Wild Hog Hunting

Got wild hogs? I have beenn wild hog hunting one time, on a trip to South Georgia, and the two we killed were great when I took the meat home and cooked it. Although I have tried to find a place to hunt them around Griffin, so far I have not had any luck. My place on Buck Creek does not have any on it, which is good and bad.

Frank Harris called me last week and said he got a report of some wild hogs spotted not too far outside Griffin on North 2nd Street. There is a lot of wild land out past the city and hogs adapt to just about any kind of habitat. They will eat anything and reproduce like crazy.

Farmers hate them. A group of wild hogs can root up acres of planted seed like corn or soybeans in one night, ruining the chance of getting a crop. They eat and ruin many crops after they start growing, too.

The problem is so bad the state DNR has started a program where land owners with a hog problem can sign up and people wanting to hunt the hogs can be matched with them. Hunters get to hunt and get meat and the land owner gets the numbers of hogs reduced. Sounds like a win-win situation!

We hunted with dogs in South Georgia, making it much easier to find them. They don’t move around much during the day so night hunting is the best way to get them without dogs, especially where they have been hunted and have become wary.

Get yourself some pork and do a farmer a favor – shoot a wild hog!

Rain and Fishing

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. We used to say that when it rained on weekends, messing up our plans. A few years ago we were happy with rain any day since it was so dry. But this winter has been almost ridiculous with all the rain.

Although I live at one of the highest points in my area, as a Pike County water tank a few hundred feet behind my house proves, my back yard still looks like a rice paddy. There is what we called a swale growing up – a shallow dip – that drains the whole hill side through my back yard. The ditch in front of my house has been full of water for months.

Area lakes that were low for years are now full to overflowing. Georgia Power and the Corps of Engineers are no longer trying to hold water back to keep lakes filled. Instead they are holding water back in some lakes to avoid flooding downstream – them main purpose of our federal dams – and releasing water as fast as they can when it is possible.

For fishing, rain can be a blessing or a curse. Rain and fishing go together it seems. It ruined two trips for me in the past few months. Last November I went to Lay Lake to do an article with BASS Pro Matt Herren. He had said we should be able to catch a bunch of three to five pound spotted bass in the Coosa River at the upper end of Lay, just below the Neely Henry dam.

When I got over there we checked the Neely Henry dam and all the flood gates were open, the current in the river was very strong and fast, and the water was high. Mat said that made it unfishable. So we went down the lake where the current was a little lighter and caught some small keeper bass.

Last Wednesday I went to Mitchell Lake on the Coosa River just north of Montgomery. On the way over there at 6:00 AM I hit heavy rain, wind and lightning just across the state line on I-85. The rain was so bad that some crazy drivers had their emergency flashers on and were driving 20 miles per hour on the interstate. If it is that bad to them they need to get off the road!

By the time I got to the lake the rain had ended and it didn’t rain on us the rest of the day. I met Dustin Connell, a young professional fisherman and guide, there. He said he was worried. He expected to catch some big spotted bass up the river, below the Lay Lake dam, but the heavy rain might have caused a problem.

Sure enough when we started up the river we hit a bunch of floating trash and the water got muddier and muddier. By the time we got to the good places to fish conditions were terrible. We went back down the river to a place just ahead of the mud and trash, and Dustin quickly caught a 3.5 pound spot.

Last Monday Dustin had caught a six pound largemouth and a four pound spot and lost another largemouth he estimated at seven pounds in some grass beds in a creek. When we got to the area the rain had muddied up the creek making fishing tough.

Rain helps fishing since fish tend to bite better when it is cloudy, and during hot weather it cools the water some. And water running into a lake can wash food into the water, turning on the bass and making them feed. You can often fish faster and catch a lot of bass after a rain.

It really doesn’t matter since we have no control over the weather, we just have to adapt and go when we can!

How Do They Track Lake Erie Walleyes?

