What the ??? Interesting Fishing Stuff

Big fish pictures always catch my attention when viewing forums or Facebook, but often the ones that I get a kick out of are the unusual photographs of unusual things that happen to us while we are outdoors.  So, in the spirit of the blog revival, I thought that I'd share a few of my favorites.

I love big fish pics, as I said earlier.  Even more interesting are views of the business end of a predatory fish, like this lake trout caught by Bob Barber:

OK, so this is a catfish.  So what?  Well, for us, in our small fishing circle, it means quite a bit.  This fish is a flathead catfish, not from these parts.  Yep, they're invasive.  Even more unusual, is that my buddy Mark caught it on a plastic worm!

It took me a couple hours to pick out this backlash of expensive heavy braided line.  You can bet I'm not wasting that money if I can fix it.  The only problem, is, which one took the most time to straighten out, the backlash or the mustache?

Last year, my friend Howard and I were fishing for bass and chain pickerel on the Eastern Shore, and I had a fish slam my Rat-L-Trap very hard.  However, there was little fight after a couple head shakes.  The fish came in like a wet sock.  Here's why:

So the fish above cooperated so much it hooked itself twice.  Here's a dinky smallmouth bass that I caught a month ago that wasn't even hooked while wading a local river.  The hook was wedged between the upper and lower jaw!  Pretty smart little fish, eh?

While fishing with my buddy Ed one day out of his boat, he saw something on the bottom.  It's not every day that you see a wagon wheel!

How about the business end of a pumpkinseed sunfish?  Check out this fat one:

Largemouth bass will eat anything that fits in their mouth, but a line clipper?

My good friend Rodger found a great way to catch crayfish.  I'm not sure it's all that productive though:

My buddy Howard shows us the business end of the toothy chain pickerel:

This pic speaks for itself...where's the TV?

How about snagging your crankbait on a stump, and while trying to shake it free so as to not spook a good fishing hole, a fish bites your snagged crankbait?  Yep, it happened:

What does it look like when your buddy tromps through slush and ice faster than you do to get to your fishing hole?  Yeah, that's my good friend Jim Cumming far in the distance.  No, he wasn't drinking!

We'll leave on that note...until next time my fishing friends!

Fat Boy's Outdoors Blog Revival

Well my guilt has been overpowering, and with no excuse for lack of time right now due to a long bout with food poisoning, it's time to revive Fat Boy's Outdoors Blog.  I apologize to followers and readers of this blog for my absence.  Call it writers block, call it lack of motivation, or just call it lazy, whatever funk I've been in ends with this post.  I'll resume weekly posts, articles, and anything else that comes to mind in the outdoors world that I share with my friends and family.  This week, however, I'll try and post daily, if not every other day.

I'll start with some highlights since my last post, today, it's about fishing.  How about some noteworthy catches since then!  I would say my most memorable catch was that I all but tied my personal best striped bass catch at 45 1/2" long, a half inch shorter than my longest, but this fish was much fatter.  I caught this beast casting a Bomber Magnum Long A minnow bait, cranking it was fast as I could with stops and jerks along the way.

This may be the biggest rockfish (a.k.a. striped bass or striper) that I've ever caught.  My hands were cramped after the catch, and I shook for about a half hour from shock!

I knew this was a different class of fish when I hooked it.  The rod in the background of the picture was my buddy's rod and reel combo.  I was actually using an XH musky rod and reel combo, and this fish still took me around the boat three times during the fight.  My buddy Steve Kelley and I will never forget that experience.

Despite the net being seemingly a bit undersized, my buddy Steve expertly lead this fish into the bag!

My buddies and I made the trek to fish the Niagara River and had a great time.  For the first time, being the stubborn sort, I fly fished the majority of the time.  I managed to land several lake trout on the fly, including this one caught stripping a chartreuse wooley bugger.  It's not the biggest lake trout that I've ever landed on the fly, but it sure was a brute, leaving my forearm cramped and my knees knocking.

I love catching these fish on the fly, what a thrill!

Not all fish that are memorable are mine.  My friend Mark McWilliams caught the biggest laker that I've ever seen in person.  This picture still blows my mind.

This lake trout is massive.  The picture does not do it justice.  Incredible fish Mark!

Now, that was an amazing trip, and I have to acknowledge the incredible angling ability of my friend Bob Barber.  His ability to establish a pattern on the Niagara and many other bodies of water that he fishes is incredible.  He had the fish dialed in, landing big lakers and steelhead often, including this beauty.

Here's Bob with one of his many fish caught on that trip.  He had the fish dialed in. 

And kudos to Bob's Son Carson, nicknamed by our circle of friends as "Carson Van Dam" or "CVD"  due to his knack of putting fish in the boat at his young age, for not only catching his share of fish on that trip, but for netting many of them.  He was always first to the net and became quite the net man.  Perfect?  Not yet, but he's as good as many that I've fished with.  He'll be perfect soon, you can count on that.

