, but I really want to know what it is now. Looks like some sort of 3" lipless crankbait in a glow green color. I don't recognize it. 

I'm going green blade bait haha

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On 2/13/2017 at 2:48 PM, DLD24 said:

Blurring out the lure, that's a first haha...Good report hopefully we have the same luck this weekend.

On 2/13/2017 at 10:57 PM, BassThumb. said:

 

Haha normally I wouldn't care, but I really want to know what it is now. Looks like some sort of 3" lipless crankbait in a glow green color. I don't recognize it. 

 

I'm still working on locking up sponsorship's so I can quit my day job.  Don't want to limit my pool of potential vendors by endorsing one for free! ;)

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

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