E-Z Pass for Fish Helps Track Lake Erie Walleyes

Written by Christina Dierkes Technical Editor, Ohio Sea Grant dierkes.10@osu.edu
from The Fishing Wire

For about six years, students in Ohio State University’s Stone Lab’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Scholarship Program have participated in a multi-state walleye movement and mortality study in Lake Erie.

Using acoustic telemetry, researchers from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) and similar agencies across the region are tracking the movement of fish including Walleye, an important sport fish, to better understand how the fish travel throughout the lake during their life cycle.

In a contributing project funded by Ohio Sea Grant, ODNR researcher Dr. Chris Vandergoot is implanting acoustic trackers into Walleye spawning below a dam located in Ballville Township, just outside of Fremont, Ohio. The trackers in the fish, along with receivers placed throughout Lake Erie and neighboring lakes and streams, act much like the E-ZPass system in place on many U.S. turnpikes.

“Each of the receivers acts like a toll booth, and each fish with a transmitter in it is like a car,” Vandergoot said. “So when you drive by an E-ZPass station on the highway, it records what time you were there, and in which direction you were heading. When a fish swims by these receivers, the system basically does the same thing; it logs when a fish was swimming by that receiver.”

Stone Lab's Research Experience for Undergraduates

Stone Lab’s Research Experience for Undergraduates

Students in Stone Lab’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Scholarship Program have worked with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on tracking fish in Lake Erie for about six years. Many have gone on to present the research at conferences, or to jobs in similar fields.

When combined with data on each individual fish – they’re aged and sexed when the transmitters are implanted – researchers can determine where fish go between spawning seasons, whether they return to the same spawning location, and if they spawn every year or take “reproductive holidays” on occasion.

Receiver data is shared on the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (GLATOS) website, along with general information about the research projects and instructions for anglers who find a transmitter tag in their catch.

“For the first time we can actually follow fish and see what they’re doing,” said Vandergoot. “We’re not relying upon anglers to turn in tags like we historically did.”

Of course, the researchers aren’t just digitally following fish around the lake for fun. “This is very cool science stuff, but at the end of the day this needs to be able to address management questions,” Vandergoot said.

Spawning site fidelity – whether fish return to their “home” stream or reef to spawn – is an important consideration when making management decisions concerning sport fish like Walleye in Lake Erie. For population modeling purposes, it is important for biologist to understand the origin of Lake Erie Walleye as well as where they go over the course of their lives.

Stone Lab REU students have participated in research related to GLATOS for about six years, examining everything from how to best anesthetize a fish for the transmitter implant surgery to how well fish survive after being released back into the lake or after the stress of a spawning season.

The REU program allows students to work one-on-one with professional Lake Erie scientists on an independent research project while taking a Stone Lab course. Selected students receive a full scholarship to Stone Lab, including room and board, and often go on to present their projects at academic conferences, giving them a head start on graduate school or science careers.

One of those students is Zach Steffensmeier, currently a junior in environmental science at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. During the summer of 2015, he worked with Vandergoot on a Fisheries Management REU, analyzing transmitter data and assessing Walleye mortality during spawning seasons in 2013 and 2014. In addition, he was able to work with ODNR staff to collect receiver data in western Lake Erie.

“I heard about Stone Lab back in high school, and went for a weeklong aquatic biology class,” he said. “I just loved being out there, and when I was looking for a summer job this past year, I thought it would be great to go back there. I also really wanted to do research, so this was the best opportunity for me.”

In addition to gaining experience in hands-on research and delivering a scientific presentation, the REU also solidified Steffensmeier’s goal to work in the same field in the future.

“I want to do something with fish, that’s for sure,” he said. “I enjoy being outside in the field for fieldwork, so I’m definitely interested in being a fisheries biologist, whether that’s through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, through EPA, or at a university as a professor.”

And with recommendation letters from Stone Lab and Ohio Department of Natural Resources staff, he’s well on his way to one of those careers.

The larger GLATOS project involves agencies in Ohio, Michigan, Ontario, New York and Pennsylvania, as well as the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the United States Geological Survey’s Lake Erie Biological Station, and funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) and Ohio Sea Grant. Overall, close to $1 million in assets are involved in this fisheries management effort.

