Author's note: This is the final part of the series I started Monday. I hope you have enjoyed it.
It was one-thirty in the afternoon when we got situated. Within the first half-hour something slammed a rod downward that I had balanced on a bucket while changing baits on another. It hit like a small pike does, slashing past, grabbing the bait like a running thief grabbing an apple off a fruit wagon without stopping. I missed that fish as well, and that’s when we packed it in for the day.
On the way back to the truck, we detoured past an eighty-acre island surrounded by marshlands with plenty of cat-tails and open areas between brushy pockets of cover. An ancient railroad grade crossed the island diagonally like the spine on a razorback hog. I once stalked to within twenty-five yards of two bedded deer on this island while hunting with a bow along the elevated trackway. Thick brush along its sides however, prevented me from getting a clear shot, and the deer soon bounded away.
We found several sets of coyote tracks leading into the interior, so we put together two brush blinds on the perimeter where we could hide while using predator calls and rabbit decoys to try to get the brush-wolves to show themselves. We’ll come back with small caliber rifles in late January when the coyotes are always hungry. I would like to get a big pelt to hang on the wall along with mounted fish and deer antlers.
As for today’s fishing, I enjoyed the experience despite the meager results. I’m lucky to be living in an area where I can enjoy the outdoors as often as I do, and we’ll have ice into April on the bays around here. I’ve got plenty of time to explore new areas and look for new ice-fishing adventures. And you can be sure I’ll have some new stories to tell around the campfire.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
THE DAY THE FISH GOT AWAY - Part two
Author's note: This is part two of a blog that details one recent day of ice fishing on Little Bay de Noc in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The final installment will be posted tomorrow evening.
We set up the shanty directly at the point where the drop-off leveled out onto the flat. I baited a double-hook minnow rig with one flashy three-inch shiner at one foot off bottom and another at three feet up. That rod had a spring-steel strike indicator on the tip and I set it in a holder so it could work itself while a readied a second rig for perch. This one had a bright gold spoon as an attractor, a two-inch clear leader off the spoon, and a bright orange, needle-sharp plain hook on the end of the leader. It was baited with a live wiggler and lowered down so it rested just above the boulders.
I settled in to work the perch rig by lightly jigging it, while the walleye rig worked itself. The two shiner minnows swam around, keeping the strike indicator dancing lightly. After a while, the spring steel on the tip of the double-hook rig bent downward very slowly, which told me a fish was mouthing the bait. I rested the perch rig on the edge of the seat and took the other rod in hand. I lowered the rod tip for a few seconds to let the fish get the minnow fully, then I raised the rod tip until I started to feel the weight of the fish.
I was sure I’d set the hook into a walleye, but when I snapped the rod upward, the perch rod shot downward, falling to the floor. I grabbed for it while continuing to raise the other rod. Almost instantly I realized that whatever took the shiner minnow had crossed the line on the wiggler rig. The two were tangled! I tried to open the bail on the second rod so I would have a chance to land the other fish, but it just didn’t work. Whatever hit the shiner rig was gone and that was that!
While this was going on, Duane tried to quickly reel in his lines, and possibly take the perch rig from my side of the shanty, but it all happened quickly and we did not salvage anything from the brief flurry of excitement.
After a couple hours or so we had no more action on that spot, so we moved up to the weed edge on top of the underwater slope. There we could easily see the bottom in ten feet of water and we sight-fished small ice lures tipped with wigglers for perch, but had absolutely no action.
O.K., if nothing was going on shallow or at the base of the drop-off, we decided to head out to fifty feet of water east of the place we started and try for bigger perch from the depths. This was also the type of place whitefish sometimes hold in, so I put a simple split-shot and plain hook rig down, with the shot laying on bottom and the minnow swimming around it. This is generally the way whitefish like their bait presented.
Here again, we spent time trying to make something happen. I did see one fish approach on the screen of my locator and it may have picked up the minnow – the signal produced by my bait and that of the fish merged on the screen – but I did not get a good hookset. Too much stretch in fifty feet of four-pound test monofilament I guess. I also worked a deep-water perch rig baited with a wiggler here, but nothing bit.
