Sea Lamprey Control in the Great Lakes

Fish with sea lamprey injury

Gauzy morning light leaks through dense mature oaks and maples in a square woodlot next to an Indiana farm road. It’s only a few miles from the Michigan state line, lying just below the bottom end of Lake Michigan.

Right angles predominate in this place from artificial lines laid on the land. It is well-settled here, the artifices of people everywhere. Roads run over section lines straight as ribbons over low hills in near-perfect square-mile blocks. They make the checkerboard you can see from the air. On the ground, you can hear the distant drone of a brush hog, and the comings and goings of occasional cars and farm implements as people live out their day along the rim of the Great Lakes.

The backlighting of the morning sun illuminates the bugs that float aloft on the yellow beams. They remind you of dust defying gravity, caught in light bending through dirty widows. A spattering of left-over sunlight hits a tiny stream barely big enough to name. The rill, no bigger than a groove in the glacial till, gets much attention from fish biologists. This manicured site belies what’s below. Swimming in this pleasant little purl of water is an alien invader that’s become naturalized—and entirely by accident. Its existence here is as incongruous as finding ice cream in an oven.

The sea lamprey as its name implies is naturally at home in the salty waters of the Atlantic. But the unintended consequences of connecting the Great Lakes more directly to the seaboard for commerce via the Welland Canal essentially put the invasive lamprey in this otherwise bucolic scene. Their invasion into the Great Lakes dates to 1829, and by the late 1930s, they populated all of the Great Lakes. A saltwater fish swims in the tiniest of freshwater upland farm creeks ringing much of the Great Lakes basin.

It’s had a real down side.

The lamprey is a fish. On the evolutionary scale, it’s primitive–without scales and without bones. Its slightly cone-shaped circular mouth is loaded with rings of sharp raspy teeth. It’s a parasitic pest that makes a living by grating onto its host, sucking blood and body fluids as it clings along for the ride.

Mouth of Sea Lampray

The sea lamprey will spend 12 to 20 months in its parasitic phase in open water, killing up to 40 pounds of fish. Lake trout are not the only fish to host the invasive lamprey; steelhead, whitefish, lake sturgeon, salmons, walleye, and yellow perch often get the parasite. But lake trout populations have taken a measurable toll: prior to the lamprey explosion in the 1950s, about 15 million pounds of lake trout a year were harvested from Lakes Superior and Huron. Ten years later, only 300,000 pounds were pulled from nets. In Lake Michigan alone, lake trout harvest went from 5.5 million pounds in 1946, to a mere 402 pounds seven years later.

With Great Lakes fisheries devastated by invasive sea lamprey, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission directed the scientific testing of some 6,000 substances to determine what might control the damaging parasite. In 1958, the compound commonly called “TFM” proved its worth. This selective lampricide could suppress the invasive parasite while still in streams. Registered for permitted use by the EPA and Agriculture Canada, TFM has met all safety criteria for use in Great Lakes streams. Under the auspices of the Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists now apply TFM in roughly 250 streams tributary to the Great Lakes, such as the unassuming rill on the Indiana-Michigan state line.

It’s not the adult lamprey sought by biologists applying TFM to streams. The adult lampreys swim into the tributaries in the spring of the year to spawn and then die. Their eggs hatch in gravels, and the worm-like larvae move into muck to live out the next several years before turning to parasitism and moving into open lake water. The compound TFM kills sea lampreys in the larval stage.

While TFM is the primary means of suppressing sea lamprey populations, it is not the only one. Barriers built across several streams block sea lamprey from moving upstream to spawn. Sea lampreys lack an ability to leap; hundreds of low-head barriers on streams across the Great Lakes basin create impassable heights and prevent sea lampreys from migrating, thus reducing the necessity of applying TFM above barriers.