“These projects are very large, and no one funding source can pull these off,” Vandergoot said. “But when you bring different collaborators together with all these different resources, we’re able to do amazing things.”

(From the January 2016 issue of Ohio Sea Grant eNewsletter. To subscribe, visit https://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/news/subscribe)

Trapping Rabbits, Possums and Hogs

Can I make a rabbit box big enough for a wild hog? I grew up making boxes that I set out for rabbits and possums and was fairly successful with them. For rabbits no bait was really needed. But I put old apples from the local school cafeteria, where my dad was principal, in some, and possums loved them.

I could get 75 cents to a whole dollar for a live possum back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when I was catching them. Rabbits usually bought 50 cents. All was good money, I could buy a whole box of 50 rounds of .22 long rifle bullets for one sale of either!

And even at 12 years old, I could buy .22 bullets.

It was weird, in 1968, just before I turned 18, I suddenly could not buy .22 bullets I had been buying for years because I was not old enough! A new federal law that had nothing to do with hunting, kids or common sense banned selling .22 bullets to anyone younger than 21 since they could be used in a handgun. That was the first time I realized how stupid gun control laws were.

I always kept my rabbits and possums alive by shaking them out of the box into a croaker sack, tying it up and taking it to town to sell. Back then a lot of folks did not have refrigerators so they bought fresh meat every day and cooked it that night.

I could stand in the parking lot of one of the six local stores that sold groceries – and everything else you could ever need, from bullets and hooks to boots and overhauls (overalls now). Anyone seeing a kid with a croaker sack in the parking lot knew what they had!

Rabbits were eaten that nigh but possums had to be cleaned out. They were put in a small pen and fed food scraps until they were deemed clean of the possibly rotten food they had eaten in the wild. Then they were baked with sweet potatoes!

I have been told there are hogs running Buck Creek where I have some land and have a possible place to hunt out there. I have done some research and found out the only problem is that hogs are nocturnal and you need to hunt them at night unless you have hog dogs. So I am thinking about trying to build a trap for them.

Wild hogs are very smart and I have been told their sense of smell is much better than a deer’s, so you have to be very careful when hunting or trying to trap them. And if you set out a trap and catch one you have to move it. The rest of the passel of hogs will avoid it.

I was happy to hear about a processor that will take hogs locally since I want the meat but really don’t want to have to butcher one if I get lucky.

Streambank Restoration on Private Land

Streambank Restoration on Private Land is Putting More Brookies in Your Favorite Fishing Hole

Today’s feature comes to us from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership

By Ariel Wiegard, TRCP
Why CRP works for trout and other freshwater fish
from The Fishing Wire

The national Conservation Reserve Program is 30! The CRP was signed into law by President Reagan as part of the Farm Bill on December 23, 1985, to help agricultural producers to voluntarily conserve soil, water, and wildlife. The TRCP and our partners are celebrating the 30th anniversary of CRP throughout 2016, by highlighting the successes of this popular bipartisan program—regarded by many as the greatest private lands conservation initiative in U.S. history. Here on our blog, we’re devoting a series of posts to the critters that have seen tremendous habitat benefits: upland birds, wild turkeys, waterfowl, and freshwater fish. CRP works for wildlife, and it works for sportsmen.

On this blog, we’ve written a lot about the Conservation Reserve Program and how it benefits wildlife. Because the program incentivizes landowners to use their land for conservation instead of for crops, it makes sense that a lot of the program’s results would visible on the landscape itself, where pheasants, turkeys, ducks, and the other wildlife benefit from upland and wetland cover. But CRP is also working beneath the surface, and improved water quality downstream is giving brookies and other fish a serious boost.

CRP enhances the watershed

In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, anglers are counting on a CRP initiative known as the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), which targets high priority conservation projects on a local, rather than a national, level. Federal resources for CREP are often augmented by the state where the project takes place, meaning more funding is available for landowners to implement conservation.

