3/12/10 This ESPN fishing article "Culled Out" by Robert Montgomery
caused quite a stir over the past few days. I've been following a thread on facebook from the Keep America Fishing page and I've heard a lot of radio and tv reports mention the article. As the rumors spread through the fishing world, the federal government issued a statement meant to ease the tension and calm anglers fears about a possible nation-wide fishing ban. ESPN has since issued a clarification to the original artilce that back-tracked from Montgomery's original article.
For the moment, the best course of action for all of us with concerns about the future health of the sport fishing industry is to do our homework. While you're waiting for the ice to melt, you might as well take a look at the original reports that caused all of the stir in the first place. Here's a link to the report Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning and by the US Interagency Ocean PolicyTask Force. After you read the report, make your own judgement about whether we should be concerned or not.
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3/10/10 Ice fishing is still going strong in the Deer River area, the melt down has erased most of the snow cover and anglers are moving around freely on the lakes. So far the ice is holding up well, but we're going to need some cold nights soon or the shorelines will break up early this year.
Some of my fishing buddies made it out over the weekend and reported fair Crappie and Perch action in the 20 to 24 foot range. The Bluegill action is hanging in there too, but a little shallower has been better. The 16 to 20 foot depth range has been reliable, but on my last trip out, 10 to 12 feet was better.
The winter fishing season is coming to an end for me. Writing articles, doing personal appearances and going to meetings will be taking a lot of time during the upcoming weeks. This weekend I'll be at the Ray's Sport & Marine Boat Show at the IRA Civic Center in Grand Rapids, MN on Friday evening, all day on Saturday and Sunday.
There's some trouble in the news for anglers this week and while it's a little early for a full scale panic attack, you'd be smart to take a look at this ESPN article about the future of fishing in our country. Would our government really ban fishing?
3/3/2010 The warm weather continues to tempt anglers with a case of early onset spring fever. Like a lot of other fishermen, I've been taking some afternoons off and hitting the lakes too. The driving conditions are improving daily now that the warm weather is melting down some of the drifted snow. The high temps today are predicted to be into the low 40 degree range, so I think we might be on the way to a serious meltdown before this weekend. That usually means that we get a re-freeze later in March that offers everyone a week or two to go anywhere they want.
Now that the Walleye and Pike season is closed, the main focus on the big lakes has switched over to Perch fishing. According to most of the anglers I've talked to, the action out on Lake Winnie has been good, but the average size of the fish has been on the smaller side. Our better size Perch have been coming from Cutfoot, but there the average numbers have been low. I guess that means you can take your pick, lots of action and small size or not much action with good size.
We've spent our last couple of trips chasing Bluegills and Crappie and in spite of the heavy pressure, the fishing has been fair. We haven't been tearing them up, but we've had a fish fry after every trip. Yesterday we fished from 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM and caught a half dozen Crappies and another half dozen Sunfish. We tend to get a lot of "lookers" on the flasher with about one out of five actually finally hitting the bait.
I've tried a handful of baits and there aren't any big secrets emerging about what to fish with. For the panfish, when push comes to shove, I switch back to the old reliable small Demon tipped with a couple of Eurolarvae and this always seems to call in enough to make me happy. For the Perch, it's been really tough for me to beat the small Buckshot Rattle Spoons and the small size Jigging Rapalas.
Today, I am going to try and pick up a few Tulibees to put in the smoker. I was struggling with my old smoking recipe, tried a new one and came really close to getting them perfect. One more batch should help me decide if I have it dialed in and if I do, I'll share the recipe.
2/21/10 Great weather and fair on-ice driving conditions have helped boost traffic on the lakes over the past week. Almost everyone I talk to has a couple of reliable fishing spots up their sleeves and the variety of fish being caught has been really impressive. We've been sticking with the shallow weedline pattern to catch a mixed bag of Perch and Walleye, others are sticking with the deep water Crappie and Bluegill action and there are still some Walleye and Pike anglers working the main lake bars and humps.
Getting around on the ice is a little more tricky since the wind storm that blew in on Feb. 13. That wind created enough drifting to cause problems along the shorelines and around points or islands. If you have a larger 4X4 truck, you can go to 90 percent of your favorite areas, but don't venture on to the ice without a way to dig or tow yourself out.
