Boggs and Janousek both rely on Northland Tackle's Buck Shot jigging spoons in the 1/4- to 3/8-ounce range tipped with minnow heads to find and catch walleyes, and will use them all season long. They also drop an insurance bait down another hole just to keep ol' marble 'eyes honest.

"Besides using a jigging spoon, I'll rig a shiner on a red hook and suspend it below a slip-bobber and set it to ride within a foot or so of the bottom," Janousek said of his hot late-ice tactics. "The key is adding just enough weight to keep the bobber floating without allowing the minnow to pull it under. The weighting tactic produces less resistance and can help keep a fussy fish from spitting the bait before you get to set the hook. The jigging spoon will draw fish in and they won't always take it, but they just might hit the minnow. Some days, it's all spoons, and some days, it's nothing but bobbers. You never know for sure what they're going to want at any given time, so it can pay to offer a variety."

Gull's water clarity is exceptionally clear, therefore active fish can be found in deep water. Janousek will often team up with Boggs to work the lake and will typically fish a little shallower than his buddy.

"Richie likes to work deeper, down to 25 feet or more, and I'll usually start a little shallower, say maybe 17 to 18 feet deep," Janousek said. "Most of the time we'll both catch fish, but it doesn't hurt to work some different depths until you find the biters."

Jason Erlander of Sportland Bait in Nisswa caters to anglers fishing the Brainerd area and has a good handle on exactly what the local lakes have to offer.

"Most of them produce good numbers of small fish, or smaller numbers of big fish," Erlander said. "Gull is one of those rare lakes that can produce numbers of smaller fish as well as some real hawgs."

Next on the "to do list" is Upper Gull, which could be the area's best-kept secret, and is a lake that has been giving up some serious fish in the 26-inch range, and bigger specimens being routinely caught. It receives much less attention than the big lake and is more likely to fall into the bass/panfish classification because there are lots and lots of shallow weeds. Somebody better tell all of those big fat walleyes that they must be lost.

Most of the Upper Gull action takes place on shoreline breaks and points because there isn't much in the way of offshore structure. Water clarity on the upper lakes runs darker than Gull, and most of the action occurs a little bit shallower, which means less than 20 feet.

"There are a couple of humps and they do produce some fish, but quick breaks near old weedbeds is where a lot of the walleyes are caught," Erlander said about Upper Gull.

Anglers will set up on the breaks in the evening. They use big shiners and bobbers, and stay until after dark. They don't always catch that many walleyes, but they're usually lunkers.

Upper Gull is connected to the main lake by a channel, but beware because the channel is more of a river and has plenty of current. Current can mean dangerous ice conditions and it should be avoided when traveling from one lake the other.

"There are creeks that dump into the upper lakes and then into the main lake, and there's current in the channel and around any of the narrows, so be careful," Janousek said.

Cullen Lake is another connected "upper lake" that has been kept under wraps and has been pleasantly surprising the few anglers making the effort. They have been rewarded with some dandy-sized walleyes.

"The Cullen Chain receives little pressure and has been producing 20- to 27-inch fish," Erlander said.

Another option is Round Lake, which is east of Gull directly across Highway 371, and is connected by a culvert. Like Upper Gull, Round is much more of a bass/panfish lake than it is a walleye factory, but thanks to regular stocking, it does have a decent population of nice-sized fish.