The various Chesapeake Bay watershed states each have their own version of CREP, but they share a goal of helping to “Save the Bay,” which has been degraded over time by runoff from agriculture, industry, and cities. All throughout the watershed, landowners are voluntarily enrolling thousands of acres along waterways large and small to help make the Bay fishable and swimmable.

When it comes to agricultural land, one of the most important things the CREP can do is keep cattle out of farm streams by paying farmers to build fences. When they wade around and into the water, cows eat the plants that shade banks and provide cover for critters and insects. Plus, cattle hooves quickly erode stream banks, allowing farm nutrients and sediment to flow into the water. Cows also defecate in the water, further affecting the biology of the stream.

Free Flowing Stream

Free Flowing Stream

Image courtesy Scott Robinson/Flickr.

The end result is terrible for native fish like brook trout. Lack of shade can dramatically raise the temperature of the water, which, aside from generally causing fish stress, lowers oxygen levels. Where trout spawn, heavy sediment and cow pies turn gravelly stream beds to muck, making it impossible for fish to lay their eggs. Brookies need consistently cold, clear water with a high level of dissolved oxygen to live, feed, and reproduce, but cow pasture streams tend to be hot, muddy, and suffocating.

That’s why groups like Trout Unlimited have rallied around a special CREP effort in the headwaters of the Potomac River, which flows into Chesapeake Bay. The resources that TU can deliver to farmers through CREP are often greater than what other state or federal conservation programs can offer, which means the infrastructure these projects create, like fences and bridges, is often higher quality and has a long shelf life—often as long as a 10- to 15-year CREP contract. And because CREP offers a rental payment for each acre of land taken out of agricultural production, farmers can afford to commit more acres of streamside land to the program and place cow fences further back from the stream bank—at least 35 feet, but sometimes as much as 300 feet on both sides. Given this room to breathe, floodplains can replenish the natural ecosystem over time.

Aside from fencing for cattle, TU’s dedication to this program has helped farmers to plant mature trees and native grasses along waterways, stabilizing the banks and providing the shade that is absolutely critical to regulating water temperature. Cooler streams are more fishable. And Chesapeake Bay farmers want that as much as anglers do.

Healthy Systems, Not Just Healthy Pools

Many farmers have inherited land from family, and they remember their grandfathers teaching them to fish on a particular bank—they want to be able to teach their grandchildren to do the same, and maybe reclaim a little bit of their own childhood in the process. To date, tens of thousands of acres of stream buffers have been applied throughout the watershed, and brookies are returning as a result. Of course, privately-owned stream banks, no matter how well restored, may not be accessible for most anglers in the region. But every step in conservation is incremental, and the impacts multiply both upstream and downstream.

Brook Trout

Brook Trout

Image courtesy USFWS.

Restored headwaters, even if they are private, serve as spawning grounds and nurseries for the entire river system. Work that has been done over the last twenty years has helped to restore large, healthy populations of native brook trout to the system, greatly reducing the need to stock the streams each spring. These native trout tend to grow larger, live longer, and travel farther than their stocked cousins. In fact, they have been tracked swimming from their West Virginia headwaters to popular public fishing areas like Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and the Potomac River flowing straight through Washington, D.C. Of course, each restored acre will ensure that those downstream waters will be cooler and cleaner, too, thanks to the fast-flowing, gravelly headwaters upstream.

Programs like CREP incentivize healthy systems, not just isolated healthy pools, and brook trout are an indicator of that health. If a headwater stream has brookies, the top-level native aquatic predator, its river banks will also have good habitat for a variety of wildlife and be full of fish food like frogs, mayflies, and crickets. There will be sufficient shade from mature trees, and the stream bed will be gravelly and have places for young fish to hide. The CRP, with its local habitat enhancement program, can’t accomplish this alone, but it is certainly an important tool for helping farmers and landowners to do the right thing for fish and sportsmen.

