Early Ice Walleyes: The Strategy that SAVED the Trip! (Bitter Lake, SD)

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Dec 31, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Posted by Vollmer
We headed to Bitter Lake, South Dakota, for the first ice fishing trip of the season, expecting the usual "numbers game." Normally, Bitter Lake delivers hundreds of walleyes, but Mother Nature decided to test us with a massive cold front and a brutal pressure change right as we arrived.

In this vlog, we’re taking a young fisher person out to catch his very first walleyes on the ice. But as the temperature plummeted, we had to throw the usual playbook out the window.

What we cover in this episode:

The Reality of the Cold Front: How a major weather shift changes walleye behavior on early ice.

Teaching the Grind: Showing a new angler that fishing isn't always easy, but the persistence pays off.

The Strategy Shift: Why our traditional jigging approach took a backseat to deadsticks set away from the shack, and how that led to some of the best quality fish (15-17 inchers) we've seen on this lake in years.

Fishing "My Way" means adapting when the bite gets tough. It wasn't the 100-fish day we planned, but watching a kid land his first walleye makes every bit of the grind worth it.

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