We moved a few hundred yards at a time, working our way toward south toward the mouth of the Escanaba River, looking for roaming bands of perch, but it seemed that when we zigged, they zagged, when we hopped, they skipped. In the end our paths just didn’t cross. Arriving at the river mouth, we set up well out into the bay, because the constant flow of the river itself makes the ice there unstable. The mouth of the river forms a kind of broad delta that ranges from five to fourteen feet deep, then drops into twenty-six feet well out into the bay. That’s where we made a final attempt to salvage the day.
End of part two - check in tomorrow evening for part three.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2009
We set up the shanty directly at the point where the drop-off leveled out onto the flat. I baited a double-hook minnow rig with one flashy three-inch shiner at one foot off bottom and another at three feet up. That rod had a spring-steel strike indicator on the tip and I set it in a holder so it could work itself while a readied a second rig for perch. This one had a bright gold spoon as an attractor, a two-inch clear leader off the spoon, and a bright orange, needle-sharp plain hook on the end of the leader. It was baited with a live wiggler and lowered down so it rested just above the boulders.
I settled in to work the perch rig by lightly jigging it, while the walleye rig worked itself. The two shiner minnows swam around, keeping the strike indicator dancing lightly. After a while, the spring steel on the tip of the double-hook rig bent downward very slowly, which told me a fish was mouthing the bait. I rested the perch rig on the edge of the seat and took the other rod in hand. I lowered the rod tip for a few seconds to let the fish get the minnow fully, then I raised the rod tip until I started to feel the weight of the fish.
I was sure I’d set the hook into a walleye, but when I snapped the rod upward, the perch rod shot downward, falling to the floor. I grabbed for it while continuing to raise the other rod. Almost instantly I realized that whatever took the shiner minnow had crossed the line on the wiggler rig. The two were tangled! I tried to open the bail on the second rod so I would have a chance to land the other fish, but it just didn’t work. Whatever hit the shiner rig was gone and that was that!
While this was going on, Duane tried to quickly reel in his lines, and possibly take the perch rig from my side of the shanty, but it all happened quickly and we did not salvage anything from the brief flurry of excitement.
After a couple hours or so we had no more action on that spot, so we moved up to the weed edge on top of the underwater slope. There we could easily see the bottom in ten feet of water and we sight-fished small ice lures tipped with wigglers for perch, but had absolutely no action.
O.K., if nothing was going on shallow or at the base of the drop-off, we decided to head out to fifty feet of water east of the place we started and try for bigger perch from the depths. This was also the type of place whitefish sometimes hold in, so I put a simple split-shot and plain hook rig down, with the shot laying on bottom and the minnow swimming around it. This is generally the way whitefish like their bait presented.
Here again, we spent time trying to make something happen. I did see one fish approach on the screen of my locator and it may have picked up the minnow – the signal produced by my bait and that of the fish merged on the screen – but I did not get a good hookset. Too much stretch in fifty feet of four-pound test monofilament I guess. I also worked a deep-water perch rig baited with a wiggler here, but nothing bit.
We moved a few hundred yards at a time, working our way toward south toward the mouth of the Escanaba River, looking for roaming bands of perch, but it seemed that when we zigged, they zagged, when we hopped, they skipped. In the end our paths just didn’t cross. Arriving at the river mouth, we set up well out into the bay, because the constant flow of the river itself makes the ice there unstable. The mouth of the river forms a kind of broad delta that ranges from five to fourteen feet deep, then drops into twenty-six feet well out into the bay. That’s where we made a final attempt to salvage the day.
End of part two - check in tomorrow evening for part three.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
THE DAY THE FISH GOT AWAY - Part one
THE DAY THE FISH GOT AWAY!
By: Ray Hansen
Dateline: Saturday, January 10, 2008 – Gladstone, Michigan
I chased fish all over the bay today but it was one of those tough times. Things just did not go right - on top of a tough bite – and I failed to land a fish for all the effort I put into looking for a few that would hit.
I started out in the darkness prior to sunrise with life-long friend Duane Deno of Gladstone, Michigan. We left from a lot he owns on the shores of Little Bay de Noc where we rode out onto the bay on his Honda four-wheeler. He drove and I sat backwards on the cargo rack on the back of the machine. We pulled a portable ice shack and all our fishing gear on a high-sided sled behind the all terrain vehicle like a small train with a couple boxcars behind it. I should have been swinging an old red lantern like a brakeman leaning out from the caboose.