The ancient Greek adage, “make haste, slowly,” applies here. A great deal of experience and much scientific experimentation has brought sea lamprey control a long way from the nadir of the 1950s. Well-trained and dedicated biologists go after sea lamprey in a measured, deliberate way. On any application of TFM, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have deployed staff with an impressive array of expertise: chemistry, limnology, fisheries science, and hydrology. The field work is physically demanding.

That work is paying off. Desirable sport and commercial fisheries valuable to people are on the rebound. But we can’t let up: a single female sea lamprey may lay up to 100,000 eggs.

The past can’t be undone, but with science and technology, fisheries professionals can rewind it a bit. And it starts upstream, in the smallest of rills in the uplands that pour into the Great Lakes.

To learn more, visit www.fws.gov/midwes

Alabama Tagging Program Tracks Redfish, Speckled Trout
By DAVID RAINER
Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
from The Fishing Wire

While the fanfare surrounding the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo (ADSFR) proceeded nearby, Reid Nelson deftly made a series of surgeon’s knots to sew up an incision on the belly of a redfish that was a part of the live weigh-in category at the rodeo.

Tagging redfish keeps track of them

CAAMP monitors 55 receiver stations strategically placed in Alabama coastal waters to catch pings, which happen once a minute during the one-year lifespan of the acoustic tags in the fish.

Reid Nelson carefully inserts an acoustic tag into a redfish during the live weigh-in competition at the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. Photo by David Rainer
Nelson said 100 red drum were tagged in 2015. In 2016, another 100 red drum were tagged. Also in 2016, all tagging that didn’t occur at the ADSFR was transferred to Dog River and Fowl River on the western shore of Mobile Bay.

Nelson said the goal of CAAMP is to study fishing mortality, natural mortality and fish movement in response to water temperature and salinity levels.

Last year, the team added speckled trout to the tagging program and will continue to work with trout this year. As expected, redfish is a hardy species that handles catch-and-release very well. Speckled trout are not quite as resilient but still survive well enough to justify the live-release effort.

“With the popularity of the live weigh-in at the rodeo, we looked at it as a nice opportunity to tag live fish from different places,” Nelson said. “You can actually look at how successful live weigh-ins are. What we have seen from fish tagged at the rodeo, about 98 percent of the red drum have lived. About 78 percent of the speckled trout that we tagged at the rodeo have lived.

“Overall, mortality is pretty low, which I think is amazing. Some of the red drum were brought from all over, as far away as Mississippi and Louisiana.”

Nelson said 20 red drum and 15 speckled trout were fitted with the acoustic tags, which cost about $300 each, and released during the 2018 ADSFR. CAAMP is funded through the Alabama Marine Resources Division with a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

“What was really interesting about the rodeo is the map where the fish came from that were released at the rodeo,” he said. “One of the main concerns about a live weigh-in program is the fish won’t leave that area once they are released. Unlike the fish we tagged in the rivers, the fish we tagged at the rodeo leave Dauphin Island pretty readily. We’ve detected those fish as far away as Raft River in the Mobile Delta. We’ve detected them in Fowl River. We’ve detected them off the Gulf State Park Pier. They have even been detected by receiver arrays that other groups have out. It’s really remarkable how quickly and widespread these fish disperse.

“It’s interesting to do science with a part of the tournament. That’s really never been done. Another interesting thing is fishermen have been really good about telling us where they caught the fish. What we have seen is about 25 percent of the fish have gone back to where they were caught. With red drum that were caught in the rivers and brought to the rodeo, about 70 percent of those fish will disperse and end up returning to one of our local rivers. That’s been an amazing aspect of the study. We have no idea how those fish find their way back. It could be olfaction or chemoreceptors. It’s probably a combination of many navigation senses.”

Natural mortality with the red drum tagged in the first year of the study has been surprisingly low, according to Nelson. Out of the 100 fish tagged, only three died of natural causes. Fishing mortality took 10 out of the population in Fowl River from 2016-2017, and nine redfish were lost to fishing mortality in Dog River during the same time span.

