I’ve written about ice fishing for walleyes before. If you’ve watched our “Good Fishing” television program, you’ve seen us take walleyes on live bait slip-bobber rigs, tip-ups, jigging spoons and other techniques. We’ve demonstrated the effective use of sensitive sonar, GPS and underwater cameras. All of these are ice-fishing tools of the trade.
But you can always put a new spin on your approach to fishing. The crafty angler is a guy or gal who tinkers, experiments and builds a repertoire of unique presentations to catch fish while everyone else is staring at a floating bobber.
Such was the case on a recent evening, while ice fishing in the late afternoon on a Minnesota lake. Typically during the hour leading up to sunset and the hour after, walleyes will move their way up steep breaks from deeper water – feeding as they go – before reaching the shallower flats and reefs to feed throughout the night. On this particular day, they drifted up the break like clockwork. You could see them on sonar. But they wouldn’t take a bait – whether it was a live minnow or an array of jigs and spoons.
As I dove into my tackle box to try yet another spoon color, something caught my eye that didn’t belong. It was a 3 1⁄2 inch Live Magic Shad from Lake Fork Tackle. What was a soft plastic bass swim bait doing in my walleye box? My daughter Karlee probably put it in there while rifling through my stuff.
For bass this past summer, the Lake Fork bait was absolutely deadly on largemouth. It also caught the odd walleye that was out cruising with his big-mouthed competitors. It has a segmented, minnow-shaped body that really slithers its way to strikes. The combination of action and garlic-flavored attraction packed a serious one-two wallop. So I thought “what the heck, maybe it will catch walleyes through the ice.”
It did.
Since winter walleyes are (for some reason) suckers for a vertical minnow profile, like you get with a jigging spoon, I rigged the Live Magic Shad vertically. Here’s how you do it: Start with a large sewing needle with an eye big enough for whatever diameter fishing line you’re using. Chances are you don’t keep a needle in your tackle box, but it’s a great accessory to have for a variety of uses. Get one and keep it in your tray.
Thread your line through the eye of the needle and run the needle down the entire length of the Magic Shad starting at the head and coming out at the center of the tail. Next, tie on the hook of your choice. My preference is a size-6 red treble hook. Then, between the hook and bait, crimp on a #2 or 3 split-shot sinker. The sinker will get the bait down and make it hang vertically. It also acts as a “stopper” to keep the bait from creeping down onto the hook shank. Finally, pinch a tiny #B split-shot just above the nose of the bait to keep it from migrating up the line.
When you work this “soft spoon,” a rapid jerk upward engages the segmented Magic Shad body, making it look like an injured minnow trying desperately to escape. Since the line running through the body is supple, the bait can achieve its snake-like action and kick out some good vibration. You’ll feel it in your rod hand when you jig it. And because it’s impregnated with garlic scent, it provides additional attraction.
Jigging spoons, because they’re so heavy, return very quickly to the bottom after a jerk. This can be an effective trigger in many instances. But on my recent outing with the “soft spoon,” the slow downward flutter seemed to be just what the walleyes wanted. Most of the strikes came on the drop. A few of others smacked the Live Magic Shad when it was just hanging still. Two attacked the bait while it was swimming upward.
By sunset I had caught 11 walleyes. Two were 5-plus pounders. They went back. A few were dinks. They went back too, to grow up. But a nice limit of “eaters” found themselves in the pail, and later that night, on the table. Nothing like a meal of deep-fried walleye fillets served only a couple of hours after they were swimming. Now THAT’S fresh!
I wasn’t the only one fishing the structure that evening. A half dozen other portable shelters were there too. One guy was closing up shop the same time I was. “How’d you do?” I asked.
“Awful,” he said. “A lot of fish came through but I couldn’t get them to bite. How ’bout you?”
“Yup, it was a tough bite,” I agreed. I would have stayed to explain the nuances of soft spooning, but I was getting hungry. Besides, I just spelled out the technique here for everyone to read. So it’s not like I’m keeping
any secrets or anything.
Good Fishing!
Babe Winkelman is a nationally-known outdoorsman who has taught people to fish and hunt for more than 25 years. Watch the award-winning “Good Fishing” and “Outdoor Secrets” television shows on Versus (formerly OLN), Fox Sports Net, WILD TV, WFN and many local networks.By: Babe Winkelman / Babe Winkelman Productions
