ice fishing prairie lake walleyes.
Getting Ready
Jeff Beckwith
The Edge
Turk Gierke
First Ice Perch
Norb Wallock
First Ice Crappies
Rick Olson
First Ice Walleyes
Paul Rohweller
Icing Early Eyes
Ron Anlauf
Early Ice Patterns For Prairie Lake Trophy Walleyes
If
you are not extremely familar with a particular body of water get a map.
Locate key points and saddle areas near the largest and deepest portion of the
basin. What you are looking for are areas that will funnel fish, such as a
saddle connecting an island to shore which can be very good if it has a flat
nearby and ties two basins together. Areas like this can also be much deeper
than a person thinks at first glance. Back in the 1930's many of the prairie lakes were dry
enough to farm with a little ditch work. Time spent searching long points that
look like they will run all the way from one shore to the other will often reveal
ditches that were dug years ago. These are fish superhighways. During the day walleyes will often suspend out over the main basin moving
into these shallower areas to feed at twilight on perch and whatever else is
handy. It is important to be stealthy and finish your noise early in these shallow areas.
Sometimes I like to drill my holes the night before and cover them up with
styrofoam if I know I'm going to fish there in the morning.
Drilling and stomping around on the ice during primetime is unacceptable,
stealth rules.
Presentation can vary but day in and day out jigging spoons like the angel eye
spoons by Scenic Tackle and the varmint spoon in the perch glow colors tipped
with a torn off fathead head work wonders. Your jigging should start off
fairly agressive, advertise that your bait is down there and then back it off
to just slight jiggles, enough to make the minnow head just swing back and
forth a little. Over the years of watching walleyes I have noticed that most
of the time they can be extremely curious like a cat , they will look at
anything you put in front of them but it will take some experimentation to
find out what your fish want. Remember primetime is the right time so be
ready, the good bite might only last a few minutes. Good Luck A great new early ice tool is the ice saw. Click here to see the gear.
by Paul Rohweller
The cold weather has found me waiting anxiously for safe ice and the tug of
the first walleye for the ice season. Where is a person going to start? 
As most of us know,
walleyes like to follow edges like weedlines and old treeline growth (another
by product of the dirty thirties ) and if you can find a funnel area it will
up your odds tremendously.
Paul Rohweller
Pine to Prairie Guide Service