Need advice on walleye.

[Big Al]

I'm headed out for to give walleye a try through the ice tonight but I've never done it before. I have a variety of jigs plus one or two jigging Rapalas. I plan on picking up shiners for bait. What do you guys recommend for a starting point as far as depth, bottom content, structure etc.. The lake I'm fishing has both sandbar humps and gravel/sand bars that sticks out off of points with sharp drops into 30+ fow on both sides. Do you normally fish things such as the sand bars right on top in the shallowest water, on the breakline, or out in the deeper adjacent water?

[STEINFISHSKI]

I'd start at the gravel points with the steepest drops adjacent to the deepest water in the lake. At night they will come in shallow to feed. Start in 10'-15' but I've caught them in 5.5' when there are weed beds. If you can find weeds look for the deep edge or holes in the weeds to fish. The fish will relate to the drops, and cruise through the weeds foraging for food. They will also cruise along the breaks coming up shallow to feed after dark. Concentrate your efforts to the bottom 18" of the lake, contact with bottom is good. Keep your lights to a minimum, get away from the pack, and be as quiet as possible. The deeper flats are good, but vast and the fish will sometimes suspend over the deeper water so unless you move a lot you won't be able to cover as much water as the shallows. Try different points and depths knowing that you may catch or miss the fish feeding in any one spot. Hope you nail them.

[1fish2fish]

I have to agree 100% with Tim. The only thing I might add is that if you can find any rocks at all, I would definately try that spot if not start there. Rocky Points have always worked for us. Keep it on bottom.

[Big Al]

Thanks guys, that narrows it down a lot. Another question though, is it better to concentrate at the end of the point or closer to the inside turn of the breakline? The spot that I have in mind has a good dropoff and weeds around both.

[STEINFISHSKI]

The fish should be coming in from the deeper water and which would be a better cutoff point? You have 2 good spots to try so far. Also fish the bottom of the lake, not the tops of the weeds. We used to find or make a hole in the weedbed to contact bottom. We weren't catching fish if we weren't catching weeds.

[Big Al]

Alright, it sounds like we may be moving around a bit tonight but I think we have a reasonably good chance of catching a fish or two.