Ariel Wiegard

Ariel Wiegard joined the TRCP in November 2014. As Director of the Center for Agricultural Lands, she works with TRCP’s partners to enact policies that both balance the needs of production agriculture with the needs of fish and wildlife, and that sustain and enhance recreational access to wildlife habitat locked up in private lands. Outside of the office, you’ll find Ariel and her husband hiking, upland hunting, foraging, and cooking what they find in field and forest. She is usually accompanied by her German Shorthaired Pointer, Argos.

Largemouth at Lake Lanier

Last Sunday 12 members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our February tournament at Lake Lanier. After eight cold hours of casting we brought in 20 keeper bass longer than 14 inches that weighed 46 pounds. There was one five-fish limit and four members didn’t have a keeper.

Chuck Croft won with a nice limit of spots weighing 14.09 pounds and had a spot that weighed 4.46 pounds, a big one! My four weighing 10.95 was second and my 5.34 pound largemouth was big fish. Third was Don Gober with three weighing 6.39 pounds and Travis Weatherly, Chuck’s partner, came in fourth with two weighing 4.46 pounds.

I had heard a lot of big spots were being caught on a Fishhead Spin in the ditches at Lanier. But I have never been able to catch a fish on one even though I have been in the boat with guys catching them on it. So I have no confidence in it.

I started at daylight fishing that bait and others in ditches and on points. After almost three hours with no bites I went into Mud Creek to a deep brush pile I had been shown for a magazine article. It looked like fish were on it 35 feet deep on my depthfinder so I started jigging a spoon, and caught a 2.5 pound spot. That encouraged me!

Three hours and several brush piles later I had not had another bite. I decided to do something different the last two hours by going back in a creek and fishing the way I like to fish.

I was riding one last point looking for brush pile when Chuck pulled up to talk to me. He seemed surprised I had only one fish – he said they were hitting in the backs of the pockets on the Fishhead Spin. Of course I thought he meant in shallow water in the backs of the ditches but found out later he was catching them 30 feet deep!

I started to try that but went back in Flat Creek instead, going to my first idea. I smiled when I stopped on a rocky point and saw the water was a little stained and 52 degrees, several degrees warmer than the lake.

I quickly caught a keeper spot on a DT 6 crankbait, then missed a bite on a jig and pig in a shallow tree top. The next small pocket had a log in the back of it about two feet deep. I could see the whole thing, the water was not that stained. As soon as my jig and pig fell by the end of it the five pounder hit. It was great to catch a largemouth at Lake Lanier

The next small tree top about two feet deep produced another keeper spot, giving me my four. I am very glad I guessed right and went to shallow water and used baits I have confidence in!

Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc

Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc Scores as All-Around Fishery
from The Fishing Wire

Michigan's Little Bay de Noc

Michigan’s Little Bay de Noc

Little Bay de Noc’s fishery is gaining quite a reputation, even on a national scale. While initially thought of as strictly a walleye mecca, it’s hosting of the Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship in September 2014 has caused the conversation to start to change.

According to DNR fisheries research biologist Troy Zorn there are lots of different species to fish for on Little Bay de Noc, and he’s got data to back up that claim.

“We conduct an annual fish community survey,” he explained. “Perch are pretty good, walleye are pretty good, northern pike are pretty good, smallmouth bass are pretty good…you get the idea.”

Most news surrounding Little Bay de Noc has always been about walleye – in fact in 2012 the DNR released a walleye management plan for the water, and in 2013, the department shared information about a long-term study to determine the contributions of hatchery-reared walleyes versus naturally-reproducing fish.

But following those management directions and the stocking evaluation the dialogue has shifted to recognize the fishery’s diversity and what that means for anglers.

“We’re still involved with local clubs to stock walleye, but there’s so much more to Little Bay de Noc than that,” said Zorn.

