white fishing

[guygonefishing]

has anyone been ice fishing at lake newel in the last couple of years

and if so can you tell me if the whitefish are still plentyful and what

is the best lure (bait jigging or both)

[pikester]

I will start by telling you I am not an ice fishing expert by any means @ Newell but I will tell you what I know. I have fished Newell year round for 7 years now. The first 2 seasons, we used to POUND the pike from the end of May til the first of August, then it would slow down for us a couple months then we'd be hard into them again from oct. til the middle of Nov. The Pike would be hungry in late fall & would hit our crankbaits even when they had 10-16" whitefish in their throats already! At that time we used to mark thousands of whitefish on the sonar around the points near the bays. While icefishing those winters I spent lots of time chasing whitefish near Jackfish Bay & Redelback Bay, they were plentiful then.

Now in the last couple years we have not found any fishable schools of whites in the fall, no catching scads of gluttonous pike with whities hanging out of their throats, & last 2 seasons icefishing there I haven't seen ONE whitefish on the camera!

You can draw your own conclusions from that but I am a little concerned about the health of the whitefish population in Newell. Maybe they have all moved to a completely different area of the lake & I can't find them but even on calm summer nights with bugs hatching, I rarely see rising whites where several years ago you could see them rising in schools all around the lake. I have actually been meaning to contact a F&W biologist who knows the lake to see if they know what's going on.

[hunter49]

I heard there was a LOT of whites that came out from commerical netting the last few years. What a shame...