Sunrise / moonset was spectacular. The sun brightened the eastern horizon into pink, orange, and mango streaks, as the moon touched the treeline to the west like a massive painted parchment pancake. It is at its closest approach to earth and has been putting on a show for the past few days. I’m sure astronomers worldwide have been seized with spasms of near-orgasmic delight in the past forty-eight hours or so by what they observe through telescopes trained on our celestial neighbor.
About 10 o’clock last night Kate and I went for a hike in the frigid woods around our home, just to experience this wonderful phenomenon. The moon was so bright it would have been possible to read a newspaper by moonlight alone. Almost no artificial lights exist nearby to compete with the intense lunar luminosity. We saw deer silhouetted against the snow as we made our way past hardwood ridges and spruce covered hillsides. In every direction snow crystals caught the moonlight, reflecting like tiny diamonds sprinkled along the path.
Anyway, Duane and I headed for an area we had not previously fished through the ice. Since we had taken walleyes there very late in the autumn season in open water, we figured we might still find them in the same location now that the lake was frozen. In most other years we had not been able to safely traverse the ice there until late January, but the freeze has been quite early this year. Just a few days ago an icebreaker passed this point and its course is still visible on the frozen bay as a jumble of clear, jagged ice like broken glass scattered along a highway after a crash.
In this spot, a sand and weed flat broke sharply at ten feet, descending into a thirty-five foot depression where a field of scattered boulders provided cover for perch, gobies, and various minnow species. Walleyes just had to be there, didn’t they? Duane and I were completely confident.
End of part one - check in tomorrow for part two
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
By: Ray Hansen
Dateline: Saturday, January 10, 2008 – Gladstone, Michigan
I chased fish all over the bay today but it was one of those tough times. Things just did not go right - on top of a tough bite – and I failed to land a fish for all the effort I put into looking for a few that would hit.
I started out in the darkness prior to sunrise with life-long friend Duane Deno of Gladstone, Michigan. We left from a lot he owns on the shores of Little Bay de Noc where we rode out onto the bay on his Honda four-wheeler. He drove and I sat backwards on the cargo rack on the back of the machine. We pulled a portable ice shack and all our fishing gear on a high-sided sled behind the all terrain vehicle like a small train with a couple boxcars behind it. I should have been swinging an old red lantern like a brakeman leaning out from the caboose.
Sunrise / moonset was spectacular. The sun brightened the eastern horizon into pink, orange, and mango streaks, as the moon touched the treeline to the west like a massive painted parchment pancake. It is at its closest approach to earth and has been putting on a show for the past few days. I’m sure astronomers worldwide have been seized with spasms of near-orgasmic delight in the past forty-eight hours or so by what they observe through telescopes trained on our celestial neighbor.
About 10 o’clock last night Kate and I went for a hike in the frigid woods around our home, just to experience this wonderful phenomenon. The moon was so bright it would have been possible to read a newspaper by moonlight alone. Almost no artificial lights exist nearby to compete with the intense lunar luminosity. We saw deer silhouetted against the snow as we made our way past hardwood ridges and spruce covered hillsides. In every direction snow crystals caught the moonlight, reflecting like tiny diamonds sprinkled along the path.
Anyway, Duane and I headed for an area we had not previously fished through the ice. Since we had taken walleyes there very late in the autumn season in open water, we figured we might still find them in the same location now that the lake was frozen. In most other years we had not been able to safely traverse the ice there until late January, but the freeze has been quite early this year. Just a few days ago an icebreaker passed this point and its course is still visible on the frozen bay as a jumble of clear, jagged ice like broken glass scattered along a highway after a crash.
In this spot, a sand and weed flat broke sharply at ten feet, descending into a thirty-five foot depression where a field of scattered boulders provided cover for perch, gobies, and various minnow species. Walleyes just had to be there, didn’t they? Duane and I were completely confident.
End of part one - check in tomorrow for part two
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
SEEING BITES WHEN ICE FISHING
SEEING BITES WHEN ICE FISHING
Tactics That Land More Fish
By: Ray Hansen
The season is on us, and for most upper Midwesterners, fishing trips between now and April mean walking out onto the frozen surface of a lake, drilling a hole, and trying to entice fish from the icy depths. People not familiar with modern ice fishing techniques often express surprise at how good the bite can be.
Despite the advancements made in gear however, it is up to the individual to pay attention while fishing, and those who watch closest, make the best catch.