CVD in action!

I have more fishing to catch up on, some with the "how to" format, and some more as updates to specific trips in future blog posts.  I've had plenty of good action of the past two years, too much for one post, although not enough fishing trips for my liking in total.  I hope to change that over the next few years, to get out more, and post here.

Thanks for your patience in waiting for my posts, and I hope that the past two years fared well for you!

A Special Day...

I want to take this time to say special kind of thanks and pay tribute to someone near and dear to me.  I'm thankful for many things from this person, and here is a very short list that are relevant to this blog.

As a bowhunter, scent control is very important.  Whitetail deer have a keen sense of smell that can detect odors that are strange to them from great distances, putting them on alert or worse, send them scurrying away tails up while ruining your hunt.  Being anal about scent control improves your odds and your hunting experience.  Wearing Scent Lok or similar gear, controlling your laundry and showering with scent free soaps and shampoos, spraying down your equipment with scent elimination products, are all keys to doing this.  My Brother Kyle taught me that.  Thank you Kyle.

Kyle consistently shot bucks like this with his bow.  I got him started in hunting at a young age, but it was he who taught me how to hunt, sharing his secrets for success.

Catching walleye has always been a cool thing as a bass angler.  Most over time I've caught while fishing for bass, as accidents and surprises.  Each one was a bonus.  Later in my angling life, someone taught me how to target them, when my odds were best, and what lures and techniques worked the best.  I was able to target them and catch these special fish consistently afterwards.  My Brother taught me that.  Thank you Kyle.

Kyle figured out how to catch walleye on a consistent basis, and caught some very nice ones.  He fished from shore and also from his kayak.  His determination to learn how to pattern them paid off, and it was he who taught me his secrets.  My friends and I benefit to this day from his research and success.

As a bowhunter, finding ideal locations to place your stand are critical to success.  I learned to use 3D on-line maps and GPS to find and locate ideal stand locations on properties that I hunt.  Since then, my odds have improved and I've bagged more whitetails.  My Brother taught me that.  Thank you Kyle.

Using suspending stick baits or jerk baits, like Husky Jerks and Rattlin' Rogues for walleye and smallmouth are deadly.  One technique that is extremely effective is to basically cast it out to a likely fish holding river eddy, crank it down a bit, and let it sit motionless with only the current moving it ever so slightly, and almost dead stick it.  Sometimes the bass, walleye or other predators just can't stand it any longer and hammer it, and usually these are bigger fish.  It's quite a thrill.  My Brother taught me that.  Thank you Kyle.

Jerkbaits like these Rattlin' Rogues are deadly when cast into a river eddy and dead sticked for big walleye and bass.  And I don't mean let 'em sit for a minute, I mean a lot longer.  And when you work them back, work them "painfully slow".  This is a very effective coldwater technique that my brother taught me years ago.

The same suspending jerk baits work extremely well for sea trout, flounder, bluefish and rockfish along our coast.  I learned that working these baits along rip rap eddies during tide changes would draw savage strikes from these tasty saltwater species, and put up quite a fight at the same time.  My Brother taught me that.  Thank you Kyle.

These are just a few things that I learned from my Little Brother.  He was a man that worked extremely hard to achieve high levels of success at everything he did, whether it was coaching a swim team, honing his hunting skills, fishing a river, saltwater body of water, or out of a kayak on a lake.  He passed away in 2007 at the young age of 36 years old, and I miss him greatly each and every day.  His story can be found linked as one of the pages on this site, a tribute to him.  But it's not enough, so here I am today wishing him thanks and a Happy Birthday.

At twelve years old, Kyle was catching fish, and learned to be extremely successful as he grew up in just about everything he did.  I may have given him his start in fishing, and inspired him to take up bowhunting later on, but it was Kyle that taught me a thing or two later in life.  And I greatly appreciate it and miss him every day.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

On the Hardwater - Salvaging a Tough Day

In my last blog post, I discussed my approach to finding fish on a small lake.  The major theme basically was to move until you find good sized fish, ingnore the sniffers, and move away from catching small fish, or "dinks".  Usually by following the plan laid out in that post, On the Hardwater - Attacking a Small Lake for Panfish, you will eventually find the fish that you are looking for, although it may take time and a ton of effort cutting many holes.   But what happens when you try those suggestions and things just don't work out?  How can you salvage a tough day?

My enthusiastic ice angling friend, Glenn Cumings, working fish that he marked during mid morning.  Glenn kept moving and eventually found a few nice bluegills mixed in with mostly small bluegills.  Remembering what he did at this hole helped us finally solve the puzzle later.

