If Leaches Were Available In Winter

[jjohnson5150]

If leaches were available in the winter time, do you think eye fishing would best ever? Just curious.

[Captain Ken]

don't they just curl up in a ball and stay that way if you put them in cold water?

[jjohnson5150]

Good point. I did not think of that.

[mjmader]

here is what i think..............the water at ice level is about 32. As you go down it gets warmer and warmer. yes leeches do shrink when they hit cold water but what if the depth you are fishing is 40 or 50 degreese. i dont have a underwater cam. with temp on it so i dont know how warm it is but i think they might work. the only problem i can problem of is leeches arent out swimming around in there natural habitat this time of year.............thats my 2 cents.

[Walleye Guy]

A buddy of mine had some panfish leeches left over from open water. He brought them along on an early ice fishing trip and we hammered the bluegills on the 5 leeches he had left. They also bit well on eurolarvae after the leeches were gone. They didn't curl up like we thought they would. However they weren't in the cold water for very long as the bluegills hit them as soon as they got to the bottom.

[iffwalleyes]

I don't think that them curling up would make much of a difference. It would just give your lure a different action and sometimes that along can make to difference some days. Also I think if you put them on a jig and pound them on the bottom they would eventually straighten out. Of course I have no facts to back any of this up since I have never used them in the winter.

[Riverratpete]

Had a bud once that tried Nightcrawlers ice fishing...didn't get anything.

[reddogadventures]

I've asked the same question for years and suffered severe ridicule from some of my "expert" friends that it wouldn't work. Three weeks ago, I caught a legal walleye on Mille Lacs and it had a leech in it's stomach. End of story.

[Sonicrunch]

Quote:

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here is what i think..............the water at ice level is about 32. As you go down it gets warmer and warmer. yes leeches do shrink when they hit cold water but what if the depth you are fishing is 40 or 50 degreese.

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The water does not keep get warmer than 39° as you go down. 39° is the warmest it can be at the bottom. If it were warmer than 39°, it would be above the 39° water since it is lighter. But then it would mix with the 38° water and so forth.......

In summary, when the lake is frozen over, the higest temp will be 39° ( and that water will be at the bottom).

BTW, it's degrees, not degreese

[katoguy]

They are available, you can ship them in.

They are not a predominant food supply for eyes now, thus they won't revolutionize your eye icefishing.

Eyes are opportunistic, I am sure some would bite on a leech even "balled" up.

[DCON]

I didn't think they were out and about this time of year eather, until last weekend we saw 1 on camera swimming around in Mille Lacs.

[Bigfife]

I caught perch last winter on Mille Lacs that had leeches in their bellies. I think the leeches burrow into the mud on the flats and the perch dig them out. About 10 years ago we tried fishing leeches against minnows on Mille Lacs. We figured that we caught ten to one on a minnow. I do remember catching a couple on leeches, but we caught a 25 incher on a waxie that day also.

[ItsaKeeper]

caught a couple of eyes 2 weeks ago on Mille Lacs that had leeches in them. Do they make a plastic in a leech that might work good for jigging?

[metrojoe]

We tried plastic leeches one summer for eyes and we caught some fish, but they couldn't compare to live bait. I used to have some real small ones that easily fooled the sunfish.

[JigginIsLife]

Just a view-

As everyone has stated so far that when the leeches were working so was everything else. Aparently as you fish with a leech it isnt going to increase your fish to bucket ratio. But it appears that when the walleyes ARE biting on leeches they are also biting on bugs, and minnows. And walleyes biting on bugs is pretty desperate for food. So i dont think they would help any, but somtimes a different view than every other line down the hole might do the trick.