“One of the other interesting things we saw is the seasonal peaks in the rivers,” Nelson said. “We saw more fishing mortality in the fall and spring.”

An eye-opening aspect of the CAAMP data when speckled trout were added to the study is the significant disparity in movement between species in response to weather and salinity changes.

“One of the most interesting things we’ve seen is a lot of the red drum really didn’t move that much from where they were actually tagged,” Nelson said. “Out of Fowl River, we had 13 fish leave the river over the course of the year, which is not very many in the grand scheme of things. Only five left Dog River during that year. For the year we have data, they were pretty much resident fish. Some of them would use different parts of the river. But for the most part, they tended to remain in the area where they were originally tagged.

“In fact, we had a family call in a fish a few months ago that had been tagged about a year ago. They literally caught that fish where we tagged it at Delta Port in Fowl River. That was amazing.”

Nelson said the most movement observed during the study came in December of 2016 when the water temperature was cooler than normal and the salinity was very high because of a lack of rain in the fall.

“The big conclusion so far on redfish is the majority of the slot fish tend to be resident,” he said. “It looks like they are pretty resilient to changes in temperature and salinity. We’ve seen big fluctuations in those two factors, and the fish didn’t leave the rivers when the salinity and temperature varied quite a bit. I thought that was really interesting.”

Now, throw speckled trout into the study, and the movement patterns are vastly different.

“During the first year of the big study with speckled trout, it was almost the complete opposite story,” Nelson said. “The trout were tagged last November and December. They were resident in the deep holes in the rivers until about February. When it was really cold, they were staying in the rivers. Once it started to warm up, we saw a push of fish leaving the rivers pretty quickly, moving down to Mississippi Sound and Dauphin Island. That is what you would expect.

“We had a couple of fish that moved from Dog River to the Mobile River. One of those fish actually came in at the rodeo. Instead of staying in the river, they pushed out relatively quickly.”

Nelson is also working with another program to study fish movement. The TAG Alabama program is sponsored by the Coastal Conservation Association of Alabama and relies on local anglers to insert dart tags in red drum and speckled trout caught in Alabama coastal waters.

“What we’re seeing with TAG Alabama is that many of those redfish are coming back right close to where they were tagged as well,” he said. “With TAG Alabama, we get a much larger spread of tagging locations instead of just the rivers.”

Anglers participating in TAG Alabama go to the website at http://tags.usouthal.edu/ to log tagging and recapture efforts for trout and redfish as well as red snapper, tripletails and sharks.

“We’ve had 743 red drum and speckled trout tagged so far,” Nelson said. “Considering we launched the program in April this year, that’s a lot. We’ve had 65 of those fish recaptured.

“I’m excited about this. CCA Alabama is providing the funding for this. I’m hoping we can keep this going.”

Another tagging effort that occurred partially during this year’s ADSFR involved tarpon, known as the silver king.

With the help of local tarpon enthusiasts during the ADSFR, researchers from Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Mississippi State University managed to attach eight satellite tags. Two more tarpon were caught and tagged the Saturday after the rodeo.

Of the eight fish tagged during the rodeo, all but one high-tailed it toward Louisiana, one traveling as far as the southern tip of Louisiana near South Pass. One fish, however, decided to explore Mobile Bay and made a huge loop inside the bay before heading west.

Unneeded Dams Coming Down, Fisheries Improving

By Chris Wood, President
Trout Unlimited
from The Fishing Wire

Unneeded Dam?

What makes the story of what happened on Third Herring Brook so cool is its now commonplace nature. Rivers in the East are riddled with dams that were built for long-forgotten purposes. Some dams are important for power generation or flood control. Some make awesome tailwater fisheries for wild trout. But many are deadbeats, liabilities for their owners—serving only to to pond water, warm streams, and block passage for migrating fish.