My buddy Glenn Cummings and I decided to hit a lake known for good sized panfish.  In the past, we've had great success icing a mixed bag of fat keeper sized perch, slab crappie, and bull bluegills.  My experience on this particular lake was at a different area than we opted to fish.  Glenn insisted that this spot, new to me, would produce the output that we were hoping for.  Conditions were perfect, leaving us both feeling very enthusiastic about our chances at finding big panfish.

After finding a suitable parking place to access our lake, Glenn poses with his gear, nearly ready to attack our small lake in search of jumbo sized panfish.

Glenn and some of my other buddies have had good experience at this new spot on our lake, and Glenn assured me that he could put us on fish.  I was game to expand my horizons and find new spots.  My past experiences were very productive at my spots on this lake, so previously, I had no reason hunt for new spots.

Once out there, we began our regimen by moving out to the mid basin of the cove, a typical location to find panfish during mid winter ice.  I cut a series of holes through sixteen solid inches of ice with my hand auger until my shoulders cramped.  Twenty six cranks on each hole had me stop after six holes, each spaced about thirty feet apart.  But, it was enough that I could scoop out the ice chips and check them with my sonar.  Each hole was over twenty four feet of water, a prime area for this time of year.

Well, things looked up right off the bat as I marked fish at each hole, some suspended and some on the bottom.  The next step, of course, is to drop a lure down there and find out what we're dealing with.  My rig of choice was my favorite dual Ratso rig, my hottest set up of the year so far.  But the fish were sniffers in each of the holes.  It was weird because the fish charged up off the bottom, then either bit very lightly or not at all.  My first impression was that I was dealing with dinks.

I moved toward the far shore a bit and cut six more holes.  Again, after checking the holes and marking fish in each one, I dropped a different offering down there to see if that would make a difference, this time, a tiny tungsten chartreuse Northland Fireball Jig teamed with a pair of spikes to add some scent, in case the sniffers were decent sized finicky fish.  This time, a fish charged up and nailed my jig, confirming my earlier suspicion.

My first fish confirmed my suspicion...dink.  that's a tiny lure, and a very tiny bluegill.  I wasn't interested in catching these all day.

Meanwhile, Glenn was doing the same thing, but heading toward the center of the cove.  He was also catching dink bluegills now and then.  After chatting with another guy on the ice, Glenn used some of his new intel to move to another spot.  His next hole produced a few nice bluegills mixed with the dinks.

I, on the other hand, moved again.  I noticed that one shoreline had a nice draw, leading to me to think that a spring or creek, even a runoff one, might provide enough structure out into the lake to hold fish.  I moved over to that area and mustered enough energy to cut eight more holes.  Again, I marked fish in every hole, this time in twenty one feet of water.

After working these fish a while, I picked up a few nice bluegills, a decent yellow perch, and a small crappie mixed in with some dinky bluegills.  I bounced around from hole to hole and caught fish here and there, but didn't have that hot hole so that I could set up my camera and haul 'em in.  Plus, the water seemed too dingy to use the camera.  The dingy water may have played a role in the mood of the fish too.

We had action, and including the dinks, my totals were just shy of twenty fish for about five hours of fishing.  That's not the bite that I'd hoped for.  Plus, the size of the fish weren't impressing me.  So, at three in the afternoon, with the magic hour looming, I convinced Glenn to make a major change.  He agreed, because it really wasn't happening for him either.

We had two options for a major change, move on this lake to an entirely different depth and structure, or make a spot change to another lake.  We figured that the latter would waste too much time, so we took a hike to a new previously productive area.

The major move included a long hike during prime fishing time, past the guy on the left and around the point to a deep thirty eight foot basin.

We had a nice hike ahead of us, but with the ice pretty slick, towing our portable Fish Traps full of gear wasn't an issue. But, it did use up valuable fishing time.  We went to one of my past productive spots, around a point and into another cove.  We head out to the deeper water basin, a notorious hangout for fat yellow perch and crappie in the past.

I cut eight more holes.  Again, each hole held fish, and the result was the same.  I quickly managed a seven inch perch and a small bluegill, but not the size of the fish that I had hoped.  This group of fish were far more active, but my third yellow perch of the day sealed my decision to move again.  It may have been the smallest yellow perch that I've caught in my life.  It couldn't have been even three inches long!

Glenn was working the fish in his holes, and hooked and lost a couple fish on his ultralight outfit.  But, he agreed that this might not have been a good move.  I headed toward a long sloping point, hoping to find twenty to twenty five feed of water off the end of the point.  After cutting five more holes, I found that spot.  My first four holes didn't mark fish, but my fifth one did.  I caught that one fish, another dinky bluegill.

Now, I was getting discouraged, and after Glenn met up with me, he was too.  So, we agreed that we had enough time to hike back up the lake to our original spot.  Again, another half hour of hiking wasting fishing time.  By the time that we reached our old holes, the magic hour was half over.

