How do you catch splake ice?

When ice covers the lake, the splake move up into shallower areas. Good fishing now ranges from 35 to 80 feet. Sometimes fishing off the bottom is best, but other times the fish are suspended. The secret is to fish at different depths, and from different ice holes, until the action comes.

How deep are splake in the winter?

Splake can have multiple personalities: smaller ones (< 16″ or so) will tend to eat more like brookies (more bugs/crustaceans, some minnows) and relate more to shoreline structures (small points, downed timber) and flat bays in winter, usually in 10′-20′ of water, but they may go shallower (5′) in low light/deep snow …

What depth is splake?

Splake perform best in small waterbodies that remain relatively cool throughout the year. Water clarity of at least five meters in depth is desirable for optimal growth.

What can I use for splake?

Common Baits

  1. small minnows, earthworms.
  2. jigs, spoons, spinners.
  3. small plugs.

Are perch in lakes?

Habitats. Perch are carnivorous fish most commonly found in small ponds, lakes, streams, or rivers.

What is the difference between a lake trout and a splake?

Splake are both smaller, slimmer, and darker than lake trout. Lake trout have a pointier tail fin that is more deeply forked than that of the splake. Dead fish can also be accurately identified by the number of appendages on their intestinal tract, as splake have fewer than lakers.

Where can I find splake?

The splake is difficult to identify externally because it resembles both parents in different aspects. The body shape is intermediate between the heavier lake trout and the slimmer brook trout. The shape of the tail is also a combination of the brook trout’s square tail and the lake trout’s more lunate tail.

Is splake good to eat?

Splake. A hatchery hybrid of lake trout and brook trout, the splake is better tasting than both of its parents. Perhaps it is hybrid vigour, or maybe it is some genetic anomaly, but splake are truly a unique delight. Smoked, fried, baked or grilled, it is tough to beat them.

How deep are splake in the summer?

As the summer sun warms up the surface water the Splake go deeper. With Splake they are a multi-depth fish and can stay as shallow as 20 feet deep or go down to the 53 degree thermocline, which is usually 40 to 50 feet deep on a small inland lake.

Is bluegill a perch?

Bluegill and other sunfish, sometimes called bream, are often incorrectly referred to as perch. Perch, however, are very different. Perch belong to a separate family of fish not related to bluegill or other sunfish. Common species from the perch family include walleye, sauger, yellow perch and darters.

How many perch can you keep?

20 fish
The recreational fishery for surfperch (family Embiotocidae) is open year-round. The daily bag and possession limit is 20 fish in combination of all species (except shiner perch), with not more than 10 fish of any one species. Shiner perch (Cymatogaster aggregata) have a separate bag and possession limit of 20 fish.

Why you should try ice fishing for splake this winter?

If you’ve never ice fished for splake, you really should try it this winter. It is so much fun, because it always a one of kind game of compromises, trade offs and mental gymnastics as you attempt to determine if the fish are behaving like speckle trout, lake trout or, well, splake.

What should I use to catch a splake?

Splake eat other fish after they are stocked in their habitat. However, since they’re stocked humans are able to control the population, so they don’t deplete their habitat due to over-population. If you want to catch splake fish, you should use bait including bits of fish like chub. This will help to give you the best chance of catching more fish.

What kind of fish do you catch in ice fishing?

Nothing will test your patience more than ice fishing for splake, the stunningly beautiful cross between male brook trout and female lakers. It’s not that these fish are particularly difficult to catch.

What kind of jig do I use for ice fishing for splake?

Usually this means dunking a lively medium-size minnow attached to a tip-up down one hole, while I jig a W10, W20 or W30 Williams Wabler, Wabler Lite or white Bass Magnet tube jig down a second hole. And I hop between holes much more frequently when I am ice fishing for splake than I do when I am targeting either of their parents.