Innholdsfortegnelse for December/January/February 2023 i In-Fisherman

In-Fisherman TV, which plays exclusively on Outdoor Channel during the first two quarters of the year (a new year starts in January), and on Sportsman Channel, the third and fourth quarters, plus at select times on the World Fishing Network, remains one of the most popular outdoor programs of all time. The format is simple, straightforward, and memorable, as In-Fisherman editors take viewers to fish for three different fish species in three different parts of North America on each show. Smallmouth bass, crappies, walleyes, muskies, and pike; salmon, sturgeon, largemouth bass, catfish, and carp—and many more, including at times inshore species like redfish, stripers, tarpon, and sharks. It makes for an exciting mix, with the emphasis on teaching about fishing, the fish, and the world they live in. But everyone…

River walleyes in the throes of winter don’t get much attention. While I know what lies in wait for me beneath any of the several lock and dams up and down the Mississippi, Missouri, and other major rivers of the North, it’s tough to convince any angler to juggle the duties of ice and open-water at the same time. Once the ice forms, most of my long rods stay stashed above the boat in overhead rod racks. Yet, when a thaw sets in and daytime temps look a little more tempting, many anglers think about stretching some line in any way that doesn’t involve staring down a hole in the ice. In most places throughout their range during the winter on river systems, not only are there fish to be…

Chasing catfish through the ice can be an intimidating proposition for the uninitiated. In reality, once you locate a fishery with a population of active catfish, the process is relatively straightforward and among the most rewarding ice-fishing pursuits. With just a few helpful tips and tricks, your ice-fishing game can be elevated to new levels of excitement. Getting Chummy Catfish are scent feeders, their entire bodies covered in sensory glands. Among their most important scent features are two small openings, called nares, located near the top of their mouths. These nares funnel water across more than 140 scent-chamber folds—more than any other freshwater fish. The folds provide increased surface area for detecting distant scents and are covered in hairlike olfactory receptors. If there’s an appealing scent in the water, catfish…

Winter can be a time of challenges. Icy roads threaten travel while frigid temperatures challenge our warm-blooded bodies and we bundle up in the face of warnings of eminent frostbite. Air’s molecular structure allows it to drop as low as Alberta Clippers can send it. The lowest recorded on Earth was -89.2°F, recorded in July 1983 in Antarctica. Minnesota’s record is -60°F, documented near Lake Vermilion in Tower. Fish and other aquatic organisms can be considered fortunate since the medium they occupy is much more forgiving as far as temperature is concerned. The difference in air temperature between the hottest and coldest days is a whopping 223°F. No wonder we’re always talking about the weather! Fresh water freezes around 32°F, so the range of temperature variations for fish are much…

Finding behemoth pike is more than half the battle of catching them. No matter what type of lake lies beneath your boots, figuring out the locational piece of In-Fisherman’s classic F (Fish) + L (Location) + P (Presentation) = S (Success) formula is key to icing more and bigger fish. In-Fisherman Editor In Chief Doug Stange sums up a key factor in the locational puzzle: “Pike like to eat. Therefore, they spend most of their time in major food-gathering areas.” But predicting the best foraging areas on a particular body of water, at any given time, requires understanding what’s on the menu and where it’s available within that system. In-Fisherman Field Editor Matt Straw weighs in on the subject. “As fellow Field Editor Gord Pyzer will tell you, you have…

It’s no secret that crappies are both big and abundant in many lakes in the South. But except for natural lakes in Florida and a few river oxbow lakes in other southern states, the “lakes” are reservoirs, and the difference is more than just what anglers choose to call them. Lakes are relatively stable. Yes, water levels may fluctuate a foot or so across years and water clarity may change with seasonal phytoplankton dynamics, but otherwise, lakes usually follow predictable seasonal changes. Reservoirs, like the rivers that form them, are dynamic. They have large watersheds and, thus, widely varying water inputs. Water can change from clear to muddy in a day and vary from one end to the other and from one cove or embayment to another. In reservoirs with…

If you could capture time-lapse video of a lake access during the ice season and splice together the last five years, there’d be some interesting tales told. You’d see more anglers with wheelhouses, certainly once the ice was thick enough, but from early ice through last, you’d see far more hub shelters than nearly anything else. Whether packed into sleds and dragged by hand, or stuffed into trucks, cars, and all other forms of ice transport, there are few ice shelters more versatile than the simple hub shack. My first hub experience was nearly two decades ago, before the advent of hubs for ice, in a camo hunting blind that I’d become more than comfortable with for archery and shotgun turkey purposes. I could set it up in 7 seconds…