Hot Midwinter Walleye Bite

[Todd Bohm]

It was time this week to try exploring and to try using some new techniques and tactics we have been contemplating. After the success of our clients this weekend, we knew we were on the right path so we headed off to the Eau Pleine to give these ideas a try and wow!!! did they work. Knowing the past few years have been tough on the Eau Pleine we thought this would put these new ideas to the "acid" test. Looking for very specific structure features and drilling a lot of holes was certainly the key for us. The Strikemaster punched through the ice like crazy and by using our gps, maps, and the vexilars we soon found what we were looking for. Another key structure we needed to have associated with our contour breaks was wood and the legwork that was done two years ago when the Eau Pleine was down 16 feet really paid off. We had spent days marking stumps, logs, and other structure during that fall and entering all of those waypoints into our GPS. We had even shot pictures and video of some of the best structure to have a more permanent record. So - specific contour features, wood, and depths in the 6-15' range were the specific features we were looking for. Our lure of choice thanks to Jason Mitchell from the Perch Patrol on Devils Lake in North Dakota was the Moonshine Shiver Minnow. Jason had turned us onto this lure since they have been destroying the walleyes with it on Devils Lake. We were using the 1/2 oz glow perch tipped with a fathead minnow head. Jigging was the key as we only had 1 tip-up pop the whole evening but the jig bite was awesome. We caught fish from 14" up to 22" and this bite lasted consistently for over 2 hours. Check out the Perch Patrol website or moonshinelures.com for more information on this lure. We were really fired up with this night bite as typically mid to late January marks a slow period for walleye fishing. With the experiment a success, we are feeling like this pattern will produce fish for us on many different types of water bodies. Stay tuned for further updates Take a kid fishing.

See you on the water
Todd