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Ice Fishing Report From Devils Lake

Category: article

 Dec 16th, 2021 by Keith Worrall 

Modified Dec 16th, 2021 at 8:27 AM

Starting to find more ice and some decent bites.

Recently we filmed a short video on the walleye fishing we are experiencing in the Devils Lake area where we are catching a lot of fish in just five feet of water. Walleyes in shallow water are typically aggressive, but we did have to tone down our presentation to be successful lately.

Usually, I start out aggressively jigging a glide bait like a Tikka Mino but surprisingly haven’t done as well lately with one of my all-time favorite lures… what has been working well are dead sticks and just rocking the Jointed Pinhead Minnow six inches off the bottom with a hard three-inch stroke. Have caught a lot of fish with the original Pinhead Minnow but never used the jointed version much before this week and couldn’t keep the walleyes off it. Always fun when you get confidence in a new lure.

Water is a little dirty and have noticed that the Jointed Pinhead does make a lot of noise so that might be a factor why this lure is catching fish right now and why the dead sticks are producing. Tomorrow can be a whole new day however so don’t get stubborn. Sometimes we can get so locked into what worked yesterday that we keep our selves from figuring out today. I am expecting the water to clear up and the hot colors/ lures will start to change.

We’re finding 8-5 inches of ice in different places and the snow didn’t seem to negatively affect the ice. Starting to see UTVs, ATVs, and snowmobiles out on some lakes in North Dakota and western Minnesota. Vehicles will be next.

We will be exploring a lot of different water over the next week, so we will report back with ice conditions and basic fish patterns.