Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2019 i In-Fisherman

Rooftop Rod Box Designed to fit on most vehicle roof racks, truck racks, and trailers, Yakima TopWater keeps fishing rods safe, organized, and provides fast access to rods without the need to break them down. It also has room for low-profile tackle boxes, and safely transports eight fully rigged rods up to 8 feet long—$549, yakima.com. The Edge A revolution in tackle box storage, four different Plano EDGE boxes are built for storage in standard, thin, or deep-box configurations. Additional boxes are designed for specific lure styles such as spinnerbaits and crankbaits. Super sturdy, with clear lids, Rustrictor infusion to eliminate rust, and many more features, including a Water Wick system for water absorption—check pricing and more at planomolding.com Glowing Streaker The Lindy Glow Streak comes to life with glow…

To cast or to troll, the age-old question? Casters highlight the satisfaction in making well-placed casts, working lures to perfection, seeing the follow, feeling the strike, and setting the hook with rod in hand. Trollers often mention “the science” of their method—fine-tuning lure speeds and running depths. And let us not forget how efficient trolling can be. Ah, but in tight spots casting can be the more so. Here are arguments on both sides of our age-old question. Trolling has inherent advantages over casting, as a matter of superior efficiency to keep lures in the water running at an optimum speed and depth. If we’re doing things right, the more water we cover, the more muskies we should contact. The math goes something like this. Say we troll a Rapala…

Up is down, down is up, and that’s the difference between horizontal and vertical. If that makes no sense at all, it soon will. Most steelhead anglers know that float fishing is a dynamic method for hooking numbers of fish, when numbers of fish are available. In fact, having pitched hair jigs, crankbaits, suspending baits, plastic worms, and every kind of bottom-oriented bait rig for steel in rivers from Alaska down the West Coast to California and throughout the Great Lakes, personally, it’s difficult to accept that anything can be more effective than a float rig most days. Unless it’s not being presented correctly. Or it’s not presenting the right bait or attractor. Set aside the confusing up-is-down thing for a few paragraphs and consider attraction. Long ago, on a…

Largemouth Bass Hook Wounds From the Field— Anglers often catch fish and observe what appear to be hook wounds on their mouths, presumably due to being previously caught. Questions concerning hook wounds include how long they last, how easily they’re detected, and if they can be used as an index of angling pressure? To answer these questions, we angled largemouth bass from a pond using a crankbait with two treble hooks and a soft-plastic worm with a single hook.* After capture, bass were held for six days to examine hook-wound detection and healing rates. Hook wounds were detected in 100 percent of angled bass on the day of angling and were still observed on greater than 90 percent of bass seven days after capture. In May, 27 percent of hook…

ST. CLAIR RIVER MICHIGAN Lake Sturgeon » Plenty of big fish in the river between Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair. Contact: Finn’s Sport Fishing, finnssportfishing. com; Rods a Poppin Charter, fishanywhere.com/ charters-guides/rods-a-poppin-charter-service; Fish in the Zone Charters, fishinthezone.com; Brian’s Blue Water Bait and Tackle, lakestclairguide. com/service/blue-water-bait-tackle. Jim Felgenauer & In-Fisherman LITTLE BAY DE NOC UPPER PENINSULA, MICHIGAN Walleyes and Smallmouths » This northern bay of Lake Michigan has few crowds come late fall, yet produces walleyes topping 13 pounds and smallmouths surpassing 7 pounds most years. Renewed walleye stocking has strengthened year-classes and increases in vegetation make for great casting opportunities. Contact: Capt. Paul Delaney, 920/421-0896, lateeyessportfishing.com. Steve Ryan BROKEN BOW LAKE OKLAHOMA Largemouth Bass » This scenic hill-land reservoir about 100 miles south of Fort Smith offers consistent…

Fishing the channel edge on the Mississippi with a crankbait, peripheral vision caught an immense surface disturbance under a long row of overhanging hardwoods. Multiple fish. Must be carp, I thought, and kept chunking a Bomber 6A upriver. ¶ About 15 minutes later it happened again. Several fish, all erupting at the same time. Hmmm. Bass? Nah. It’s fall. Water’s cold. But why not check it out? Nothing happening on the channel edge anyway. I dug around in the box and found an old Buddha Baits Pop-Fire (discontinued), tied it on, and launched it back under the overhanging branches. It blew up like a grenade when it hit the water. This bass was Willy Mays reincarnated. And at least 20 bass followed Willy to the boat. Figures. Willy had a…