Take the simple matter of knowing when a fish is biting. While a number of “bite detection” systems exist. Perhaps the most common is to attach a short strip of spring steel with an eye on it to the end of your ice rod. These attachments are sold wherever winter tackle is available.
Typically, anglers hand-hold the rod, or place it in a holder so the tip is centered over the hole in the ice. The thin sliver of steel reacts to very slight movements, and when it moves (either up or down) you probably have a fish mouthing your bait. Staring intently at the steel tip is the best way to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Wind is an enemy of anglers using spring steel “strike indicators”. It moves the steel, making it tough to tell what is going on below the ice. If nothing else, ice fishermen are innovative, and ways to block the wind (aside from sitting inside a portable shanty) abound.
One of the best solutions is to get a round plastic container like a very small bucket, a piece of thin-walled plastic pipe, or a tub that margarine or detergent might be sold in. The diameter of the piece should be at least six inches (or larger if the hole you cut is larger). If you use a container, cut out the bottom so it is now open on both ends. Also cut a narrow “U” shaped slot in one side about half-way down from the top.
The rest is simple. Place the container over the hole in the ice with the opening of the slot facing up. This forms a wind-break around the tip of your rod when it is placed into the slot. Now the spring steel strike indicator stays motionless, and you can spot bites much easier.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
Tactics That Land More Fish
By: Ray Hansen
The season is on us, and for most upper Midwesterners, fishing trips between now and April mean walking out onto the frozen surface of a lake, drilling a hole, and trying to entice fish from the icy depths. People not familiar with modern ice fishing techniques often express surprise at how good the bite can be.
Despite the advancements made in gear however, it is up to the individual to pay attention while fishing, and those who watch closest, make the best catch.
Take the simple matter of knowing when a fish is biting. While a number of “bite detection” systems exist. Perhaps the most common is to attach a short strip of spring steel with an eye on it to the end of your ice rod. These attachments are sold wherever winter tackle is available.
Typically, anglers hand-hold the rod, or place it in a holder so the tip is centered over the hole in the ice. The thin sliver of steel reacts to very slight movements, and when it moves (either up or down) you probably have a fish mouthing your bait. Staring intently at the steel tip is the best way to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Wind is an enemy of anglers using spring steel “strike indicators”. It moves the steel, making it tough to tell what is going on below the ice. If nothing else, ice fishermen are innovative, and ways to block the wind (aside from sitting inside a portable shanty) abound.
One of the best solutions is to get a round plastic container like a very small bucket, a piece of thin-walled plastic pipe, or a tub that margarine or detergent might be sold in. The diameter of the piece should be at least six inches (or larger if the hole you cut is larger). If you use a container, cut out the bottom so it is now open on both ends. Also cut a narrow “U” shaped slot in one side about half-way down from the top.
The rest is simple. Place the container over the hole in the ice with the opening of the slot facing up. This forms a wind-break around the tip of your rod when it is placed into the slot. Now the spring steel strike indicator stays motionless, and you can spot bites much easier.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
SOMETHING WRONG AT THE RIDGE
SOMETHING WRONG AT THE RIDGE
By: Ray Hansen
We both knew something was wrong at The Ridge. We had always killed deer there, including Duane’s great nine-point buck, and we had watched many others at this natural crossing without drawing on them. Want some venison for camp meat? No problem! Use an antlerless tag on one of the does we commonly see there.
”The Ridge” was our name for a long narrow strip of higher ground bordered on the west by a twenty-acre patch of wet marsh, and on the east by a much larger jungle of tag alder, white cedar, and heavy brush. This was a natural travel route for local deer, and when the rut kicked in, bucks cruised through here regularly while patrolling doe groups. Big white cedars and spruce on this elevated runway offered good stand sites. This was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at its best.
This particular season however, traffic was way down. Something had driven the deer toward alternate routes, and the few we saw were spooky. In camp between morning and afternoon hunts, Duane and I tried to figure out what happened.
For starters, we set out a trail camera, which quickly provided a clue. Six images of a large black bear showed up within two days. But bears by themselves don’t scare deer away. The whitetails may become a little more cautious when a bruin starts poking around their favored territory, but they will not abandon a home area that has served them well for years.