One of those things – as evidenced by the previously mentioned Bassmaster tournament – is smallmouth bass. According to Darren Kramer, manager of the Northern Lake Michigan Unit for the DNR, gravel shoals off the mouth of various rivers that enter the north end of Little Bay de Noc (Days, Tacoosh, Rapid, Whitefish), allow anglers to concentrate on smallmouth bass, especially early in the fishing season. Meanwhile, deeper 12 to 18-foot flats (near Kipling, Hunter’s and Saunders points) attract fish later in the summer.

Greg Sanville, a DNR creel clerk who surveys Little Bay de Noc, knows first-hand how much bass anglers have enjoyed fishing the area.

“The Ford River area is highly fished and the hottest spot on the bay in spring and early summer,” he said. “Typically this is a spawning area and fish are being caught many miles up the river as well.”

Other opportunities are coming courtesy of stocking as the DNR started stocking muskellunge in Little Bay de Noc with 5,000 fish in October 2014 that average a little over eight inches each. Troy Zorn estimates those fish would be approaching 20 inches now – and well on their way to providing great angling opportunities.

Zorn also shares that, based on recent survey data, northern pike fishing was especially hot in 2015, and yellow perch populations were holding on pretty well also.

“Anglers are also starting to see lake sturgeon that are being stocked by the department,” Zorn said. “There were more than 1,000 lake sturgeon stocked in the Whitefish River, which empties directly into the northern end of Little Bay de Noc, in 2015.”

With all of these opportunities available anglers should consider planning a trip to the U.P. to experience yet another destination that provides access to Michigan’s world-class fisheries.

Find O2 To Find Fish Under the Ice

Aim for the O2 to find fish under the ice

Move regularly, change offerings often: you’ll crack midwinter’s code

By Mitch Eeagan

locate and lands fish in the dead of winter.

locate and lands fish in the dead of winter.

Bro doesn’t save lives or build rockets, but it’s his own brand of deep-thinking that locates and lands fish in the dead of winter. Photo by Bill Lindner

Imagine your home growing darker by the day, to the point you haven’t seen sunlight in over a month. Moreover, your surroundings are growing colder by the day. In fact, it’s so frigid that your muscles have become rigid; to the point it’s all you can do to muster moving a few feet…even to eat. And you’re hungry.

Oxygen is diminishing, too. Some areas are completely void of oxygen, while other pockets have just enough to sustain life. So you migrate to where respiration is still an option.

To say life’s registering a zero on the fun-o-meter is an understatement.

And with that lowly scenario in place, you now know what it’s like to be a fish living in the Ice Belt during the dead of winter. It’s been a long time since light penetrated the surface and temperatures are at the coldest they will be all year. To boot, the lack of vegetation, rain and wave action have oxygen levels dwindling rapidly.

And it’s this combination of factors that make midwinter a difficult time to catch fish. But if you’re game to put in the time, find those oxygenated zones, rewards are paid in bites and fillets.

Heavy breathers

if oxygen levels are critical, crappies, bluegills and perch could be right under the ice

if oxygen levels are critical, crappies, bluegills and perch could be right under the ice

The safest place to avoid suffocation is sometimes right under the ice. In the bowels of winter, if oxygen levels are critical, crappies, bluegills and perch could be hanging right under your feet. Photo by Bill Lindner

Minnesota Ice-Fishing Guide Brian “Bro” Brosdahl is no stranger to fishing shallow, heavily snow-covered lakes. The Grand Rapids, Minnesota resident moves around a lot. And uses specialized electronics to find panfish other anglers often overlook.

“I drill a lot of holes and check every one for any signs of life,” said Bro. “If fish are right under me I’ll see ’em on the ‘Bird, and, because of the ultra-sensitivity settings on the Humminbird ICE HELIX 5, I can put my jig right in their faces.

“But I’ll also lower my Aqua-Vu Micro DT down every hole, as well; especially if I am not marking anything. Fish might be just inches under the ice during the heart of winter, following the oxygen. The camera is able to spy those fish.”