Our long walk back to our original holes cost us half of the magic hour.  Our destination was beyond those folks in the distance.

Remember in my last post when I wrote this?

"Later in the day though, it might be wise to remember where those sniffers are, especially if you catch one and it's a good sized fish.  Because, often low light conditions, commonly thought of at the magic hour, that last hour of daylight, finicky fish might become more active later."

I checked my best holes from earlier and one of them had fish stacked on the sonar.  So, I set up camp there for the evening bite.  My first drop with my tandem Ratso rig resulted in a nice fat crappie.  The next drop was a bigger bluegill, followed by another one.  After that, I lost a slab crappie at the hole that was easily thirteen inches.

Daylight ran out quickly, so Glenn, who had also been catching better sized fish, and I fired up our lanterns and set up for the night bite.  After dark, the fish became finicky again, but, if you worked them enough, you could coax them into a solid bite.  The bite wasn't hot, but I marked enough fish to keep me interested, and enough of them were reacting to my lures.

This isn't a monster bluegill by any means, but a much better average size compared to the dinks earlier in the day.  I caught several of these after dark, jigging aggressively, trying to imitate the tiny hopping crustaceans that flooded my sonar.  The fish were mixed with them, actively feeding.

I caught several more crappie and a nice bluegill that was suspended at ten feet over twenty four feet of water.  Glenn struggled a bit with tackle problems and also problems with his lantern, but managed to catch some nice crappie and bluegills too.

Remember earlier in the post that I mentioned that the water was dingy?  I think that the fish didn't seem aggressive because they had a hard time seeing the lure in the murky water.  I used glow jigs and worked them very aggressively.  As it turns out, when the fish finally found the lure, they were very active and hit readily.

Here's a medium crappie that I worked for and caught after dark.  Aggressive jigging in the dingy water was the key to catching this crappie along with several more of his buddies.

I finished with a forty fish plus day, if you include the dinks, but we worked hard for them.  It was my toughest day of the year on the ice.  But, that final move paid off, the one where we went back to old semi-productive holes where the sniffers were actually decent sized panfish.

I'm sore today, two days later, from cutting holes.  We had twelve inches of snow last night, so shoveling my hundred foot driveway isn't helping my aging bones either.  I was miffed at my decision to make that major move to deep water, because it may have cost us a dozen or more nice sized fish from wasting half the magic hour.  But looking back, even though it was a tough day, the reward was that we finally solved the puzzle.

The system worked, finally.  But, perhaps some patience would have worked better this time by sticking to holes that gave up a few nice fish early.

On the Hardwater - Attacking a Small Lake for Panfish

Why people ice fish means many things to many people.  Some like the outdoors experience, just being out there, opting to not sit on the couch watching outdoors shows on the television.  Others like the social aspect of ice fishing, even bringing cooking devices out on the ice to have a big party while catching a few fish.  It's all good!  But my goal is to catch as many fish jigging as I can...that's how I have fun on the ice.  Smaller lakes often give you that opportunity.  I like to improve my chances by hitting the hardwater on the smaller lakes.  So, how do I approach my goal?

Small lakes offer an easy advantage to finding active panfish because you can cover a ton of ice in a single day.  During mid winter, I like to start deep near dams or creek channels, then work towards more shallow types of structure, or cover like weed beds or tree blowdowns.

I like solving the puzzle, not only finding where the fish are, but where I can find the ones that are willing to bite.  Sometimes it takes a little work, and at other times it could be a lot of work.  Rarely, you might cut only one hole!  But the most fun is catching them, one after another.  It takes some knowledge, either learned via experience or from various media, such as videos, magazines, books, television shows, fishing forums and even from other ice anglers.  And a little luck doesn't hurt.

The first step is to pick a lake that has a good panfish population.  When I'm talking about a small lake, I'm thinking about a two hundred or so acres or less.  The vast majority of the lakes in my region are man made, featuring a dam, flooded creek channels, points, islands, and other structure.

An advantage of finding a gem of a small lake is that you can cover most of if not then entire lake to find fish. You can still make that major change if the bite is off by fishing a totally different area on your lake or by having another nearby small lake as a back up plan.  Sometimes, that major change will put you on active fish.

My favorite fish to target through the ice are crappie, but I also love a good bluegill or yellow perch bite.  So I tend to prefer lakes with historically good crappie populations and size.  

Mixed bags of slab crappie, yellow perch, and bluegills are a real fun time.  These fish were all caught in thirty feet of water over a creek channel not far from the dam.  Smaller lakes give you the opportunity to catch a bunch.

Small lakes offer an advantage over larger ones with respect to finding fish simply because you have less water to search to find them.  But panfish size vary from year to year, especially with crappie populations where sizes often vary.  Some years yield those fat slab crappie, others give up the medium sized ones.  The same holds true for perch and bluegills.

