Brainerd Area Report 1/31/15

The walleye bite continues in the Brainerd Area. You need to work a little harder to find them but once you do they are fairly aggressive and hungry. Most of the community spots are tapped out and you need to look at secondary structure and try to find un-fished areas. I’m bouncing around on mid lake structure and fishing fairly deep. 25-42 FOW mainly depending on the time of day. Deeper in the mid day hours and working my way up towards evening. Jigging Shad Raps and set lines with shiners seem to be the ticket this week. They seemed to be shying away from the spoons, for me anyways. The best bite seems to still be in the evening.

Photo: A walleye I pulled out of the hole for my customer.

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Nick I should have gone out with you last weekend

I took a group of mostly newbies out on Saturday. Everyone had a good time but we didn’t do so hot from a fishing standpoint.

Decided to try out a theory. This was somewhat based on an IDO episode this year and a great day I had on Mille Lacs a few years back. Yes, this is completely contrary to your advice and my lack of success means I went back to my day job.

Background: Lack of snow cover means the weeds are still green.

Theory: Maybe the walleye come up to the weed edge and weed flats to feed at sunset and later. Similar to the Lantern Light episode from this year. Also similar to a phenomenal day I had with tip ups at Mille Lacs a few years ago.

Setup: weedline was as 12fow + a couple feet of ice. We had a big group and were not mobile. Put the big hub house on the so one end was deeper water than the other. This was also on an inside turn. 4 inch perch were more than plentiful
Set up a few tip ups from 8fow, 18fow, and 26fow at the bottom of the break.
Local buddy and his kid came out for the golden hour. He set up a tip up halfway down the break, bobber with a rainbow and active jigging at the bottom of the break.

Results: 1 16 inch walleye in the house. 1 lost around 7:30pm in the house(guessing same class walleye), 0 on the tip ups. Buddy had a few marks down the break but like the other report, no love for spoons.

Side benefit to only having one were all the great jokes about loaves and fishes.

Went out Sunday by myself on another lake looking for panfish. Had just under two hours. Skunked, never found them. Another hour or a partner to help locate them might have changed. Just ran out of time when my curfew kicked in.

Pat,

It is always fun to try out theories. That is how we learn as anglers and you could have just as easy had a remarkable night of fishing. Your spot sounds like it could have good potential as an early ice spot as that is what I’m usually looking for – inside turn, weeds, perch, sharp breakline ect. (Keep it in mind for next year) It may even have more opportunity this year as you said you got two fish to bite (lost one of them) and marked a few more. Maybe you need to move around and find “the spot on the spot” so to speak. You found out that there are some fish around the area. Could have been an off night, not showing them the right bait choice, or just making a small move and adjustment. I’m not saying there isn’t a shallow water bite going and I am a firm believer that walleyes relate to the weeds all year. It’s just a matter of which weeds and how active they are. I have just been targeting a different pattern and chasing the deep water fish but there is usually always more than one bite going on any given lake at the same time. Get back out there!

Good Luck

Nick Miltimore