Low Light Walleye Action and Under the Lights Perch

Ice fishing on Devils Lake can be a glorious, exalting experience that brings one to the pinnacle of sport fishing and makes you feel like the ‘king of the ice’.

Ice fishing on Devils Lake can be an extremely humbling, ego destroying experience that makes one question whether or not they know or ever knew anything about fish behavior and question…

“are there any damn fish in this lake?”

How one body of water can stir such a wide variety of emotions, even in those that fish its waters on a regular basis is one of the things that keeps us going back out there.  Keeps us anxiously anticipating our next outing.

I really don’t want to know how many times I have been off by mere yards from the Gold Mine and had I moved just a few yards that way or a few inches deeper I would have been on the Vexilar Christmas Tree.

There are many factors that contribute to why we weren’t on it.  We marked fish but they just wouldn’t go.  Devils Lake is a very unique system that presents many obstacles to ideal conditions.

I am asked many, many times:

Is there much of a night bite on Devils Lake?

My initial answer is ‘NO’, there isn’t.

Devils Lake’s waters are very stained.  This helps to create our two Golden Hours on the lake for Walleyes.  That early morning, light switch coming on period, from about a half hour before sunrise to about an hour after sun up.  Then, in the evening, about an hour before sunset to about half an hour after the sun dips below the horizon.

The stained water also shuts the bite down at night.  True, if a guy fished in  a sleeper house enough times he would probably bring in a fish or two, but overall, fish activity really shuts down once the light goes out.

Bright Lights, Big Perch City

After the morning Golden Hour, it is usually Perch Search time on the Big Devil.  The optimum Perch day is bright sun.  We believe there are many reasons behind this, the main being the sun eliminates those murky, shadow areas under the ice where Mr. Perch Gobbling Northern Pike likes to lurk.

For self preservation purposes, the Perch are much more active when they aren’t skittish to these shadow conditions and a stagnant inactive school will really come alive as that sun peaks out from behind the clouds.

Walleyes get their name for obvious reasons, those peepers are huge light gathering apparatus that allow them to be ambush predators during lowlight conditions.  In retrospect, Perch are visual feeders but need light in order to see what they are preying on and what is attempting to prey on them.

Clouds cut down the amount of light that gets through the ice, as does snow cover.  We have a densely snow covered lake right now and that is really decreasing visibility below the ice when the sun is not shining.

No Control

We can’t control the weather.  It is what it is and some days the sun is not going to shine.  Does that mean no perch fishing, not necessarily, you just might need to adjust your depth accordingly.  Cloudy Day = Fish shallower areas for Perch, Bright Sun = Slide a little deeper.

What We Can Control

We can’t control the weather, we can control our depth.

However, sometimes those shallower areas are devoid of Perch and the deeper areas are where the schools are concentrated.  Those deeper schools will come up, look at a jig until you jig it and then they shoot right back down to the bottom.  They are scared of their own shadow.

When this occurs we slow it down.  Dead sticks and slip bobbers with whole minnows become modus operandi.  Those deeper schools under cloudy or lower light conditions are still willing to feed but are real jumpy.  Much slower presentations are less likely to cause a scatter.

Color

I also believe this is crucial on those dimmer days.  Gold is our favorite ‘high light’, sunny day, Perch outing presentation.  Sometimes though, that glittery flash isn’t the answer when the light goes out.  Blues and Reds become more the answer, more subtle and therefore less likely to scatter the fish.  I experiment with color a lot more often on low light days than when the sun is shining if I am chasing Perch on the Hardwater.

Just a few things to think about the next time your Perch school goes dormant as the sun slides behind that cloud bank.

Additional Fishing Report Information

Many anglers are finding Perch in three different water depths right now.  Some bigger fish are coming out the 16-20 foot elevated flats.  There are a lot of smaller sized schools with good fish in them staging in that 28-32 foot range on the old shoreline shelves, and for just sheer numbers of Perch but smaller quality try the open basin deep waters. 40+ feet.

Good Luck out there…

Hold On To Your ROd…

and…

CATCH MORE FISH