Other lakes may have large populations of "dinks" and but sometimes give up the larger ones.  Those bigger fish are harder to find.  But if you're into dinks, move to another location on the lake and hunt for the bigger ones if you know that lake supports them.  This frequently occurs with bluegills and perch one some of the lakes that I frequent.

If' I'm marking a lot of fish, it's tough to leave them.  But if they are four to six inch perch, or tiny bluegills or crappie, it's best to move from my experience.  Usually, I'll move to a different structure or area of the lake.  If the dinks are deep, then I move to weedy break lines, for example.  Often that change results in bigger fish.

My brother Kyle poses with a dink perch.  If you're catching dink perch like this, move and go find bigger panfish.  Tiny perch like this often group in large schools like this as a defense against predators.   Later, we'd find a nice mixed bag of  bigger panfish to bring home for a fish fry.

Finding good sized panfish on larger lakes (near 200 acres) could prove to be tougher.  Basically, you have to break the lake down into more manageable water size to cover.  Use lake contour structure maps to locate an area where the structure is more suitable for panfish and work that area.  Have a back up location if you have to make a spot change to get on fish if your first spot doesn't pan out.

It helps to have experience on a particular lake.  I have a few favorites, and patterns from one year to the next tend to hold true depending on how late you are in the ice season.  Sometimes that past experience pays off by cutting down on the time spend searching for fish..

During early and late ice, I look for mid depth fish first, fifteen feet or less, then adjust accordingly.  But it depends on what species your targeting.  Weed lines or flats near structure, points or a creek channel, are good places to find perch.  The creek channels tend to be good crappie spots, or any cover, such as a sunken tree or brushpile, or man made fish structure.

After cutting a bunch of holes, we finally found some bigger panfish and a bonus stocked trout.  These were stacked up near a creek channel off the end of a long sloping point on one of my favorite small lakes.

During mid winter, my approach is to start deep, then work shallower.  The Eastern waters that I fish are usually small reservoirs, with maximum depths of twenty to forty feet.  I typically look for fish in the twenty to thirty foot range first, them move deeper in my search.  If that doesn't pan out, then I move shallower.

I've found that schools of crappie during mid ice tend to hold over the deeper basins of lakes that I fish, or off creek channels near dams.  Often, you'll find yellow perch and bluegills with them this time of year.  Our lakes are man made, so most of the time there are creek channels, flats, points, primary and secondary drop offs to check.  I like to search the channel edges first.  As you move shallow, search for weeds because they could be the key when the deeper waters seem like a dead sea.

To me, crappie like this slab are what I look for and expect on the smaller lakes that I fish.  I am in seventh heaven catching crappie like these through the ice all day long!

Start by using either your own past experience on the lake, where you've caught crappie during mid ice, or locate the type of structure that you'd like to fish on a lake contour map.  Start by cutting a series of holes over the location of the structure, or where you think it may be.  I use a hand auger because, in my neck of the woods, the ice rarely gets thicker than a foot.  So, cutting a good number of holes becomes an obvious workout the thicker the ice gets.  That's when a power auger becomes effective.

I use my Clam Fish Trap Pro as my home base, then start cutting and checking holes.  Don't waste time on inactive fish.  Move and find fish.  Small changes at first might work.  If not, think bigger changes.

I usually cut a half dozen holes to start, then check them with my sonar.  I search for either suspended fish, or fish marked on the bottom.  For those fish on the bottom, the sonar shows the bottom jumping.  When the fish moves, the mark flickers, and if that mark is close to the bottom, it appears as if the bottom is flickering.   If the bottom doesn't jump or move, most likely you're not marking fish.  If your sonar transducer hangs or is supported by a float, make sure that it's stabilized and not moving, which could give you a false reading of marked bottom fish.

If I mark fish, then I'll drop a lure down and see how they react.  I can see my jig fall as a bar on my sonar toward the bottom.  If another bar moves off the bottom toward it, then I know the fish are active, and that means a fish is either moving toward my lure or interested in it.  When the bar representing the fish meets the bar representing my jig, I take my eyes off the flasher (sonar) and watch my rod tip.  If there is any movement of the rod tip or line, set the hook.

Now, marking fish is one thing, even ones that appear interested, catching active fish is another.  Just because a fish moves in to inspect your lure doesn't guarantee a bite.  Fish sometimes are curious, but finicky, and it either takes extra effort to tease them to bite or they just aren't interested.  We call those "sniffers."  If you routinely mark sniffers, move.  If they are in every hole that you cut, move and cut more holes.

Later in the day though, it might be wise to remember where those sniffers are, especially if you catch one and it's a good sized fish.  Because, often low light conditions, commonly thought of at the magic hour, that last hour of daylight, finicky fish might become more active later.  If you get into a good bite and it dies off, it may pay to go back and recheck the sniffer holes again.

