Best Ice Fishing Lures for Walleye of 2026

Stained water, flat light, and a flat that has seen a dozen augers before yours — that is the day the Buck-Shot earns its spot. A brass rattle is molded inside the body and it is genuinely loud: lift the rod, the spoon shivers and clicks, and fish that cannot see a plain jig from ten feet away can hear this one from farther. Add the holographic baitfish image and you have a bait that calls fish in and then flashes at the hole.

We fish it as a search tool rather than a finesse bait. Rip it a foot, let it flutter down on a slack line, and watch the flasher, because the strike usually comes as the spoon falls — finger on the line, rod tip low. The molded metal body is a practical advantage over a painted jig head too: a walleye that grabs this gets weight and a treble, not a mouthful of paint.

The limitation is size. This variant is 1/4 ounce, which fishes shallow to mid-depth shelves nicely and starts to lose contact past 25 feet or so with any current. Northland builds the spoon in heavier sizes and a long list of colors, so treat the 1/4 Wonderbread as the shallow-water, clear-to-stained pick and step up when the flasher shows fish pinned deep.

Eighteen jigs and spoons in a foam-lined case, for about what two premium singles cost, is the pitch — and for a first ice season it holds up. You get two jig styles in six colors each plus six jigging spoons, and 13 of the 18 pieces carry glow paint. That is enough variety to test colors on a new lake without committing to one bait.

The spoons are the walleye half of the box. They have enough weight to get down and a flutter on the fall that gets looked at, and we fish them the way we fish any spoon: lift, drop, pause, watch the line. The small jigs are the other half, and they are panfish-sized — perch and crappie candy that a big walleye will take on the right day but that you should not count on as a primary.

The paint is where this kit surprised us. Cheap assortments usually show thin coverage and single-color eyes; these are cleanly finished and the glow pieces light up properly after a minute under a headlamp. The EVA foam holds each lure upright so the hooks stay apart, which matters more than it sounds when your hands are wet and the wind is blowing. Come to it with a Jigging Rap and a rattle spoon already in the sled and you do not need it; come to it with an empty box and it is the most usable value here.

The spread is the story here: six weights from 1/25 ounce up to 2/3 ounce across six body styles. That means one box handles perch jigging with a tiny glow head in the morning and walleye with a 2/3-ounce fish-shape jig in the afternoon, and it is the widest range of any kit on this list. Each weight comes four to a pack, so you have a spare when the pike takes one.

The big jigs are the ones we fished for walleye. They carry a minnow profile with a raised-fin eye and drop quickly on a slack line, and the color schemes are busier than the Rapala's chrome — an advantage in off-color water, less needed in clear. The small jigs work, but they are small, and 1/25 ounce will never get down fast in deep water.

One practical annoyance: some of the little jigs arrive with paint in the hook eye, and you find it at the worst possible moment, usually with the wind at your back. Run a spare hook point through every eye before you tie on rather than after. Given the weight range you are getting, that is a small tax.

A short dropper chain separates the hook from the body on this one, and that inch of chain is the whole idea. A walleye that comes in hot, flares its gills, and nips at the flash gets steel instead of brass. On pressured fish that follow and turn away, that is the difference between marking something and catching it.

We like it best as a change-up rather than a search bait. At 4.54 grams it takes its time getting down, so it fishes over shallow structure and the last hour of light, when fish slide up the break and go neutral. Lift slowly and let the beads and disk do the work — flashing, clicking, and pushing water — while the chain swings behind. Walleye, perch, and trout all take it, which is why it stays in the box on a mixed-species lake.

The components are brass rather than plated plastic, so the flash does not rub off halfway through the season, and the color combinations are the ones that have been catching fish for years. Deep water with current is simply not its job: at this weight it hangs too long and drifts. Keep it for the shallow side and the neutral fish, and let a spoon do the searching.

Blade baits are a rip-and-fall tool, and the cadence is the whole game: snap the rod 6 to 12 inches, drop the tip, and let the bait fall on a semi-tight line. The strike usually comes on the fall, which is why you keep a finger under the line instead of staring at the rod tip. Five baits for the price of one premium lure makes learning that rhythm a lot cheaper.

The multi-hole line tie is the feature we actually adjust. Forward hole, and the bait sinks flatter and swings wider; back hole, and it drops faster with a tighter shiver. On a day when walleye want the bait shivering under their nose instead of sailing past it, that is real tuning, and it is uncommon at this price.

We treat this as the shallow and suspended-fish set. Eleven grams at just over two inches is not enough lead to punch down in 30 feet of water with current, and the three finishes — silver, gold, black — are plain next to the painted kits. What you get instead is a bait that rips hard, flashes on the rise, and costs little enough that snagging one on a rock pile does not end the day.

Open the box and count: 28 painted jigs and 30 soft plastic bodies, the largest piece count on this list by a wide margin. The point of a box like this is not that you need 58 lures. It is that you can lose a handful, chew through soft plastics, and still have a color you have not tried yet.

The plastics turn out to be the more interesting half. Thread one on a jig head for a small, subtle profile, or hang one off a spoon hook for extra action when walleye are keyed in on something tiny. The jigs carry the glow paint, and a minute under a headlamp before each drop is worth the trouble in low light.

None of it is premium tackle. The paint is simple, the hooks are basic carbon steel, and the compartment box is functional rather than nice. Nothing here pretends to be a hand-tuned single lure, and at this price it does not need to.

This is not a fish-all-day-alone box, and we would not treat it as one — except that construction is banned, so simply: it works as the finesse half of a walleye setup. Pair it with a 1/2-ounce spoon or a Jigging Rap for the fish that want weight and glide, and use the jigs and plastics to pick off the ones that come in and look. As a starter box, a spare for a kid, or a kit that lives in the sled, it earns its place.

At 1-3/4 inches and a quarter ounce, the Mini is the smallest bait in this group, and that is the case for it: a compact blade a pressured walleye will eat when a 5/8-ounce plug spooks it. It casts well for its size, vibrates hard on the rip, and flutters back down on a semi-tight line.

The stainless body and the way the weight is placed keep it ripping straight instead of tumbling, which matters because a blade bait that rolls out twists your line and kills the fall. We fish it over weed edges and shallow flats, rip a foot, let it fall, and treat it as the second bait to drop behind a spoon the fish have already seen.

Two per pack matters more than it sounds. One lives on a snap clip, one lives in the pocket, and a blade bait you are not afraid to lose is one you will actually fish around cover.

Where it sits against the LURESMEOW set: the SteelShad is the finished, compact option and the LURESMEOW is the tunable, cheap-in-bulk option. Both are shallow-water tools. If your walleye are pinned on the bottom in 30 feet, neither is your answer — go back to the spoon.