Ten years ago, I remember walking along the Musconetcong River in New Jersey, and looking at a dam adjacent to a restaurant, and asking Agust Gudmundsson, then the New Jersey council chair, “what is the dam for?” He said, “who knows? That’s why it is coming down.”

Most TU members and supporters are aware of TU’s role in re-opening over 1100 miles of the Penobscot River in Maine, and our contributions to reopen more than 500 miles of the Klamath River on the California and Oregon border. Across the eastern United States, TU, and its chapters, councils, and partners, have become quietly expert in working together to remove old and obsolete dams. This work is particularly vital as trout and salmon need to move in response to flood, fire, and drought. Dams also block access for spawning and rearing habitat for trout and salmon.

The Squanatissit and Boston chapters removed a dam on the Nissittissit River, a gorgeous trout stream that flows into the, once blighted but now cleaned up, Nashua River. The Nor’east chapter is working on dam removals on the Shawsheen and the Ipswich Rivers.

On the Boardman River TU is working with an array of partners on a series of dam removals that will reconnect over 160 miles of rivers and streams.

In the Adirondacks, the Lake Champlain chapter is working with the Tri-Lakes chapter and using funding from a variety of sources, including Embrace A Stream to remove the Quarry Dam, which will open the upper West Branch of the Ausable to spawning and as a summer refuge.

TU removed a dam, and is replacing two culverts on Kinne Brook in Massachusetts— an area that TU scientists call a brook trout portfolio stronghold.

In Pennsylvania, we worked with American Rivers to remove an old stone dam and open up nearly 100 miles of ChestCreek, a priority for native brook trout recovery.

My favorite dam removal story comes from the Sebago Chapter in Maine. They worked with several other chapters, the Nature Conservancy, and others to remove the Swett Brook Dam in 2013. The chapter then set a goal to remove at least one dam or culvert that blocks fish passage every year through 2020!

Every one of these dam removals, and the dozens more that are happening around the nation, share a common theme—local people working together to improve the places they fish, live and love. The same combination of pluck, ingenuity, and smarts that led us to build dams to allow a young nation to prosper are helping to remove them today, and we are a richer country for it.

Chris Wood is the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited. He lives in Washington, D.C., and works from TU’s Arlington, Va., headquarters.

Stick It to Dangerous Currents With a Wading Staff
By Lee McClellan, Kentucky DFW
from The Fishing Wire

Use a wading staff when fishing rivers and streams

An eddy on the other side of the stream looks inviting and the more you stare at it, the more you want to cast there. The only problem is a waist-deep run with strong current lies between you and the enticing water.

You begin crossing the stream, but about half way, the current begins to push hard against your legs. You barely lift your foot and the current pushes it out from your body, nearly causing a fall. You look back and realize it will be just as hard to get back to where you started, as it will be to get to the other side of the stream.

You are stuck.

A wading staff will save your bacon in this situation. Made from aluminum, carbon fiber, crafted wood or a hickory stick, a wading staff gives anglers an extra balance point that can prevent a fall in sticky situations.

“I use my wading staff for balance whenever I wade,” said Dr. Larry Kelley of Richmond, retired assistant chair of nursing at Eastern Kentucky University. “It’s kept me from falling many times.”

Kelley also uses his wading staff, made from a cedar branch, to probe the water in front of him for depth. Clear water often looks shallower than it actually is and misjudgment can lead to a hat-floating, wader-filling mishap.

“This is another area where my wading staff is invaluable,” Kelley said. “It keeps me from making mistakes concerning the depth of a hole.”

This safety feature proves handy when wading cold tailwaters, like the Cumberland River below Wolf Creek Dam. The water temperatures in the Lake Cumberland tailwater run cold enough to induce hypothermia. Stepping off a shelf into water over your head quickly fills a set of waders. Waders filled with water become a dangerous weight in moving, cold water.

This is the reason wading anglers must always use a snug wading belt when wearing waders. The belt prevents the legs of the waders from quickly filling with water in the event of a fall.