Some anglers may try a variety of jigs to tempt the sniffers into biting, hoping that the magic jig will turn on the bite swtich.  At times, making changes in your offering, either tipping with bait or downsizing, will work.  But more times than not, moving is the key.  While those guys are trying to get that one fish to bite, I'm looking for multiple biting fish.  You can pad your numbers in a hurry by finding those biters.

Another thing about sniffers.  They may not be big finicky fish, but rather could be dinks.  Dinks often will sniff because, quite frankly, your jig might be too big for them.  If you mark a fish that charges up to your lure but then gets spooked the second that you give it a jig, most likely it's a small fish.  Move!

Since I really love crappie fishing, I tend to search for suspended fish.  I have very little patience when dealing with sniffers and fish that won't rise off the bottom much.  I search for suspended fish when I can.  There are times when you won't find them, but sometimes you do.  When you do, the reward usually means more bites and active fish.  Perch really like to feed off the bottom, so that might explain why my crappie and bluegill numbers when catching a mixed panfish bag are higher than my perch numbers.

This is what I'm looking for when searching for big schools of panfish.  When reading this sonar, the bottom was nineteen feet, shown at about eight o'clock.  The surface of the sonar is at twelve o'clock.  All of the marks in between are suspended fish.  Fish also were on the bottom.  We call this, "sonar lit up like a Christmas tree!"

When I finally find the crappie, I will fish that hole out because they usually hold in big schools.  If they are suspended, often you'll catch perch and sunfish that suspend with them.  That situation may result in that nice hundred fish day!  If you plan on fishing for crappie after dark, remember what holes you caught them in because it's likely those holes may produce near or after dark. I'll provide some night fishing secrets in a future post.

The key to being successful to this type of fishing is to move when things aren't going well, and find those active fish.  It may mean cutting a ton of holes or making major spot changes, but the reward could be worth it.  This isn't a new concept.  I learned it many years ago from my ice fishing mentor, Jeff Redinger, who taught me the Dave Genz approach, using sonar to find fish and a comfortable portable shanty that allows you to easily make those important spot changes.  I'm sure that there are other pioneers out there, but that's how I learned.

My ice fishing mentor and friend, Jeff Redinger, posing with a massive redear sunnie.  Jeff has caught countless slob sunfish like this over the years using the techniques that he taught me, techniques made popular by ice fishing legend Dave Genz.

Many of you may apply these tactics already and have experienced that success.  But some of you may not have learned this yet, and my hope is that this helps you.  Just because you have a sonar unit and are marking fish, doesn't mean that those are the fish that you should be targeting.  Move away from sniffers and go find some biters!  Move away from dinks and go find bigger panfish!

My best of luck wishes go out to all of you hardwater anglers, and please be safe during these next few weeks of late ice!

The Century Mark on the Ice!

Last week I met up with a musky fishing friend of mine, Mike Carrigan, and a couple of his buddies on small local lake.  My buddy Wayne also met me there.  The plan was to find some willing crappie at first light, and for me to make a day of it.  Wayne planned to stick it out with me, while Mike and his buddies were only fishing a partial day.

My friend Mike Carrigan fishing out of a Clam Fish Trap and using a Vexilar FL-18 flasher.  Mike caught some decent trout and crappie throughout the morning.  He found some active fish out of this particular hole.

Most of the snow from the previous week had melted and refroze, forming a nice white layer of slick ice on top of a good nine inches of clear ice.  The weather was cloudy but pleasant, not much wind, right below the freezing mark all day.

I arrived after sunrise, getting a later start than I had wanted.  Wayne, Mike and his buddies were all on the ice already.  As I was getting ready, first Wayne showed up to greet me, then went back out and fished, followed by Mike a short time later.  It took me a while to get my stuff organized and ready to roll.

Mike and his buddies were about a hundred yards away from Wayne.  They were fishing the deeper water near the dam, while Wayne was working the deeper drop off out from a main point not too far from the dam.  I decided to cut holes in between all of them, to connect the dots, if you will!

Wayne had already located a school of active bluegills and a few crappie, out in the channel closest to the main lake point.  Here's he is using his sonar to watch the reaction of the fish as he teases them into biting.

I proceeded to cut half a dozen holes, scooped out the ice chips, and dropped my sonar down to see if I could mark fish.  I marked fish in every hole.  They weren't suspended, but were holding tight to the bottom.  I dropped my twin Ratso soft plastic rig down and drew the fish off the bottom  in each hole, but they either bit really lightly or lost interest quickly.  I went back and covered each hole with a smaller jig rigged with two maggots to see if I could get those finicky "sniffers" to bite something tipped with bait.

Starting near my sled,  I cut holes between Mike and his buddies and my friend Wayne, hoping to mark and find some active fish.

