Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2023 i In-Fisherman

It’s a chilly morning in May, shortly after the official fishing opener the second Saturday of the month. When the water isn’t too high, postspawn walleyes filtering back to feeding areas down river find their way into spots in this section of the river. How could we be so lucky that the land available on which to build our office would abut a river section with habitat characteristics that often attract fish—not just walleyes, but smallmouths, pike, and muskies, and more recently channel catfish? There’s a dam about 4 miles upriver. Just above us a prominent necked riv er bend quickly widens and settles into a long run an d, at the end of that run—which is where our office se ts—a basin of sorts, before the river again narrows…

Big-water fisheries can be intimidating. Lake Athabasca, Great Slave, and the Great Lakes, to name a few, all resemble inland seas with depths of hundreds of feet. These lakes seem more suitable for trophy lake trout than pike. Yet, they also grow behemoth fish—as big as any in North America. Being deep, clear, and expansive, anglers must eliminate unproductive water. Lush green weedbeds are relatively scarce, and even where present, they’re not always the best option for the biggest fish all season long. Anglers must be willing to target less-traditional offshore locations to capitalize on baitfish movements. On Lake of the Woods, Wollaston Lake, the Yukon River drainage, and other sprawling fisheries, a labyrinth of water confronts anglers. Being more nutrient-rich, much of these waters resembles prime pike territory. Here,…

Recreational anglers compete for a finite resource. For charter captains, the outcome is judged by client bookings. Some boats catch fish and retain a full booking of clients; some boats don’t and struggle for clients. Individual anglers, whether fishing in a tournament or just out for a day’s fishing, also compete, sometimes with another angler, always with the fish. On any given day, some anglers have good catches, some don’t. When it comes to catching fish, there is nothing you can buy that replaces the knowledge gained from time on the water. Modern-day electronics certainly help anglers find fish and present baits to the right spot or the right depth in the water column. But neither knowledge nor modern-day sonars attract fish. And they don’t make fish bite. But maybe…

River bass fishing can be a Jekyll and Hyde type deal. One day you catch a boat load of bass that are in all stages of the spawn and in all sizes. The next day you struggle to get a bite. Weather, moon phase, current, and water levels all can change by the minute, affecting what the bass are doing and thus affecting the bite. To help curb the days when you struggle to get a bite, here are three common river bass patterns that will likely always come into play. Bladed Jigs & Trailers Fishing a bladed jig up shallow around cover is primarily what it was designed to do, so this is where this lure category shines. I use a 1/4- or 3/8-ounce bladed jig when I’m targeting…

“That can’t be right,” Doc said. Doc was sitting at the kitchen table in the cabin, examining the knot he’d laboriously finished tying with 6-pound-test line to a 1/4-ounce jig. It was a mess. “Is that the new and improved pretzel knot I’ve heard so much about?” the banker said. “My granddaughter can ti e a stronger shoelace knot than that,” the policeman said, “and she’s only four.” “I know! I know!” the kid said. “That’s one of those magician knots that comes undone when you blow on it.” “You couldn’t pull a Kleenex out of the box with a knot that weak,” the attorney said. “What happens if a fish actually grabs the hook?” “Doc,” I said, “Aunt Lucy ties a better knot in her Kiss The Cook apron.”…

A “spook zone” surrounds your boat. Has nothing to do with poltergeists. It describes an area that pressured and exposed smallmouths vacate when you drop by. Bass might be driven off by pings from depthfinders, the discordant whir of a trolling motor, the “clunk” of a thermos dropped on the hull, l your profile, shadows, or any number of negative cues. Anything bass felt, heard, or saw just prior to the last time they were hooked combine to create the spook zone. “Bass can learn to avoid capture and that’s solidly established,” says Dr. Hal Schramm, fishery scientist and fellow field editor for In-Fisherman. “A Mississippi State study systematically used 11 different types of lures during weekly outings on several ponds. Very few bass were caught multiple times. If bass…

Excluding electric-powered versions, there’s not much modern about modern fillet knives. But therein lies the beauty of a fixed-blade system. Simple in design with no batteries to drain or charge, and no cord to tether you to a hard-wired power source, a skillful angler armed with only a sharp blade can fillet supper in short order. Formerly the only and highly effective option for cleaning your catch, the standard-issue fixed-blade system is still the choice of millions of anglers who prefer the control and precision that an old classic provides. That’s not to say that there aren’t new wrinkles and updates to a proven system, and that old knowledge can’t be rehashed and shared again. Increasingly, as new ways and means are layered on top of aged ones, tried and…

In the sport of smallmouth bass fishing there are scenarios and situations that hold their own special charm. Some anglers like deep, clear lakes with schooling fish far from shore. Others prefer strong, swirling currents and giant eddies of larger river systems. But for me, few angling adventures offer the peace, beauty, and excitement of a meandering creek, shrouded by oaks, maples, and sycamores, with the promise of a 3-pound smallmouth just around the next bend. To me, it’s kayak bassing in its purist form. Many of the untold numbers of smallmouth creeks in our nation are miniature versions of larger river systems, with riffle-pool habitats punctuated by occasional long, deep stretches. Many can be fished effectively by wading, but kayaking can reach more isolated stretches that you can’t get…

