Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2018 i In-Fisherman

MISSISSIPPI RIVER RED WING, MINNESOTA Panfish » Big crappies and bluegills gather in large numbers adjacent to backwater wintering spots just off secondary currents, creating the year’s fastest fishing in Pools 2 through 4. Contact: Guide Marty Hahn, 612/875-8848, mississippiriverwalleyes.com. Matt Straw OKANAGAN LAKE BRITISH COLUMBIA Smallmouths » Lakes like 80-mile long Okanagan, at Kelowna, and Osoyoos, in the warm, lush, southern Okanagan Valley, grow big smallmouths, including a recent 9.4-pounder. Four-pounders and 40-fish days are common in this area where smallmouths are mostly overlooked by local anglers. Contact: Destination Osoyoos, destinationosoyoos.com. Gord Pyzer LAKE OGALLALA NEBRASKA Rainbow Trout— The tailwater fishery in the river and canal offers anglers opportunities to catch rainbow trout surpassing 20 inches, so long as water flow is sufficient. Contact: Keith County Visitors, ilovelakemac.com, Daryl…

The sky was spitting rain mixed with snow. The anchor went down and bit. The trolling motor was shut down. And the boat traveled into the current. The long rope tightened and the nose of the boat pointed downstream. How is that possible? The wind was blowing upstream at about 40 mph. It was the nastiest day of autumn to that point. Cold. Windy. Brutal. Perfect. I rifled crankbaits skyward and let the wind carry them almost the length of a football field. I believe I caught a smallmouth on every cast for the first 50 attempts. That was almost a decade ago. Last fall I anchored on the same spot. Same time period. Sweat trickled down my face. Thousands of tiny red and yellow boats came drifting down the…

Large softbaits have been among the most productive offerings for muskies and pike over the last two decades. They present a large profile, move a lot of water, and have a tantalizing tail-swimming action. Plus, softbaits generate an organic action that can’t be replicated by hardbaits. They’re magnets for trophy fish. On fisheries such as Lake St. Clair, Bull Dawgs, Medussas, and Shadzillas dominate trophy catch reports. The prowess of these baits has reached every corner of the Esox range. Anglers pursuing trophy muskies and pike should have a full complement of these lures. They should also be equipped with a range of large unrigged Scandinavian-style soft-plastic swimbaits that incorporate interchangeable weighted heads and lift-off hook rigging systems. The few readers here who are already using these lures would agree…

Drifting is a great way to catch catfish. Drifters on the Mississippi River might suggest a stiff and sensitive graphite rod held in-hand, while an angler who drifts big reservoirs in South Carolina might prefer moderate-action E-glass rods fished in rod holders. Many anglers say it’s critical to have lines trailing at 45-degree angle behind the boat, while others drift with lines perpendicular and baits directly under the boat. Drifting for cats means different things around the country, but certainly, each of these setups are efficient cat-catchers. “There’s back-bouncing, dragging, and vertical drifting,” says Jason Masingale, who with his brother Daryl used drifting to win dozens of tournaments, including the Mississippi River Monsters event at Memphis. “Back-bouncing is a river technique, usually in strong current, where you use a trolling…

It tapers gently through a hardwood forest, where heavy roots shelter undercut banks. In the shadows underneath, trout wait for the tiny stream to deliver a meal. That might consist of ants, spiders, inch worms, or other insects falling from the tree branches overhead. It could be migrating mayfly nymphs, or caddisfly larvae caught in the flow. After a rain, chances are it could a worm flushed out of the earth. Whatever that meal might be, it arrives at the speed of the current lane it’s trapped in—seldom slower or faster. Trout pay attention to such details, and to every sound and vibration coming out of the wood overhead and the ground surrounding their hidden retreats. Wariness is warranted, as the fish themselves might be the next meal of a…

Super Speed The Abu Garcia Revo Rocket casting reel delivers a high speed retrieve rate of 41 inches per handle turn generated by a gear ratio of 10:1. The reel is super smooth via 10 stainless-steel bearings, and a joy to fish at just over 7 ounces—$299.95, abugarcia.com Glow Spoon From Lindy Legendary Fishing Tackle, the Glow Spoon features a glow stick that lights the spoon under water. Meanwhile, tungsten rattles create sound that also attracts fish. Available 1/16-, 1/8-, and 1/4-ounce, each packaged with three glow sticks, and offered in 12 colors—$6.99, lindyfishingtackle.com Searchbait Swimmer Storm’s 360GT Searchbait Swimmer (prerigged, 4.5 inches, 1/4-ounce, three bodies per package) has a diving lip, providing crankbait-style wobble to go with the swimming action from the boottail, to create double trouble for predatory…