Custom Jigs & Spins' new Rotating Power Minnow (RPM)

Custom Jigs & Spins’ new Rotating Power Minnow (RPM)

Custom Jigs & Spins’ new Rotating Power Minnow (RPM) has been fully weaponized. In the dead of winter, the ballistic-bait is best aimed at active fish, especially ones in well oxygenated waters. Photo by Bill Lindner

Paying close attention to the underwater viewing system’s screen the moment its camera hits the water, Bro starts spinning the lens right the bottom of the hole. Oftentimes, panfish will be literally inches away, curiously inspecting the corded device. Once fish are revealed, Bro removes the camera, strips off a couple feet of line and lowers his jig—tipped with either spikes, wax worms or mousies.

“A lot of anglers have no idea those fish are even there,” Bro added. “These suspended fish get totally overlooked this time of year. It’s cool when you can see your jig and watch a fish swim over and gobble it up.”

If there are a lot of fish just under the surface, Bro will operate out of his Frabill flip-over. The darkness not only allows Bro to see the fish better, but also camouflages the fact he’s above by muting his silhouetted movements.

When oxygen levels are low, and fish lethargic, Bro uses tiny jigs with a slow fall. His preferences are Northland’s new Impulse Helium Mayfly, Stonefly and Waxyfly. Custom Jigs & Spins’ Nuclear Ant, Ratso and Shrimpo are another trio of lifelike lures that sink slowly.

Goin’ with the flow

Walleye Pro Mark Brumbaugh

Walleye Pro Mark Brumbaugh

Walleye Pro Mark Brumbaugh holds a hefty perch taken on a Custom Jigs & Spins’ Lightnin’ VertiGlo Spoon late in the winter season. Photo by the author

When Walleye Tournament Pro Mark Brumbaugh targets pike, walleye and jumbo perch late in the season, he searches out river and creek mouths.

“Anywhere water’s flowing into a lake there will be more dissolved oxygen,” the Brownstown, Ohio, resident said. “And because fish spawn in these same rivers, they’ll be here staging to reproduce, too.”

Because there’s more dissolved oxygen near inlets, fish will be spread throughout the water column. Subsequently, Brumbaugh likes larger, heavier jigs that can move up and down quickly.

Bladebaits are one of Brumbaugh’s go-to lures in stained water as they produce a lot of vibration. Reef Runner’s Cicada is one of his favorites. He also employs Custom Jigs & Spins’ B3 Blade Bait and new Rotating Power Minnow (RPM) swimming bait.

Take a deep breath

Aqua-Vu optics and fishes in real-time with an AV Micro DT in a Micro-Mobile Pro-Vu Case.

Aqua-Vu optics and fishes in real-time with an AV Micro DT in a Micro-Mobile Pro-Vu Case.

When fish are tucked tight to the ice, Bro employs Aqua-Vu optics and fishes in real-time with an AV Micro DT in a Micro-Mobile Pro-Vu Case. Photo by Bill Lindner

As avid anglers will tell you, late winter can be one of the toughest times of the year. But maybe that’s because they weren’t looking in the right places.

Some fish might be right under foot; literally, mere inches under the ice. If this is the case, use light lures with a slow flutter and fall. In waterways with inlets, search out the entire water column with lures that sink fast so you can get the lure to fish before they turn tail.

Mitch Eeagan is a writer and photographer who not only lives, but survives off the land and water in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Best Beer Battered Fish Recipe Ever

Beer battered fish recipe

Ingredients
Fish filets – I like bass
Corn meal – gotta be White Lily!
oil
Beer – your favorite! Just have at least a case for this complicated recipe

Make sure beer is cold by drinking one. Then put fish filets in a big bowl and drink another beer to insure it is still cold.

Put some oil in a pan and turn it on not too hot

Pour cornmeal over fish filets – don’t really matter how much. Drink another beer to insure quality is not deteriorating!

Pour half or less of a beer into bowl, drink the rset. Sturr the cornmeal and vbeer and fishes around and around.

Open a frash rebar and varry carefullily drop on drop of it into oil. If it explodes it is too hot so turn it down while drinking the reset of the reber.