The fog wasn’t noticeable on the drive to the lake early that morning. Perhaps it was coming off the water or was just at the right elevation. But as we backed the boat down the ramp it seemed to fade. Once on the water, our plan was to troll deep for trout. We both had lead lines on big reels; mine was a Penn saltwater reel and Dad’s a large single-spool reel designed for lead lines. As we pulled away from the ramp, it became obvious we couldn’t see well enough to drive up the lake so we dropped our lines as soon as we passed the no-wake buoy. This late in the season, the shad minnows were full-grown so I tied on the largest Rebel minnow in my tackle…

Zenon MG-LTX Beautiful to look at, and because it weighs just 4.6 ounces, a thing of beauty to hold in hand, the Abu Garcia Zenon MG-LTX offers top-of-the-line features, including a new SLC spool design with hybrid ceramic bearings, resulting in the smoothest possible performance. Check many more unique design features—$549.95, abugarcia.com Bondy Panfish Soft bodies for panfish, the Bondy Sweet Pea and Bondy Bug can be rigged on small jigheads or drop-shot rigged, Sweet Pea measuring 1.5 inches and the Bug 1.75 inches. Bug is available in 40 colors, while the Pea is offered in 4—$6.99 (package of 20), bondyfishing.com Quick Silver Exceptional for trout and salmon (and walleyes and pike), the newly re-introduced Williams Quick Silver is offered in two sizes, 1/3 ounce (3 inches) and 3/5 ounce…

Drop-shotting generally hasn’t caught on in a big way for walleyes, although some anglers have been playing with versions of it for years, dating back to angling innovator Bill Binkelman in the early 1970s, and his coverage of the concept in his book Catching Walleyes. Many waters are clearer today—Clean Water Act, zebra mussels—and fish are pressured everywhere. Thus, drop-shotting is a practical and productive way to put more ‘eyes in the boat when other methods fail. Add forward-facing sonar and other electronics into the mix and the system is tough to beat. One prominent angler to adopt drop-shotting early on was Brian “Bro” Brosdahl. He’s spent years experimenting and has tweaked the rigging to make it more deadly. “I started tinkering with drop-shots—including a modified ‘stealth rig’—almost 30 years…

Major rivers like the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee have more of everything when it comes to trophy flathead catfish. More water, more structure, more flatheads, and more challenges. Flatheads are tricky to find in any river, but they can be a special challenge to find in rivers whose widths are measured in thousands of yards, with depths approaching triple digits. One of the secrets to finding flatheads in big water is to “think small.” “When I’m fishing the Mississippi, I break it down in my mind into small areas, and fish those areas like small rivers,” says Darren Troseth, catfish guide on the Mississippi, Minnesota, and St. Croix rivers near Minneapolis/St. Paul. “A logjam is a logjam, and a mid-river hole is a mid-river hole, whether it’s on a…

Welcome to Screen Scene, a new regular column in In-Fisherman magazine that focuses on electronics. Screen Scene will serve as a classroom whiteboard to illustrate basic understanding, advanced settings, and applications of electronics to help you find, identify, and catch more fish. In addition to appearing as a regular column, you might occasionally see elements of Screen Scene as a part of select feature articles where additional discussion of electronics applications support the topic at hand. As we traverse through these sonar-related subjects, you’ll note that various brands have different terms for similar or same technologies. Humminbird’s Side Imaging, Lowrance’s SideScan, and Garmin’s Side-Vü, for example, all reference side-viewing sonar, but their applications and settings options inside those operating systems are generally the same. Part of our goal is to…

It was the early 1980s. Fish attractants, which were beginning to cause a little stir in the sportfishing industry, captured the attention of a young Tom Bedell, president of Berkley who wanted to expand the tackle company started by his father Berkley Bedell. He envisioned soft-plastic baits infused with fish-attracting chemicals. Berkley didn’t make soft-plastic baits at the time, and they had no biological research facilities. Berkley designed a lab to develop and test fish attractants and hired Dr. Keith Jones to run the facility. Of course, testing requires fish. Initially Berkley worked in collaboration with Iowa DNR to use their hatchery facilities in the off season. The program quickly expanded, and by 1990 Berkley had developed a sophisticated laboratory and their own tank system including a large testing tank.…

Catching panfish from a kayak is one of the purest and most rewarding pursuits in angling. In select areas it’s the only way to access trophy panfish, due to motor restrictions or the lack of an improved boat ramp. In other settings, kayaks simply provide the most convenient or effective means of fooling discerning panfish that are constantly subjected to more intrusive angling pressure. By presenting a smaller footprint on the water, kayak anglers can watch their catch rates of big panfish increase significantly. To get a guide’s perspective on winning strategies for catching trophy panfish from kayaks, we turn to Tim Moore of Alton, New Hampshire. Stationed on Lake Winnipesaukee—the largest lake in New Hampshire at nearly 45,000 acres—Moore has access to trophy black crappies, bluegills, pumpkinseeds, and yellow…