That period from late fall into early winter represents, in most regions, the quietest and least-fished phase of the year. Depending on the day, you might get sun and 60- or 70-degree weather. Or freezing fog. Or rain, sleet, snow, and sun, all on the same day. On those disorienting days when your instincts can’t put a finger on what month it is, fish can do crazy things, including panfish. On clear, cold November nights, I’ve caught crappies in 8 inches of water up near the bank, watched assemblies of big bluegills pluck flying ants off the surface, and stung big perch on spinnerbaits in bulrush beds in 2 feet of water. On most of the rest of those late fall, almost-winter days, lakes are lonely places for anglers, particularly…

Select Science— An article published in Current Zoology sheds new light as well as confirms some previous findings on largemouth bass vision.* The study focused on the visual system and visual perception of color in largemouth bass and involved three research components: determine the number and spectral sensitivity of photoreceptors in the eye; model visual perception; and test color perception using behavioral experiments. The study utilized both northern and Florida subspecies of largemouth bass, so the question of whether there were differences in photoreceptor sensitivities between the two subspecies was also addressed. The northern and Florida bass tested showed similar visual sensitivities. Results confirmed a dichromatic visual system with green-sensitive single cone cells and red-sensitive twin cone cells, in addition to rod cells. Vision models indicated that the bass’ dichromatic…

A the seasonal blessings we anglers enjoy, I’d rank a fine fall at the top of the list, especially if you place special emphasis on bass size, fishing conditions, and what lies ahead. In more southern latitudes, stifling heat gives way to pleasant weather that can last almost to Christmas. And in the North Country, a mild fall with gradually cooling conditions guarantees outstanding action for bigger-than-average bass, without the number of anglers and boaters of the spring and summer seasons. There’s an old angling adage that bass stock up for winter by feeding heavily before cold conditions arrive, which reduces their metabolism. Studies of bass feeding in fall are scarce, but their plump appearance and the way they typically attack lures suggests there’s truth to this theory, particularly in…

Some of my best walleye fishing of the past season coincided late last fall with the rapid crash in water temperature on several large Brainerd-area, Minnesota, lakes, including 130,000-acre Mille Lacs, which lies 20 miles east of our office. By October 22, water temperature had dropped to 42.5°F, and many shallow rocky-gravelly shoals were being visited by schools of prespawn ciscoes, which spend most of the rest of the year roaming open water. The next week, with the water at 41°F, ciscoes were in full-scale spawning mode. Walleyes—big ones—were right there with them. It’s one of many predator-prey patterns we’ve been toying with for more than 40 years. The best fishing often transpires at night, when ciscoes push very shallow, often within range of boot anglers. In the 1980s, the…

The brown leather journal was wedged on a shelf of a steel bookcase in the basement at In-Fisherman headquarters. It was inconspicuous among the large collection of archived books, reports, and other documents accumulated from over 35 years and set aside for safe keeping. No telling how long it had been there. It’s well worn and the binding is splitting at the ends. No evidence of who the author is, or to whom specifically it belongs to here. Inside the front cover is a small piece of personal stationary with the monogram ‘B.H.C.’ The short note reads: “My husband loved to fish for catfish. He’d take the old boat down to the South Fork so often after he retired. He looked forward to receiving your magazine in the mail, and…

There were two kinds of people at the office, those who fished and those who did not. We made up a select group of people, I being the latest to claw my way into the secrets and ways of Northwest Michigan’s steelhead and salmon scene over the past five years. I came from Oklahoma. A place where no one knew what a steelhead was and my mother pronounced salmon, “sal-mon.” We caught cats, bass, and bream. I had worked hard and long researching and picking brains. He showed up with one thing on his mind—steel-head. He came to infiltrate the ranks quicker and stealthier than I and he was here now. Chet was from Montana. He showed up the first day and his introduction was, “Hi. I’m Chet. What do…