Knowing that the bear was close by made Duane and I pay closer attention while hunting and the photos motivated his brother Tom to apply for bear tags the following year. He ultimately shot a prime three-hundred pound boar close by.
In desperation, I left one of my stands early one morning to take a closer “CSI” look at the area immediately surrounding a stand I had on the ridge. I uncovered clue number two in this way. The carcass of a recently killed coyote lay sprawled in heavy cover just east of my stand. The male pack leader had died hard and fast. Its neck was snapped, ears standing upright, eyes open, and teeth bared in a perpetual snarl. I could visualize a 110 pound wolf grabbing the thirty pound canine by the neck and shaking it like a rag doll.
This find revealed that a pack of wolves was challenging their smaller relatives for hunting rights to the ridge. We later found canine tracks along an old logging road that confirmed recent wolf activity. Tom’s house backs up to a twenty acre field which is bordered by heavy woods with a creek meandering through the low areas. He’d been watching wolves through a spotting scope while they harassed resident deer.
So Duane and I knew what had altered deer movements, but one additional discovery cemented the knowledge that things would not return to normal for a while. One other camp was accessed by the same sand road we used to get to our spot. A “Y” in the road signals where a truck must turn to approach the other place. The owner, “Kenny”, stopped us a few days later to say that a juvenile mountain lion had crossed the road at the junction, only fifteen feet from him as he drove in. He wasn’t guessing about what he had seen. The cat paused in the headlights before jumping into the tag alders, giving Ken a good, broadside view. I can tell you that the long, sinuous tail on a lion cannot be mistaken for any other wild feline.
So, all the local predators knew about the deer traffic on The Ridge. That left Duane and I looking for other places deer had moved to. But… that’s part of the fun. Hunting areas change, and hunters adapt. Wolves, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes move on. Whitetails eventually return to old patterns, and I hope to be in a treestand on The Ridge when they do!
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008.
By: Ray Hansen
We both knew something was wrong at The Ridge. We had always killed deer there, including Duane’s great nine-point buck, and we had watched many others at this natural crossing without drawing on them. Want some venison for camp meat? No problem! Use an antlerless tag on one of the does we commonly see there.
”The Ridge” was our name for a long narrow strip of higher ground bordered on the west by a twenty-acre patch of wet marsh, and on the east by a much larger jungle of tag alder, white cedar, and heavy brush. This was a natural travel route for local deer, and when the rut kicked in, bucks cruised through here regularly while patrolling doe groups. Big white cedars and spruce on this elevated runway offered good stand sites. This was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at its best.
This particular season however, traffic was way down. Something had driven the deer toward alternate routes, and the few we saw were spooky. In camp between morning and afternoon hunts, Duane and I tried to figure out what happened.
For starters, we set out a trail camera, which quickly provided a clue. Six images of a large black bear showed up within two days. But bears by themselves don’t scare deer away. The whitetails may become a little more cautious when a bruin starts poking around their favored territory, but they will not abandon a home area that has served them well for years.
Knowing that the bear was close by made Duane and I pay closer attention while hunting and the photos motivated his brother Tom to apply for bear tags the following year. He ultimately shot a prime three-hundred pound boar close by.
In desperation, I left one of my stands early one morning to take a closer “CSI” look at the area immediately surrounding a stand I had on the ridge. I uncovered clue number two in this way. The carcass of a recently killed coyote lay sprawled in heavy cover just east of my stand. The male pack leader had died hard and fast. Its neck was snapped, ears standing upright, eyes open, and teeth bared in a perpetual snarl. I could visualize a 110 pound wolf grabbing the thirty pound canine by the neck and shaking it like a rag doll.
This find revealed that a pack of wolves was challenging their smaller relatives for hunting rights to the ridge. We later found canine tracks along an old logging road that confirmed recent wolf activity. Tom’s house backs up to a twenty acre field which is bordered by heavy woods with a creek meandering through the low areas. He’d been watching wolves through a spotting scope while they harassed resident deer.
So Duane and I knew what had altered deer movements, but one additional discovery cemented the knowledge that things would not return to normal for a while. One other camp was accessed by the same sand road we used to get to our spot. A “Y” in the road signals where a truck must turn to approach the other place. The owner, “Kenny”, stopped us a few days later to say that a juvenile mountain lion had crossed the road at the junction, only fifteen feet from him as he drove in. He wasn’t guessing about what he had seen. The cat paused in the headlights before jumping into the tag alders, giving Ken a good, broadside view. I can tell you that the long, sinuous tail on a lion cannot be mistaken for any other wild feline.
