I'm fishing Lake Vermilion this weekend with some of my buddies.  This lake is known for their smallmouth fishery, probably second in the state only to Lake Mille Lacs.  I was wondering how the Fat Ika/Palm Tree would produce on smallies.  I've never fished these lures before but I figure I'd give them a try since they're similar to tubes and we all know how tubes produce on them smallies.  Any pointers on fishing these lures when targeting smallies 20 to 30+ feet deep?

The "magic" of the Fat Ika is a little bit "profile", but mostly

"action". Although I consider the ideal depth <12' and the

presentation weightless and weedless, maybe you could try

fishing the bait C-rigged.

Fish the rig by moving the weight with a horizontal sweep.

This motion will lift the bait. When you hop a C-rig, you hop

the weight, but the lure just moves forward. Experiment in

clear, shallow water to see what I mean.

8-)

Going to have to agree this bait is a shallow water bait imo.

It has a very slow fall rate when rigged weightless but enough weight to cast it far.  It has an amazing action when falling as well.

Never hurts to try.

So I gave the Fat Ika a shot this weekend for smallies.  Fished it weightless throughout the trip in 5-10 ft of water on a 4/0 EWG hook.  No takers.  Well actually, the whole smallmouth bite was slow for artificial lures.  I caught a few smaller ones using a shakey head + Yamamoto flat tail worm.  But other than that, most of our smallies came off a bobber and live leech.  Biggest one coming in at 2.5 lbs.

We did however manage to boat some nice 4-pound class largemouth using Senkos and Spro frogs.  Still, it wasn't the trophy smallmouth that we were searching for.  But I still haven't given up on the Fat Ika yet.  Will try it some more throughout the rest of the year.