Hi Y'all,
So....last winter I decided i was gonna be more adventurous and get out to try a few different lakes ice fishing. Without a snowmachine though, my options were limited. There are however plenty of small lakes around here right by the sides of the main roads/highways. One of these lakes...Pritchard Lake is right next to Highway 502, and last winter, after reading it held walleye in the Offroad Mapbook...decided to give it a try as it is only a 10 minute drive from our house with easy access (in the winter). We went out and could not get far as there was so much snow earlier on last year...this lake was knee deep in slush....not fun to fish...and my buddy’s kid and dog were getting cold feet from the slush.....we did manage to stay for 2 hours...and with 6 holes drilled...we did not even get a bite!!!
I never really gave this lake much thought after that episode, until the night before last when working the night shift. I was talking fishing with a co-worker and she mentioned Pritchard Lake, and the fact her husband had caught a nice walleye and some big pike there last summer. She explained that if you look carefully there is a little road off to the left which will take you to an area suitable to put a boat in.
So....after my night shift, the next morning on my way home, i went to see if i could find Pritchard Lake's boat launch....and found it. I was dead tired, and had had a tooth pulled at the dentist after work that morning too, but the prospect of trying a new lake was too good to pass up, especially one that is clouded in mystery.
What i mean by mystery is.......i have asked at least 30 local fishermen about this lake...half don’t really know which one i mean, the others have never fished it, so finding out what is in there is difficult. The offroad mapbook says there are walleye and pike....but the offroad mapbook is not the most accurate publication in the world, as a recent trip "offroad" proved.
OK...enough historical background...lol...
Not knowing what..if anything lived in this lake...i clipped four rods already rigged into the boat, one ready for Mepps and topwater, one for straight jigging, one with a walleye spinner, and one with my favourite slip bobber set up. I was out on the lake by 12:30 pm. this lake is almost completely round, and although my fishfinder was not working properly today in more than 30' the lake does not get deeper than that, and is a pretty uniform 'bowl'. As well as its symmetrical round shape the depth is pretty uniform too, and from shore it tends to go from 0-12' in a distance of 20' then drops off quite steeply down to 30'.....was wondering whether it was a meteor crater actually. Apart from a couple of rock points the shoreline is almost completely bordered by reed beds...with walleye cabbage weed extending from the reeds up to 10 feet out. Perfect for walleye i thought, as lot of the god walleye fishing i have had this summer has been in exactly this kind of weed layout/coverage.
My go to method for fishing for walleye on a lake I’ve not fished before is fast becoming a hammered gold walleye spinner with leech or minnow, weighted with a 1/4 - 3/8 weight trolled as slow as possible while still being able to feel the blade vibration, varying the troll speed only by using a jigging action to speed up the presentation every now and then., its effective as you can cover a lot of ground.
so i started my troll on the edge of the cabbage.....i had got about 30 yards before i felt the first tug....felt like a perch....and sure enough it was, i caught loads and had many minnows stolen throughout the day by the numerous perch in the lake........
LOTS OF THESE LITTLE GUYS
I was getting some bites that felt heavier, and was not long before i started to pull pike after pike into the boat, all pretty small though.
LOTS OF THESE LITTLE GUYS TOO
After about half an hour of non stop small perch and pike i decided to move , my 2 dozen minnows were being depleted rapidly and still had 85% of the lake to explore in search of walleye. I decided to head across the lake to the opposite side, and did some criss-crossing in the middle section to see if there was any structure/reefs etc in the middle section, in fact i did this a few times and covered a fair bit of the lake....and can say pretty confidently that this lake is...like i said ...a uniform bowl with little or no hidden structure in the middle 30' deep sections.
I started another troll along the ridge between 17' and the 12' shelf ....i was marking a few fish arches but they were very small. This new area i was trolling was the south facing shore, and had the wind blowing up against it. It was not long before i started to get some better size pike here on the hammered gold spinner. I decided to change my presentation as the spinner was attracting to much attention from the pike, and switched over to a chartreuse/glow thumper jig with a little rattle attachment, ( i had briefly tried a plain black jig earlier, and the bites completely dried up). Literally first cast and as soon as the jig hit the bottom i had a fish on....a nice little smallie!!!!