You can use a wading staff to test the bottom composition before venturing into a hole. Muddy areas of the stream bottom often look like hard-packed sand, but are actually a gooey muck that can pull off your wading boots. Wading staffs are also invaluable in negotiating steep stream banks.

Some debate exists on whether wood, carbon fiber or aluminum make the best wading staff.

“I prefer a wooden staff because it floats behind me and out of the way when fishing,” Kelley said. “I can also quickly get the staff in my hand when I need it.”

You can make a wooden wading staff cheaply by finding a dense hickory or cedar branch stick about shoulder height. Rub in several coats of tung oil and let it cure.

Slide a piece of hypalon foam replacement handle for walking canes over the thickest end of the stick and glue if necessary. Drill a hole through the stick just above the handle. Work a large key ring though the hole to attach a lanyard system. Kelley uses a magnetic net release used by fly anglers to attach his wading staff to his vest via a carabiner.

Epoxy a rubber cane tip on the other end and you are in business. Some anglers epoxy a wrap of lead tape used on golf clubs just above the rubber protector to help weigh down the wooden staff in current.

Wood does not make fish spooking noises when contacting the stream bottom and possesses character that manufactured wading staffs lack.

However, a wooden staff does not collapse. Some anglers use collapsible ski poles or hiking staffs for wading staffs, but their thin bottom ends vibrate wildly in current.

The collapsible hiking staffs that use a twisting lock mechanism often freeze up after getting wet several times. The parts inside these staffs oxidize and all of the king’s money and all of the king’s men can’t get it separated again. This is incredibly frustrating if they lock up during a wading trip.

If you decide to use one of these for a wading staff, find one with a lever to lock and unlock the collapsible parts.

Some wading staffs use a piece of elastic cord in the middle to hold the pieces together, similar to a collapsible tent pole. These staffs fold up into a sheath for convenience. If these staffs get stuck in rocks on the bottom, they separate when pulled on, rendering them useless.

Higher-end trekking poles used for hiking have the elastic cord, but also a locking mechanism to keep them together during use. These make good wading staffs, but start at about $100.

Predictable water levels and hungry fish make late summer through late fall the best time to wade a stream. A wading staff makes wade fishing safer and more efficient.

Author Lee McClellan is a nationally award-winning associate editor for Kentucky Afield magazine, the official publication of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. He is a life-long hunter and angler, with a passion for smallmouth bass fishing.

Kentucky Fish and Wildlife news releases are available online at fw.ky.gov

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources manages, regulates, enforces and promotes responsible use of all fish and wildlife species, their habitats, public wildlife areas and waterways for the benefit of those resources and for public enjoyment. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife is an agency of the Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet. For more information on the department, visit our website at fw.ky.gov

ICAST News and Notes
Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

New reel from Shimano

At first blush, here are a few that popped out at me:

The Bi-Yak is an inventive combination of kayak and paddleboard, with twin sponsons that can be opened out for added stability when used as a SUP, pushed together to function as a cat-hull kayak otherwise for easier paddling. I like the idea that it’s a lot more stable than a mono-hull–I’m not as nimble as I used to be, and I never was. The maker says it’s exceptionally stable due to the twin hulls, and it’s unsinkable; www.biyakboats.com.

Shimano’s digital Curado DC Series baitcasters should be a hot item both for bass-heads and for inshore saltwater guys–a microcomputer inside the reel monitors spool speeds up to 1000 times per second(!!) to make sure there are no over-runs, even when making tricky upwind casts or skipping lures under a dock, according to the company. Product Manager Trey Epich says the reel also has the legendary durability of the Curado lineup. Amazingly, the thing still sells for around $250, which is not that much more than a conventional top-level baitcaster. No word on whether it can be hacked by the Russians; www.fish.shimano.com.

Epich also introduced the new Aldebaran MGL, an ultralight baitcaster that weighs an incredible 4.8 ounces.