So, all the local predators knew about the deer traffic on The Ridge. That left Duane and I looking for other places deer had moved to. But… that’s part of the fun. Hunting areas change, and hunters adapt. Wolves, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes move on. Whitetails eventually return to old patterns, and I hope to be in a treestand on The Ridge when they do!
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
ICE FISHING THIS MORNING 1-1-09
Happy New Year:
I'm not sure how you spent the first day of January, but I went out ice fishing with a friend before sunrise this morning. I was dressed like an Eskimo with multiple layers of clothes, insulated bib overalls and a long-tail, hooded parka, knit hat, knee-high felt-lined pac boots and more. We worked depths of 28 to 30 feet along a drop-off on the west side of Little Bay de Noc with three inch shiners we bought Friday evening and stored overnight. This is near my home in Delta County, Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
We took a chance, heading to a part of the bay that is usually not safe to fish until late January. It seemed that the cold weather we have had would have firmed up the ice down that way enough to make it safe. There were others out ahead of us, so we were not exactly riding into the unknown. We found the ice 8 to 10 inches thick, but a large coal boat had come through from open water farther south and broke a channel to the docks about a mile south of us. We rode on a Honda all terrain vehicle to cover some territory in our search for fish.
We landed just two walleyes, one 28" and another 21". Both hit Swedish Pimple spoons (Bay de Noc Tackle Company) tipped with the minnows in 28' to 30' of water. We took my portable shanty because we intended to move around and a portable makes this easier. We had trouble with the wind blowing the thin walls like sails and moving the shack a little. When both of us sat inside on overturned buckets, there was enough weight to keep it anchored, but when one stepped out it could shift position. Honestly, the bite was slow even though we managed a couple nice fish. The wind chill was bad and after shooting just six photos my fingers were stiff and the camera flashed a "low battey" signal. The strong south winds apparently blew water up under the ice and caused several heaves. The first major jolt we felt (and heard) was an extended rumbling boom that shook the shanty fairly hard. Later, another sharp jolt ran a six inch open water crack running right between the wheels of our ATV parked alongside the shanty. When we went out to investigate, we found that we were on a piece of ice about twenty feet by thirty feet or so that had broken free from the surroundings. Several other pieces were around us. Picture a jigsaw puzzle. We were on one of the pieces and surrounded by other pieces. There was no danger of drifting away, but if one of the pieces broke into smaller fragments, there could have been real trouble. We gathered our gear immediately and rode back to shore, crossing several open water cracks along the way. Obviously none of them were wide enough to prevent crossing, but they all allowed water to spout up onto the surface ice and all we could do was open the throttle a bit and fly through them spraying water all the way. We actually did not get wet, because the water froze on our gear fast enough to keep it from soaking through anything.
This area has the potential to be a real "big fish zone", but I guess we are going to have to wait a little longer before going out there again. I have fished there many times in the past, but never this early in the year. One of the fascinating aspects of this part of the bay is that there are several wooden shipwrecks on the bottom (I've seen underwater camera pictures of them) and the resulting bottom structure holds fish there in the jumbled stacks of wood and iron. Drifting through the area in a boat on a spring day is a lot more comfortable, but I wouldn't trade these winter fishing adventures for anything else!
Ray
I'm not sure how you spent the first day of January, but I went out ice fishing with a friend before sunrise this morning. I was dressed like an Eskimo with multiple layers of clothes, insulated bib overalls and a long-tail, hooded parka, knit hat, knee-high felt-lined pac boots and more. We worked depths of 28 to 30 feet along a drop-off on the west side of Little Bay de Noc with three inch shiners we bought Friday evening and stored overnight. This is near my home in Delta County, Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
We took a chance, heading to a part of the bay that is usually not safe to fish until late January. It seemed that the cold weather we have had would have firmed up the ice down that way enough to make it safe. There were others out ahead of us, so we were not exactly riding into the unknown. We found the ice 8 to 10 inches thick, but a large coal boat had come through from open water farther south and broke a channel to the docks about a mile south of us. We rode on a Honda all terrain vehicle to cover some territory in our search for fish.