THE PIKE WERE BIGGER ON THE WINDSWEPT SOUTH FACING SHORE (the sound on my camera is busted)
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NICE TO KNOW THERE ARE BASS IN HERE!!!
As soon as i knew there were ass in here i had abandoned the walleye hunt(for now) and switched up to my Mepps rod and started casting at the weed/reed beds. Well i did not catch anymore bass...but i had a blast catching some good to medium size pike. because of the cabbage weed i was having to retrieve the Mepps with the rod held high so the Mepps was almost on the surface, i was watching the pike rise up from the weeds and nail it...so i thought i would switch over to topwater...which also worked great......great to watch the dark green torpedo follow under the popper for 20 to 30 feet then do a really fast burst on the retrieve .......that was the ticket...they just nailed it!!!!!
LOTS OF FUN PIKE ACTION ON THE MEPPS
DEFINITELY CHUNKIER ON THIS SIDE OF THE LAKE
WATCH THEM FOLLOW IT ALL THE WAY OUT OF THE WEED EDGE....DO A SHORT SPEED RETRIEVE....AND WHAM!!!!!.....GREAT FUN!
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After a couple hours of fun with the pike...i must have landed at least 15 nice size ones...i decided i was slimy enough and should continue to see if there actually were walleye in this lake....i was beginning to doubt it. I used my walleye spinner and jig and trolled round to where i had started some 4 hours earlier.......NOTHING.....well small perch and pike again. It was around 6 pm and the sun was at the top of the tree line......i had not really even marked many walleye looking arches on my fishfinder and was almost gonna call it a day....but decided to try one last go on the only stretch of shoreline i had not covered......i think i had subconsciously avoided this area as it is where we had skunked so spectacularly ice fishing the first time i tried this lake.
The whole 100 yard stretch of shore was bordered by a reed bed with cabbage weed extending out to the 9' deep area, then it was clear of weed, just a clay/mud flat area about 10' wide before it started to drop off. I switched again to my walleye spinner and started the troll in the 12' depth area. i had gone half the 10 yards when i felt a tug, struck....and there it was!!! A WALLEYE!!! It was not a bad size either...around 17" or 18". The next fish was about the same, then they got smaller and smaller as the light faded.
By the time i started catching the walleye i only had six minnows left...always the way....lol....but they were aggressive and did not mind hitting half minnows and dead chewed up bits of minnows the walleye i was catching were spitting out. I actually started to mark large numbers of fish in that area...the first time today that that had happened, and they were all in the 12' to 13' depth range...stray outside of that and there was nothing. Once i had located the fish i switched back to jigging and just sat on top of the fish, i was catching them right under the boat, and because the wind was non existent now i just cut the trolling motor and pretty much was able to sit on the same spot without even the anchor.
There certainly were lots of walleye...if not a little on the small side, and they were feeding ferociously. I realised that i had not tried the bobber set up all day so for fun, using my last minnow i tried and within seconds the bobber disappeared, i managed for fish on the same minnow before one spat it out 10 feet from the boat.....time to call it a day...was starting to get dark any way and i had to get the boat out on my own, sooooo glad i remembered to pack my hip waders....lol.
FIRST WALLEYE CAUGHT
STARTED MARKING LOTS OF FISH IN 12' - 13' FOW SO SWITCHED OVER TO A JIG
JIG WORKED GREAT
SORRY BUT THE COMENTARY WAS LOST CUZ MY CAMERA IS BUST....AGAIN!
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THOUGHT I MIGHT AS WELL USE THE SLIP BOBBER AS I HAD IT ALREADY SET UP
All in all a very good day, very satisfying to find what i was looking for when not even sure there were walleye in this lake. I did stray over an area i had fished earlier on in the day and managed a couple of walleye there too, so i think the lack of walleye earlier on was due to the fact that they just feed at dusk on this lake, at this time of year anyway, as i tried most methods, apart from dragging a bottom bouncer in the deeper section, with no luck until the light started to fade.
LOLOL...anyway, if i was a walleye in this lake, i would not venture out till dark either, not with the hundred thousand big pike that seem to inhabit this lake!!!!!
Another good thing about this lake is that my wife loves fishing for Bass and Pike.....and being just round the corner from our house so to speak gives us another good venue, so we can fish all day for bass and pike, then just before we leave at sunset catch our walleye supper....PERFECT!
