walleye locations

[icecold]

Im kind of new to ice fishing ,and I have heard that in winter, walleye move to deeper water, so in other words I should try to locate the deepest parts of lake or river, to fish Any truth to this???

[jwilli7122]

Walleye location under the ice is a topic you could write a whole book on, but I think the short answer is - no, not much truth to that. For typical walleye lakes with some structure, I would focus my attention on weedlines, points, bars, dropoffs, inside turns, and bottom composition changes. I personally would almost never fish deeper than about 28 ft in the winter, and most of the time no deeper than 20 ft, sometimes as shallow as 10 ft or less. I guess it all depends on the lake though. I dont know much about shallow lakes without structure, but I suppose if a lake is mostly 10 ft deep and theres one 18 ft. hole thats the deepest in the lake, yeah that might be the spot. Also, I know nothing about rivers so I have no idea if the deepest holes are best in them or not.

good luck,
JWilli

[jwilli7122]

I just saw from your profile that you are in New Ulm. I have never fished there, but I'm guessing that most of the lakes there are pretty shallow, and probably pretty dark colored. This type of lake is very different from the type of lake I am used to fishing further north, so - for all I know, the deepest holes in some smaller lakes around New Ulm might be the best winter spots. For typical medium sized walleye lakes, with some structure and max depths over 30 ft, I think a great depth to start at is the depth of the outside weedline. (the depth at which the weeds stop growing). In the lakes I fish, it is usually between 9 and 17 feet.