Spikes or waxworms as bait act as a nice tasty treat to the fish and provide a little bit of scent to trigger their feeding instinct.  When the fish are active, I prefer to use the soft plastics and not mess with constantly replacing bait when the fish pick the maggots or waxworms off the lure.  But, sometimes, they only thing they will bite are the baited jigs.

Mike was catching medium and small sized crappie now and then, while Wayne, over by the point was getting a pretty good bluegill bite going with an occasional crappie.  Meanwhile, I was having a hard time getting solid hits.  So, I kept cutting holes.

I walked over to see how Mike was doing, and he found a hole that held a few pretty aggressive fish.  I watched him fish for a bit while chatting about the fishing on this lake, and took a nice little video of him in action, showing us how it's done.  Please note that this fish is one of the small finicky crappie, not one of the bigger ones that he caught throughout the morning.  The fact that this catch is on video is merely because I spent way more time fishing than walking around taking videos.  Yet, it does illustrate how to use a flasher to catch fish.

Mikes buddies were catching some stocked rainbow trout on tip ups, and Wayne was jigging a few up too.  But one of the small trout had something sticking out of its gullet, a set of shooting ear plugs!  At least five inches were down it's throat.  We all got a laugh out of that!

These were the earplugs that were found in a trouts gullet that Mike's buddy Phil caught on a tip up.  We cracked up, saying that maybe he should put this back on a tip up and try for another!

I wasn't satisfied with the holes that I had cut so far.  I wanted active fish, not sniffers.  So, I cut another half dozen holes along the basin of a cove not far away where I'd found a good crappie bite in the past with similar results.  I caught a couple small bluegills and crappie, about one fish caught out of every four holes, with lot's of sniffers in each hole.  And the sniffers that bit seemed to prefer the tiny jig/maggot combination.

Every hole marked fish, but when I caught them, they were on the small side.  These were the finicky fish, the sniffers.  When you get this type of inactivity or finicky fish, move and find bigger more active fish.

My next move was back near where I started.  In one of the holes that I cut, I marked what I thought at first was a fish, but it was some sort of structure.  Perhaps it was a tree limb or something.  This particular spot didn't mark any fish, or at best, a sniffer or two.  It was almost what I was looking for, structure, but lacked the fish that I'd expect there.

So, I decided to cut a half dozen more holes around that area.  The first hole that I checked was loaded with fish, suspended off the bottom over nineteen feet of water from the bottom ten feet.  This was late morning, and the fish were stacked like cord wood.

I remember saying to myself, "This is the spot!"

My flasher lit up like a Christmas tree!  The bottom of the lake is at about 8:40, which was nineteen feet deep, and there was a tree branch at about 7:35, about four feet off the bottom.  The rest of the marks were fish, showing all the way up to ten feet off the bottom (about  3:20 on a clock).  The surface is at high noon, with a couple marks that are noise from the ice surface.  You can see the fish were stacked like cord wood here!  This was the spot!

As I've described in recent posts, my tactic when finding fish stacked like this is to set up and fish over them for a while.  Most of the time, you'll catch a good number then the bite dies off and you're off on the search again for more active fish.  However, this spot seemed different.  This was late morning, and the fish were suspended.  My graph was lit up like a Christmas tree (a popular saying among ice anglers when they mark a bunch of suspended seemingly active fish).  This is the type of spot that can make your day.

My way of setting up is to cut a couple holes, one for my electronics, and one to fish out of.  Since there were a bunch of fish showing up, I decided to set up my underwater camera.  It took me a couple minutes to set up my shanty and the underwater camera so that I could see my jigs, but it took even less time for me to start hooking up.  I can't see much on the camera out in the open because of the glare, so I need to close up Clam Fish Trap Pro (my portable flip over shelter ), so I could see the camera.  Please note that I don't waste the time or energy to set up this way unless I know for a fact that I'm on a hot spot.

When I find a good spot with lot's of fish marked, I'll cut one hole for my electronics, and one to fish out of.  I took this picture shortly after marking tons of fish.

I lowered my camera to about ten feet off the bottom, the upper range of the suspended fish.  The water clarity was a bit cloudy, not as clear as I'd like for this type of set up, but it would have to do.  I could see only about two feet at the most below the camera, which is set to look down on the fish.  As soon as I picked up my rod and jigged, I saw a crappie swim in very quickly and miss my lure.  The next attempt from a different fish resulted in the fish sucking my jig in.

When I set the camera up, I dropped down my tandem Ratso rig down there because they're easier to find. The top Ratso was the one that the crappie inhaled, so I set the hook.  These weren't the dink crappie that I was getting earlier, these were decent for this lake.  They weren't big, but they were fat mediums, most good enough for a nice filet at nine to ten inches long.