“For anglers who don’t want to use spinning tackle and yet still need to throw lures that may weigh as little as 1/8 ounce, this is the reel,” says Epich. It’s likely to be a favorite with competition anglers who don’t like to shift gears from baitcasters to spinning, though the price, over $400, will limit it to all but very serious (and flush) competitors.

Raymarine’s Axiom now integrates with DJI drones. This will give a big advantage for anglers seeking fish (or bait) in clear water, and of course it also allows taking some really spectacular photos and video of your boat and angling action–once you learn to fly the thing. We suggest practicing, a lot, on dry land first; www.raymarine.com.

In apparel, fisher-friendly gear keeps on getting better, and selling very well according to Travis Gessley, designer for Under Armour. He said all price points are doing well, but the Seamless Fish Hunter Hoodie, at $65, seems in the sweet spot–very light, stretchable, cool and quick-drying, according to Gessley; www.underarmour.com. (PS: He said lady’s fishing clothing makes up about 10 percent of the UA market, and growing steadily.)

Remember the Crocodile Dundee quote “That’s not a knife–THIS is a knife”? That’s likely to be the reaction when you bring the new Danco 13″ Boning Knife to the cleaning table. For those who clean big grouper, snapper, mahi, kings and the like, a really long, thin but strong blade like this one can be a big help, and it’s priced right; www.dancopliers.com.

We’ll have more tomorrow, as the Big Show heads towards the wind-up.

Welcome to ICAST, 2018
By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

Today is the opener of the world’s largest fishing tackle show, the annual ICAST show at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. (Yeah, I know–Orlando in July? In air-you-can-wear, gnats-big-as-rats July? The alternative is Vegas, where it “cools down” to 99 at night in July if you get lucky, so Florida is good, also closer to the huge southeast bass market buyers.)

Actually, today is more like some initial throat-clearing before things get down to brass tacks tomorrow through Friday.

The events for today are geared more towards getting us all into ICAST mode; there’s a bass tournament where media anglers fish with some noted pros on Lake Toho hosted by our partner publication Fishing Tackle Retailer, a golf tournament hosted by Florida Sportsman for those more inclined to chase golfs than largemouths, and a hands-on event at the lake behind the north hall called On the Water, where many of us will show our ability to throw backlashes with baitcasters or tie wind-knots in fly leaders.

More importantly, starting at 5 p.m. the annual New Product Showcase opens, the annual beauty pageant of the industry (no swimsuit competition this year–now it’s all about the talent). Getting your product named a “Best in Class” or ideally “Best in Show” means lots of sales, and so there’s a good bit of campaigning both before and during the show for the votes from the media and buyers. (At issue for all of us voting is that there are now so many entries in some of the categories that it’s virtually impossible to really give them each a careful, comparative review–but we do our best.)

And all of us in attendance will see hundreds of familiar faces, shake a whole lot of hands, spread a whole lot of industry scuttlebutt, and hopefully discover some actually new and exciting gear among all the “exciting color changes” and “brand new sizes”.

One likely bull-session topic this year will likely be the burgeoning trade war with China. Large contingents from China always attend, and if you took all the tackle built in China under American brand names out of the show, the hall would be decimated. How that high-stakes poker game plays out will surely affect not only the tackle industry but the boating industry as well in coming months.

Also important for many in the industry, there are near-continuous free seminars from some of the top names in retail and merchandising that can help the small business, i.e. back porch lure makers, rod builders, small tackle shop owners and the like, to thrive.

As Friday afternoon rolls around, the business of business will have been conducted, and the fishing tackle all of us will be seeing in the catalogs, on line and in the brick and mortar stores for the next 12 months will have been ordered.

And (at last!) the foot-weary, bleary-eyed road warriors will break down the sometimes massive exhibits–a total of more than 1200 of them–the buyers will wrap up their order sheets, the scribes will begin sorting through enough media kits to sink a bass boat and the professional angler personalities will go back to what they love doing most, fishing.