We landed just two walleyes, one 28" and another 21". Both hit Swedish Pimple spoons (Bay de Noc Tackle Company) tipped with the minnows in 28' to 30' of water. We took my portable shanty because we intended to move around and a portable makes this easier. We had trouble with the wind blowing the thin walls like sails and moving the shack a little. When both of us sat inside on overturned buckets, there was enough weight to keep it anchored, but when one stepped out it could shift position. Honestly, the bite was slow even though we managed a couple nice fish. The wind chill was bad and after shooting just six photos my fingers were stiff and the camera flashed a "low battey" signal. The strong south winds apparently blew water up under the ice and caused several heaves. The first major jolt we felt (and heard) was an extended rumbling boom that shook the shanty fairly hard. Later, another sharp jolt ran a six inch open water crack running right between the wheels of our ATV parked alongside the shanty. When we went out to investigate, we found that we were on a piece of ice about twenty feet by thirty feet or so that had broken free from the surroundings. Several other pieces were around us. Picture a jigsaw puzzle. We were on one of the pieces and surrounded by other pieces. There was no danger of drifting away, but if one of the pieces broke into smaller fragments, there could have been real trouble. We gathered our gear immediately and rode back to shore, crossing several open water cracks along the way. Obviously none of them were wide enough to prevent crossing, but they all allowed water to spout up onto the surface ice and all we could do was open the throttle a bit and fly through them spraying water all the way. We actually did not get wet, because the water froze on our gear fast enough to keep it from soaking through anything.
This area has the potential to be a real "big fish zone", but I guess we are going to have to wait a little longer before going out there again. I have fished there many times in the past, but never this early in the year. One of the fascinating aspects of this part of the bay is that there are several wooden shipwrecks on the bottom (I've seen underwater camera pictures of them) and the resulting bottom structure holds fish there in the jumbled stacks of wood and iron. Drifting through the area in a boat on a spring day is a lot more comfortable, but I wouldn't trade these winter fishing adventures for anything else!
Ray
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
DEEP WATER SPOON TRICKS - Part two
Author's note: This is the final part of yesterday's blog. I'll be out on the bay Thursday and will probably use some of the tactics detailed here.
I sometimes run two rods, with a live minnow on the second. Keep this presentation simple, such as a split shot and plain hook rig. The second rod needs to “fish itself” because you are going to pay a lot of attention to the spoon while you work it. Choose a large minnow as bait since it can attract more attention that a smaller size. Two and one half to three inches is best. Remember, we are not fishing for small perch. On the other hand, running too large a minnow can attract big walleyes or pike which can shut down perch activity.
Always pay attention to the information you are getting from your locator. Be quick to raise your bait to the level of fish that show up above your bait, but be slow to lower it to fish beneath the lure. When your bait is above fish, they can see it and may rise if you use the nervous twitch I mentioned. When they do not rise upward, they are not very active and may spook easily. Maintain the shake you have been using and lower the bait slowly to their level. Stop just inches above the fish, and hope the closer presentation will trigger a hit.
Above all, think about your presentations. Try new tactics like these. Experiment. Keep moving as you search for fish. Don’t let deep water deter you, as long as it remains safe to walk on. Put some effort into your fishing. You’ll get some new stories to tell around the campfire.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
I sometimes run two rods, with a live minnow on the second. Keep this presentation simple, such as a split shot and plain hook rig. The second rod needs to “fish itself” because you are going to pay a lot of attention to the spoon while you work it. Choose a large minnow as bait since it can attract more attention that a smaller size. Two and one half to three inches is best. Remember, we are not fishing for small perch. On the other hand, running too large a minnow can attract big walleyes or pike which can shut down perch activity.
Always pay attention to the information you are getting from your locator. Be quick to raise your bait to the level of fish that show up above your bait, but be slow to lower it to fish beneath the lure. When your bait is above fish, they can see it and may rise if you use the nervous twitch I mentioned. When they do not rise upward, they are not very active and may spook easily. Maintain the shake you have been using and lower the bait slowly to their level. Stop just inches above the fish, and hope the closer presentation will trigger a hit.
Above all, think about your presentations. Try new tactics like these. Experiment. Keep moving as you search for fish. Don’t let deep water deter you, as long as it remains safe to walk on. Put some effort into your fishing. You’ll get some new stories to tell around the campfire.
Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008
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