The fish were ferocious.  As soon as I dropped the Ratso's into camera view, a crappie would swoop in to inhale it, aggressively.  And my sonar was showing a lot of fish down there.  I was catching them one after another, giggling like a little kid.  So, before the school left, I decided to coax Mike over to give the camera a try.

Mike spent about fifteen minutes in there playing with the camera and catching a few.  I heard him laughing as he was getting used to fishing versus what he was seeing on the camera.  It takes getting used to for sure, but he was having fun.  He didn't want to take up my fishing time, so he turned my shanty back over to me.

For the next two hours, the crappie kept showing up, actively attacking my soft plastic jigs.  I lost a couple nice crappie at the hole but for the most part, I landed about eighty percent of the fish that decided to bite.  I lost some time when crappie or bluegills decided to wrap themselves around my camera cable during the fight, but landed those fish.  The time lost was setting it up again so I could see my jigs.

By now it was snowing lightly.  I've always seemed to have good luck with the crappie while it was snowing, so this seemed to be the case again.

Over the next two hours, I managed to ice thirty four crappie and seven bluegills.  Then, they seemed to disappear.  But, one solid mark remained about four feet off the bottom and didn't more or react to any of my lures.  I couldn't see it on my camera, but I was pretty sure it was a larger branch of that tree that I found earlier.  I felt that the fish would return, so I decided to stick it out.

During the following few hours, I picked up crappie and bluegills now and then.  But, the fish became a bit finicky.  I could see them on the camera at times, and they'd move in and check out my lure and either bite or swim off.  I also was able to fish off the bottom and coax a decent bluegill into biting every now and then, below the tree mark.

Sometimes finicky fish, especially bluegills, will prefer a smaller jig tipped with a couple spikes.  This tiny Northland Tungsten Fireball jig fishes heavy and shows a nice mark on my sonar.

I took a break and socialized a little bit, and during the meantime checked some of the other holes out without electronics while jigging a Salmo Chubby Darter, a jigging lure that resembles a lipless crankbait and an effective technique for catching bass, trout and jumbo crappie.  I didn't get any hits, but Mike and his buddies, Phil and Nick, were pretty much calling it a day during early afternoon.

Meanwhile, Wayne was consistently catching bluegills and the occasional crappie out of his spot.  I went back to my hole and noticed that the suspended fish had returned, with more and more of them appearing on my flasher.  They snubbed my tandem plastics for the most part, but willingly hit the tiny jig/maggot combination.  They were bluegills.  Not the sniffing dinks from the morning, but decent sized ones.  I wouldn't say they were big, but they were decent, averaging seven to eight inches long.

Wayne with a small crappie caught earlier in the morning.  Later, we both caught quite nicer ones.  Like I said earlier in the post, when the bigger fish are really biting well, it's tough to be a camera man!

Bluegills fight like crazy and easily wrap around the camera cable, so I quickly pulled the camera out.  They were so active that using the sonar was highly effective.

These fish became very active and aggressive toward my smaller offering.  Every now and then, I'd hook a crappie.  By late afternoon, the bite was frantic again. The bluegills were all around the tree, both above it and below it, and sometimes suspending ten feet off the bottom, and extremely aggressive.  The crappie bite earlier in the day was quite impressive, but this bluegill bite was something else!

The bluegills preferred this small round ball jig tipped with a couple spikes.

Our hope was to fish into the dark for the crappie, that since we found them during the day here in decent numbers, that they'd return.  Usually, that's a good plan for setting up for a night time crappie bite.  But, I didn't want to leave this great bluegill bite to go back to my truck and get my lantern!

Wayne had moved closer so we could share the lantern light once the night bite began, and also was getting into the bluegills at a rapid rate.  He also had a knack for catching several trout on the day while jigging, and also a couple largemouth bass as well.

In between catching crappie and bluegills, Wayne caught trout and a few small largemouth bass, which are fun on the light ice panfish set ups.

I finally decided to quickly go get my lantern and return before it was too late.  But the bluegills didn't let me down, they kept on biting.  It was a great evening bite.  I managed to also catch a small bass.  Then, the sun dropped as well as the temperatures.

This hand sized bluegill liked that Northland Tungsten Fireball jig!

Wayne and I caught a few bluegills and crappie after dark, but the bite wasn't what we'd hoped for.  The fish became finicky but we marked them regularly.  I've noticed this before when fishing murky water, that those lakes don't make for great night bites for crappie.  So, we called it quits.

My numbers were my best trip of the year, and the size of the fish, although not large, was decent.  At least it was from the standpoint of having a good time.  I finished with forty two crappie, sixty three bluegills, and a largemouth bass.  That one hot hole produced 101 fish!  That is a great day on the ice, for me, a total of 106 fish on the day.  I'm sure Wayne had similar numbers.

Any time you hit the century mark with numbers of fish, on or off the ice, it's a trip to remember.  Hence, I thought that I'd share it with you!

What a fun day on the ice!