During the cast and retrieve, the hooklink is semi-fixed to the lure (A), and the first time the fish bites over the lure and shakes its head after the bite, the lure is instantly released from the hooklink so it can slide up the leader (B). Figure redrawn from Bursell and Arlinghaus (2018).* *Bursell, J. J., and R. Arlinghaus. 2018. Citizen science data suggest that a novel rig improves landing rate and reduces injury and handling time in recreational angling with artificial lures in Baltic pike ( Esox lucius ). PeerJ 6:e4744; DOI 10.7717/peerj.4744.…

Many of the decisions in custom rod building are about tailoring the rod’s components for performance. Beyond basic components, however, many options exist to add personal touches to your rod. Decals, inlays, decorative wraps, and more can transform your rod into a one-of-a-kind creation with a truly professional look. Whether it’s the name and logo of your rod’s target species, the flag of your home state, or even your favorite college team, there are plenty of decal options to customize your build. At mudhole.com you can choose from a selection of decals including over 50 types of freshwater and saltwater gamefish as well as logos of popular college teams from the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big 10, CUSA, MAC, MWC, Pac 10, SEC, WAC, and independent schools. You can…

Reaching the bend I call First Pool requires a long hike. My old Steelhead Camp compatriots would describe it as one of “Strawman’s Death Marches,” and not entirely without acrimony. But long walks in cold weather keep us warm the rest of the day. Good steelhead weather is always cold. We fish our way back as it warms up. (And their hearts are stronger for it, the ingrates.) First Pool was our destination one morning last fall in the gloom under a cloudy sunrise. It often serves as our first stop—thus the name. Somewhere in the green chiaroscuro below, mist rose from a river colder than the air. The descent into the valley was, as always, breathtaking. Fairy ferns had turned white and, living up to their names, punctuated an…

How Crappies Feed Fish Biology— Fish feed using various strategies, which are often classified as ambush or cruise feeding behaviors. In ambush feeding, predators wait motionless for long periods for prey to swim by, before repositioning. Cruise feeding is constant swimming in search of prey. Pike often, but not always, feed using an ambush strategy, while fish like tuna, or perhaps walleyes following a school of shiners in open water, are cruisers. Scientists studying feeding behaviors in fish have identified a third, intermediate type of foraging strategy called saltatory. In this type of feeding, fish behave in a stop-and-go manner, scanning for brief periods while motionless, and if prey isn’t detected, they swim a distance and stop again to scan, and repeat. Scientists have discovered that young white crappies are…

Bladed swim jigs provide a constant thrum-pulse on the rod tip, telling you the lure’s down there hunting for fish. The faster you pull, the more aggressively it vibrates and lifts higher until it cuts the surface. When a bass crushes it, you feel a sudden lack of resistance and vibration. The lure goes dead—set the hook. Coupling a blade with a weighted hook gives the lure freedom to dance on an axis, something bass can see via flash and profile, hear, and feel. It’s a lure that fish in many areas still haven’t seen, which we observed in 2007, when friends and I caught 3- to 5-pound largemouths on almost every lake in Minnesota we fished. Still today, on several of my favorite bass lakes, slow-swimming a ChatterBait among…

Most In-Fisherman readers concluded long ago that a crappie angler’s favorite Christmas tree isn’t the one erected in the living room in December. It’s the one on the sonar screen in October, after crappies have migrated to basin areas on the main lake. ¶ The classic Christmas tree shape of the school describes the general mood of crappies just about any time of year. The thin tip of the tree is made up of the most aggressive, hungry fish. The shape of the school then tapers down through declining levels of aggression to the broad base, representing the least aggressive. Almost any day on the water, aggressive fish are outnumbered by neutral fish, which in turn are outnumbered by inactive fish—except during those temporary frenzies when it seems like all…

It was my first day on the water at the start of a long-awaited fishing vacation. I was tossing a drop-shot rig to the break on a rock-strewn shoreline on one of my favorite Minnesota smallmouth lakes. A light peck triggered a hook-set and a few turns of the reel handle raised the fish off bottom. In a blink, it did what smallmouths often do—a power dive into deeper water. I boated it, a heavy 4-pounder, but fished the rest of my trip with a sprained right wrist. Ah smallmouths! The native range of small-mouth bass extends from the Great Lakes states and provinces east to the Appalachians, west to Iowa and the eastern half of the Dakotas, southwest into the Ozarks, and south to the Tennessee River valley. Although…

Decades ago I was afraid Doc’s excessive behavior would accelerate his early demise. It was an odds-on bet that his daily double dose of .45 caliber cigars and strong drink would gang up on his squatty body, and we fishing buds would be attending his wake before he reached 30. But when he passed 40, then 50, then 60, I wasn’t sure he’d pass at all. “When was your last physical?” the attorney said. “Couple years ago,” Doc said, mixing a cocktail in a 52-ounce QuikTrip cup. “Was there any discussion about your liver being hard as a granite countertop?” the policeman said. “Were you told that carrying a spare tire the size of a Michelin 245/75R17 might be slightly unhealthy?” I said. “Did the nurse bring in the entire…