While the erl cools, drink another bar and sturr the fish again to make suer the crnmoal is all over it.

Look at the arl – is it smaking? If it is it probably amks you swat a smoke, so get one shile drnking another reeeber.

Go to fridgedator, get a beer, rutn off the fir on the awl and go watch tv. You weren’t hungry anyway

Ice Fishing Safety

Safety First on the Ice
Ice fishing safety is critical

Be Safe On the Ice

Be Safe On the Ice

Guide-tested tips for fishing smart and staying safe
from The Fishing Wire

Thanks to an extended stretch of unusually mild weather, anxious anglers across the Ice Belt are starting to venture out on winter’s magic carpet in force.

But even at this late date, ice conditions are far from perfect. In some areas, warm weather is weakening the fledgling icepack, while in others, fresh snow is cloaking it with an insulating blanket that puts the brakes on the formation of new ice.

“Safety is always a concern when ice fishing, but it’s more important now than ever,” reports veteran ice fishing guide Bernie Keefe of Granby, Colorado.

Keefe is quick to point out that weather changes can wreak havoc on a lake’s icy coating, which otherwise is some of winter’s strongest ice. “You can throw the ice thickness charts for new ice out the window once you get a prolonged thaw, rain or even thick, wet snow,” he says.

Indeed, above-freezing temperatures can greatly reduce the ice’s strength-to-thickness ratio. For example, while four inches of fresh, clear ice may support a person on foot, a foot or more of rotting, partially thawed ice may not.

That’s not to say all ice is unsafe right now. Keefe is out and about chasing lakers and other salmonids on his high-country home waters, and similar opportunities exist across the north. But he strongly advises taking ample precautions to help prevent accidental dunkings and avert tragedy if someone does fall through.

“Your first step in ice safety should be researching the conditions with local guides, bait shops and other reliable sources of information,” he says. “Facebook is a helpful tool, too, as are online forums.”

While such homework can steer you toward lakes with traversable ice, Keefe cautions that it’s just a starting point. “A smart plan of attack and the right safety gear are still critical,” he says.

For starters, Keefe never fishes alone on first ice. And he always lets someone back on shore know where he’s headed and when he plans to return.

A variety of safety gear including a spud bar, ice cleats, Nebulus floatation system and emergency rescue line can help avoid tragedy on ice.

He also arms himself with a variety of life-saving devices that starts with his wardrobe. “I always wear a Clam IceArmor LIFT Suit,” he says, explaining that the built-in Space Age lining boosts buoyancy without adding bulkiness. “You don’t even know you’re wearing a buoyant suit,” he adds.

Along with the suit, he slips heavy-duty yet lightweight Kahtoola ice cleats over his boots to assure traction on the treacherously slippery surface. “Cleats are a must, especially on slick new ice, or when you splash water onto the ice when drilling or landing fish,” he notes.

Keefe also slips the nylon tether linking a pair of Clam Floating Ice Picks around his neck, and stashes one of the company’s 50-foot Emergency Throw Rope rescue lines in his sled.

“The rescue line is easy to throw to someone in trouble,” he says. “I also pull my sled with a 50-foot rope, which provides added insurance. When walking out on the ice, I hold the line and my fishing partner stays next to the rope a safe distance away from me, so if either one of us goes in, the other one can haul him out.”

Unloaded, the sled also serves as a handy rescue device in its own right. “Just dump everything out and slide it over to a person who’s fallen through,” he adds.

As added insurance, Keefe also carries a Nebulus Emergency Flotation Device, which when inflated can support the weight of three adults plus a submerged snowmobile or ATV.

By doing his homework and gearing up with the right safety equipment, Keefe is safely enjoying the early winter bite, and so can you, provided you take similar precautions to ensure your well being on the ice as the unusual winter of 2015-’16 gets rolling.

Check out this video for more ice safety tips from Bernie.

CONTACT INFORMATION
For more information or to book a trip with Keefe, visit: www.fishingwithbernie.com
or call (970) 531-2318.