Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2017 i In-Fisherman

■ LAKE SUPERIOR DULUTH MINNESOTA Lake Trout » During September and October (season closes October 8), lake trout move onto shallow shoals (reefs and points) to spawn. Targeting 10 to 50 feet of water can yield 100-fish days, with the potential for fish over 40 pounds. Contact: Check Superior Angling Facebook page for timely information on this bite. Grant Sorensen ■ LAKE OF THE WOODS BAUDETTE, MINNESOTA Walleyes & Saugers » For first-ice action, reserve a comfortable, well-equipped sleeper ice house with a kitchen, cookware, and attached bathroom. Contact: Sportsman’s Lodge Sleepers, 218/634-1589, sportsmanslodges.com/sleepers. Rob Neumann ■ EL DORADO RESERVOIR KANSAS Crappies » Slabs are moving from standing timber to rocks and brushpiles—plus bonus walleyes, catfish, and bass, in an area that often has mild temperatures all winter. Contact: Guide…

“The mouths on these bass are bigger than a paint can,” explains guide Andrew Grills when clients question his lure selection. “From October until bass head to spawning areas, I rely on big jointed lures to catch bass at Lake Fork. ¶ “Large lures draw bass in from greater distances because they can see them and feel them from afar. Some of my clients cringe when the lures land and make a huge splash. They’re used to pitching little jigs into grassbeds. But I feel that the big splash actually attracts big bass. They hear it and think that another bass is feeding.” ¶ Grills got on the swimbait bite years ago when he lived in Tennessee and fished Lake Cumberland, Laurel River Lake, and small impoundments there. Not known…

Eight miles to the first spot. Flat seas at 64 mph. Fish my way back, I thought. Dropped the trolling motor 80 feet from a waypoint at the end of a favorite reef. Made one cast and hooked up. ¶ The beast made for the open sea to my left. Heavy but I finally turned it. The bronze monster careened back across the face of the reef to my right, hardly getting any closer. Ran at the boat and tried to jump but couldn’t get its tail out of the water. Bent the rod around the hull. Personal best? I’ll never know. Came unpinned. World-Class Hot Spots I bent double and groaned. One cast. One giant dumped. One hour of existential angst. With a lifetime best of 7 pounds 6…

Northern pike are cunning predators adept at feeding in packs, while also solitary assassins. In addition to their keen senses of sight, smell, feel (vibration), and hearing, they possess stealth, speed, and agility. They know how to use environmental and structural edges to ambush or concentrate prey. ¶ Edges may come in the form of inside or outside breaks in vegetation or open lanes on flats. Rock ledges and points are visually dramatic edges, while bottom content transitions are more difficult to discern. Other edges come in the form of current breaks separating fast water from slack, thermoclines that establish horizontal temperature breaks, and color breaks between clear and murky water. All these edges hold pike in fall, with vegetation and rock edges the most universal attractors. Knowing how and…

 Fifty-degrees Fahrenheit. That’s the magic number for channel catfish anglers in the fall. Above 50, catch rates can be fantastic, possibly the best of the year. Below 50, success depends on a lot of variables, but catch rates can still be good. “ANGLERS WHO ADAPT THEIR FISHING LATE IN THE SEASON TO CORRESPOND TO SEASONAL CATFISH BEHAVIOR CAN CAPITALIZE ON STRATEGIES THAT PROVIDE THE POTENTIAL FOR MEMORABLE FISHING TRIPS” In northern regions, 50°F comes early, in mid- to late October on the Red River of the North, the eastern reaches of the Yellowstone River in Montana, or the Nanticote River on the East Coast. Waters in Kansas, southern Illinois, and east to the Carolinas often stay above 50°F until about Thanksgiving. Southern states flirt with winter water temperatures in the…

Perhaps you might recall mention of Corey Ford’s column, the “Lower Forty,” and a piece he titled, “Letter to a Grandson.” In this story, Judge Parker and the boys gathered at Uncle Perk’s store to celebrate the birth of the Judge’s grandson by passing a jug of Old Stump Blower. As a hedge against death, the Judge left a letter to his grandson to be read by the Judge on the boy’s 16th birthday, or if that wasn’t possible, the boy was to go off alone and read the letter aloud to himself. Having penned my own letter to my grandson, I felt my task complete until my granddaughter came along. My philosophy on raising daughters is that you should treat them like kids until they realize they are girls.…

Recipe for Trophy Channel Cats Case History— Many of today’s anglers are focused on catching trophy-size fish of many species. Yet few studies have evaluated factors for growing large numbers of unusually large fish. One example of such a fishery is the channel catfish population of the lower Red River of the North in Manitoba, at the northern extent of the species range. After early studies found that the size distribution and age structure of the population were unique, managers in 1986 imposed a 4-fish bag limit, with only one over 27 inches. In 1992, the regulation was tightened to mandate release of all catfish over 24 inches. Recently, a team of researchers examined the growth, mortality, and age and size structure of this population to understand why it’s capable…

It’s all about fish tacos, I’m telling you—crappie tacos. As fall gets under way, your mind turns to supplying the kitchen with good eats—mallards from a morning hunt, wild hazelnuts picked along an old logging trail, and a cache of crappie fillets. ¶ On the water, something looks familiar about the little yellow wedges scrolling across the screen—taco shaped sonar blips over 20 to 40 feet of water. They’re crappies. Or at least you hope they’re crappies. And extracting fish from those depths usually consigns them to your livewell and then the fillet board. Next come crappie tacos. Need I say more? ¶ Put four or five fair crappies in the box, and you have enough fillets to feed a small family, especially when you couple them with slices of…

Streamlined silver powerpacks line up at feeding stations. In fall, their food, conveyed by current, are the eggs of kings and cohos—millions of free-drifting protein pills that fail to lodge in redds. Feeding steelhead expect eggs to be squishy and soft, not hard as glass, which calls into question the recent bead-fishing craze. Hard-plastic beads should be rejected right away, say the purveyors of soft beads. Before manufacturers of hard beads for steelhead get in a tizzy, let’s be clear: A hard bead fished under a float can’t be easily rejected because the float keeps the line tight once submerged. And they manage to hook steel even when bounced on bottom. Having banked many steelies with hard-bead systems, far be it from me to cast aspersions. But texture isn’t the…