Contours and Hole Sets
If drilling in the trees is not up your alley, the Big Devil has many different opportunities for you. Humps and drop offs and flat basins. A GPS with Devils Lake chip will assist you in targeting these areas. I would be lost and flying blind without my GPS unit with Lake Chip.
In future postings I will reveal to you which ones I think are best and which ones I use, but that is another conversation.
On early ice it is important to realize that the Walleyes are hugging structure and active most in the first two hours of the day and the last hour of the evening. We call both of these periods the Golden Hours and if you are going to target Walleyes on Devils Lake it is imperative that you are on the ice and set up early and late.
When we are targeting Walleyes on Early Ice we generally get out on the lake in the dark, preferably long before the sun is even close to lightening the horizon. I like to have my holes drilled long before the fish become active.
Devils Lake has almost no night bite, but this early ice walleye action is usually best in under 10 feet of water and drilling can scatter the fish. This is why I like to get my holes drilled long before the Eyes are in the shallows looking for food.
What’s your preference, Morning Golden Hour or Evening Golden Hour? Give you input as to why your time is better!
What we are looking for on the GPS is contour lines that are forming “O’s” or “8’s”, this signifies rises or depressions. Preferably rises as I have my best Early Ice Walleye successes on humps, Walleye are ambush predators and are coming up, underneath their prey to feed.
When we fishing humps and structure, we seldom, seldom only drill one hole. In fact, I like to drill a series of holes peppering the entire structure both on top of the hump, on the cut, and below on the flat surrounding the hump. You can get the Eyes coming, going, and in between.
Walleye fishing in the a.m. and p.m. Golden Hours is a jigging game on Devils Lake. Along with jigging, however, I also like to set slip bobbers with plain hooks and full minnows, tail hooked. I believe that not only does this struggling bait action ‘call the fish in’, I have also experienced that some of our bigger fish actually come on the set lines and not the active jigging rods.
Later on I will describe and provide pictures of all of the equipment we utilize such as jigs, rods, and other essential equipment.