For our Perch and Walleye fishing, we've been finding the weedline in 6 to 10 feet of water near deeper holes. We're using the small Buckshot Spoons, swimmin' jigs and small Jigging Rapalas. There has been a lot of banter between my fishing buddies and me, but I've been fishing these baits plain without any minnow or minnow parts added and I've been convinced that it's helped me target larger fish. My buddies are using minnows and have been equally convinced that this is the better approach. A good compromise would be to fish two holes, one with a jigging rod and the other with a live minnow, maybe even below a bobber.
The panfish anglers are using small size Rat Finkees, Gow Bugs or Demons and most of them have been using Eurolarvae or Wax Worms. Most of the Bluegill and Crappie action has remained in the 20 to 30 foot range but I've talked to a few anglers who are finding some fish moving in a bit shallower. It's a good idea to look in the 12 to 16 foot range.
2/8/10 We headed out to the lake Sunday after hearing about a good Crappie and Bluegill run that was going. When we got there, driving conditions were still fairly good, I saw a dozen or so trucks out there and they all seemed to be going wherever they wanted without much trouble. The snow started coming down around 10:00 AM and it's been coming down lightly for the past 24 hours. It wouldn't surprise me if we see the driving get a little tricky after this snow finally stops. But we'll know more about that when it's finished.
On Sunday, everyone in the crowd was on the same pattern, targeting the deep water holes for Crappie and Sunfish. When I checked in with a couple of fishing buddies, they reported steady but slow action. I decided to go in and have a look at the shallow weedline for signs of an early movement into the shallows and drilled my first few holes in the heavy weed cover at about 6 feet and worked deeper until I drilled a couple where no weeds came out of the holes. The depth at the clear weed edge was about 7 feet and I saw some activity on my flasher so I dropped a small Rat Finkee tipped with a couple of Euro Larvae down the hole.
The first fish I caught was a chunky Largemouth Bass so I was hoping that I'd find some Bluegills in the same area. The bad news, no Sunfish showed up. The good news, there was a great run of Perch moving in the shallow water. It started slow but built into a couple hour stretch of almost non-stop action. Size of the perch was mixed and included everything from small six inchers all the way up to some real jumbos in the eleven to twelve inch range.
I'm sure that there would have been a lot of effective baits but using the small Rat Finkee allowed me to fish without using any live bait. I started with green and caught some fish, but when I switched to a glow & orange combination, the action doubled. When the action slowed down on that bait a switched to a small bucksot rattle bait and manage to trigger another action spurt.
We didn't stick around long enough to check for any evening Walleye or Pike action, but with the Perch starting to move on the shallow weedline, it won't be long before we see more variety in these same areas.
“Jeff Sundin is a full time, professional fishing guide and founding member of the Northern Minnesota League of Guides. Use the link for more fishing articles and fishing reports. Be sure to listen to KAXE 91.7 FM Grand Rapids Radio on Thursdays at 6:20 AM. We
usually try to expand on this report. If you miss the show, you can pick it up on the
website. Check back for a weekly fishing update (usually on Wednesdays). Use this link for information about my favorite Minnesota Fishing Lakes.
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With good travel conditions on the ice, fishing pressure is high but there's still enough action to make it worth a trip out. Best action comes between 4:30 and 6:00 PM
Who says you never catch bass through the ice? Stay on the weedline and you will.
After a good run of action with the Rat Finkee, I switched to this small Buckshot Spoon and had another good flurry. Not all of the Perch were this nice, but knowing that there's a few like this down there, keeps you fishing.
To fish close to the weed eges, start where there are known weed beds, dirll in the shallowest water first and move deeper until you come to the first one that appears clear.
All fish love the weedline. You don't see a lot of Bass in the winter, but its not unusual when you fish heavy weed cover.
The recent snowfall was minimal in the Deer River area and we were easily able to travel by truck. On Sunday, we found Perch in 6 to 7 feet of water. No Walleye yet, but they'll be in there soon.
By sorting through a bunch of small Walleyes, we were able to save some nice eaters for a meal.
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