And a lot of smart attendees will be going over in their minds what worked, what did not, and what they’ll plan to do better when they come back next year.

We’ll have a closer look at some of the products that caught our eye in the days ahead.

Tips for Jig Fishing in Northern Lakes
By Tony Roach, Northland Tackle
from The Fishing Wire

Walleye caught on jig

I learned to fish jigs on a river system in current, which is quite the curveball compared to natural lakes. With moving water, you need to take into account more variables like sweep, casting angle, mono vs. braid, among others. However, with a few pointers, anyone can catch fish with jigs. Here’s a few to get you started in the right direction.

Use the Right Tools for the Job – Start with a lightweight, high-quality carbon-fiber (no fiberglass) rod in an Extra Fast (XF) action, along with a featherweight reel combination. Jig-fishing, perhaps more than any other technique relies heavily on feel, and you simply can’t feel much with poor equipment. While there are techniques that don’t require you to spend as much on a rod and reel, here’s one instance where you really get what you pay for, and better tech quite simply leads to more fish.

Line – Start with braid and a fluorocarbon leader of a few feet in length, joined by an Albright Special or Uni-to-Uni knot. This offers you the best ability to feel the jig, while still having some stealth with the nearly translucent fluorocarbon line up against the jig itself. Mono can excel in certain situations, especially in current where the sweep and way it cuts through the water presents the jig differently, but braid offers you the best feel overall.

Map the Bottom – Your first couple of casts should be an exploratory mission, as you decipher clues that are telegraphed back to your rod-hand. Cast out and let the jig settle to bottom. Then slowly drag it back to you, hopping or with mixed-in quicker pulls along the way. You’re actively figuring out substrate at distance, such that you can understand the big picture and where fish will be holding. Like any experiment, start with a “control” retrieve, and compare various types of retrieves thereafter.

No Cross-Wind Casting – No matter the orientation of shore or where you’re pitching, wind could be the single largest inhibitor to your catch-total for the day. Position your back to the wind, or directly face it to enjoy far better direct contact with what your jig is doing. Drift into a crosswind, and every fish in the lake could hit your bait on a single retrieve, and you’d never know it because of the huge bow in your line. Wind triggers many fish species up shallow, so on these days, mitigate the effect by keeping your rod-tip close to the water and off to one side of the boat to reduce that problem.

Stay Back in Clear Water – Jig fishing can only be productive in the clear shallows when you’re not driving over fish. In hyper-clear water bodies like Mille Lacs, this means fish spook in 10FOW or even more, meaning you have to stay over deep water and simply pitch a little bit further up to the zones you’d like to cover.

Fish From the Outside In – When fish are schooled up near cover, it pays to work your casts from the outside in. As you pick off fish after fish from the outside, you have less chance of disturbing an entire school by casting up to the center of the most prime piece of cover.

When Vertical, Stay That Way – Vertical jigging works really well in deeper water, but only if you keep your rod tip directly over the top of the bait. Poor boat control when fishing vertically leads to baits off bottom, and less ability to detect bites, especially when the bait is under the boat.

Re-Bait – Whether plastics or live-bait, degraded or destroyed additions to a jig hinder the action and direct appeal. Resist the temptation to leave it on for “one-more-cast” and put your best bait forward. It’s amazing how selective fish can be at times, and at the end of the day you may only use a handful more minnows or plastic grubs. Call that cheap insurance to a successful bite.

Focus – Probably the single biggest deterrent to catching fish on a jig is distracted fishing. If you prefer to doze off, drink coffee, or otherwise just relax, start trolling or bobber fishing. The best jig anglers I know are machines. They’re casting, processing bottom content, hooking walleyes, and positioning the boat for the next cast. They’re mentally engaged nearly all of the time, as they pick apart pieces of structure bit-by-bit. While it’s true that the more you pay attention for any fishing scenario, the more you’ll catch, with jig-fishing it’s absolutely critical.