Jan 17th Ottawa river

[steve2112]

Hi Everyone

I managed to get out for a few hours this afternoon. Again I was trying a place I had not fished before. This winter I sold my ice hut and bought a tent. I am really enjoying going to different spots, especially ones that are very close to home. Anyways I set up in about ten feet of water in real strong current. I was actually having problems getting the line straight to the bottom. In one hole I had to use two jigs spaced about 10 inches apart to fish completely vertically. The other hole I jigged a variety of larger lures.

I managed to get two good hits, one lost at the hole and the other kept to eat!!!!!!

As usual for me the hits were on aggressively jigged lures. I used an orange Mepps cyclops and an orange Rapala jigging lure. I have always liked the cyclops for walleye. I was tipping my lures with half minnows.

I rarely get walleye on a jighead and minnow, that is not being jigged. Do others have much luck just dropping a minnow down and leaving it?

Anyways here is the one I managed to get up through the hole it was caught on the rapala.



For anyone who does not know what a rapala jigging lure looks like



The walleye was a shade under twenty inches.


Cheers,
Steve

[Eli]

nice fish
what number jigging rap were you using?

[SALMON]

Nice walleye..

[DropShotr]

Congrats!!

Thanks for the report and pics.


DropShot'r

[troutnmuskiehunter]

Nice lookin eye!!.....As far as using a jighead and minnow, I do have success with this method using a Windlass tip-up...

[Chevy Champagne]

Nice lookin eye!!.....As far as using a jighead and minnow, I do have success with this method using a Windlass tip-up...

yep the good windlas and minnow with a jig head works evertime

[eyechaser]

Nice Walleye

[Yannick Loranger]

Nice eye!!! I got out today near Rockland and the sauger were just going gangbusters!! We hit the double digits in sauger and got a nice keeper eye too on a jighead + stinger hook 2 minnow set-up, I had just left in the holder for a while, while I attended to another biting still line. Ended up keeping 5 sauger and a walleye, threw back as many. All and all a good day.

Tight lines,
Yannick

[Fish'n Buddy]

Good report man, current can be hard to jib vertically in but usually its holding bigger fish.
Since I've been fishing on the Ottawa River I've found the majority of my pickeral/sauger are caught on set lines. Always pick them up on a jig, or a spoon of course but 80% of the time they are caught on my set line. All I do is put a small trebel hook tipped with two minnows by the tail, and a sinker about 12 inches from the hook..I set the sinker on bottom with a bit of slack, and every few minutes I lift the pole slow to get the minnows swimming again and every so often when I lift, theres some weight on the end!!

[Fish'n Buddy]

Nice report,

I don't have as much luck with the big spoons and aggressive jigging as you do. I used to bang mr champs and cyclops off bottom all the time back in Bay of Quinte, but didn't have much luck up here in Ottawa doing that. I started using set lines and seem to have had alot more luck with that on the Ottawa River anyways.
I put a smaller trebel hook, with two minnows by the tail , with a sinker about a foot up. I set the sinker on bottom with a bit of slack, and every once in a while I lift up to wake the minnows up and get them swimming again, and usually when I do that, theres a bit of weight with a walleye/sauger on the other end.

They've been hittin so soft they don't even bend the pole until you pick it up

Good luck!

[steve2112]

Fish'n Buddy

Interesting idea with two minnows hooked by the tail on a small trebble. I was thinking of getting a spliter rig and fishing two minnows. One thing about jigging bigger lures, you dont catch the small sauger too often.

I also really like to bang the lures off the bottom to stir up some muck. It works for me. I would be interested in hearing what people with cameras see after stirring up the bottom.


cheers,
steve

[ottis]

I do well with both techniques. Sometimes set lines work better, other times jigging does. I utilize both. If the walleye rig on the still line isn't getting hits then I will flip it over to a propeller jig to get a bit of action from the jig head, sometimes I'll tie a williams 6-10" up the line as well just to act as an attractant.