My quest for the big one!!

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Here is a video from this weekends fishing.

More videos at HSOshow.com

[Guest]

James:

Thx for the video, nice job! Hope you like the Bird, seems like some good, user friendly features. Question for you, how late into the night are you catching crappies? I always get a frenzy near dark then they seem to stop biting so I am off the ice by 6:30pm now days. Will get later of course with later sunsets coming but then again I don't get any until the sun hits the horizon so my window of opportunity is fairly small, maybe I should hang out longer, do you find they bite all night?

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Usually this time of year I do have a good night bite somewhere. But this year not on the lake I've been fishing. I'm going to try a different lake tonight with my brother and I will see what happens.

Lately it's great at dark than fizzles. As the winter goes on the lack of oxygen on the bottom causes them to push up over the basin areas and if you are on the right spot you get waves of action through out the night because they roam around.

I just haven't found "that spot" yet! But I will find it

[Bigcat1]

leechbait- cool video! when you say basin--what do you locate to for finding the bite? off the bottom part of a break? hump? any info would be appreciated, thanks.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

You have your basin areas in a lake.. Your deep parts of the lake, now it is all relative to how deep this body of water gets. In my area, most lakes top out around 30-35 fow. I call the areas in and surrounding the deepest part of the lake "the basin area"

I like to fish bars and humps right next to those basin areas, if they aren't there on the humps I'll fish next to them out in the deeper water. These humps and bars attract fish for sure

edit: The pivot points on those breaks, whether it's the top of the break before it drops down or the bottom of the break that leads out to deep water are good areas to concentrate on. The bigger the hump or the bar the more fish it is capable of holding. You might have to try a few areas on that bar or that hump before you find that honey hole, but once you do the work is worth it.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Temps in the teens wind blowing from the southwest.

Okay so I did try a different lake tonight, instead of fishing the deeper areas we decided to fish on top of a mid lake bar full of weeds. it's sort of a saddle area I guess, it comes up from 18 feet on both sides of where we were set up, and tops out at 14fow.

I didn't get out there until 6:00 but my brother was there at 5 and when i got there he had 2 walleyes in the bucket. He fishes blind, (meaning no electronics) I dropped the humminbird Ice-45 down and noticed there were a couple of marks 2 feet off the bottom. I dropped down my lucky red Lindy Frostee and pulled in two 11" crappies in a few minutes after making them chase the minnow up a couple of feet!

Over the next two hours it was slow but steady, we would pull a crappie in every 10 minutes or so. I even had a tulibee up to the hole, I thought for sure it was a walleye, had me excited!! We ended the night with 13 crappies anywhere from 10-12"

[laportian]

LB- Have you been out on Bass this year? I used to fish it weekly like 15 twenty years ago. Or Long Lost, I used to have good luck out there off of where Rice Lake Church had there cabin. Lots of little walleyes off that point.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Yes I fish bass on occasion, I used to fish it quite a bit too 10-15 years ago. Long Lost is a pretty cool lake, never ice fished it but went out in the boat a few times and ran into some nice crappies, bass, and northerns! But there are a lot of folks mostly from the rice lake area that ice fish it with success!!!

[Guest]

Long Lost, you mean that Forest that has some water in it!

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Yes, exactly!! That's the way Bass is now, and quite a few other lakes over the last 10 years. It really has done wonders for the panfish population, but not so well for lake shore owners.

[ducker]

Agreed on the lake shore owners!

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Off to South again tonight to fish with my girlfriend and my brother! Let's hope I can catch that elusive 16" crappie out there tonight, I know they are out there somewhere

[Fish Addictt]

Leech are you going to be at the pelican derby this year? Was hopping to run in to you,And swap stories.Your getting kindof fames now!!Overheard some guys talking at cabelas in rogers the other day. And great job on doing your video!!!

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

I really plan on getting down there but we will see what kind of curve ball gets thrown at me the minute I decide to go

Ok, fishing absolutely bombed last night, or I guess I can say that I bombed. I don't know what happened but I got skunked

I got out to my brothers fishhouse about 5:30 or so, pretty good timing to hit the last of the evening bite, he already had everything set up. Holes drilled, stove warmed up, so it wasn't a noise issue. I marked a couple of fish right away, I had them follow my lure up a few feet and they wouldn't budge after that.

We stayed until 7:45 hoping we would catch a wave of crappies coming through, but notta!! Looks like it's time to move

[Guest]

Leech:

Got skunked on Lida for first time EVER last night too, was not even marking them, perch only! Thought it would have been good with the weather but..............

[Jim Panfish Uran]

That's what I was thinking too, we had an awesome weather pattern going for us. First time skunked this year.

I'm sure I would have caught something if I wasn't sitting on my behind watching my Humminbird. But he definitely needs to move his house!

[Jim Panfish Uran]

I might be on to something, I moved the fishhouse over 23' last night... At first I thought the move was a bust, but from 7:15 to 8:30 I iced 17 crappies, between 9-13". more details later.

[Guest]

Leech:

Saturday went on lake just N of DL which is normally an evening bite, got set up by 3pm and started catching crappies by 3:30, most aggressive Crappies I have ever caught, hitting rattlin flyer like a walleye and not even showing up on Vex, just flying in from the side and whamo. Could not wait till evening but evening came and they stopped biting. This after only being able to catch them at dark on previous trips out there, what a mystery that trip was!

[Guest]

Leech:

How about Long Lake off 200 near Itasca, it is a known trout lake but years ago we would catch nice crappies in the boat in late fall off the landing and to the right (South Shore)out in 16 feet not far from that deep 50' depth fairly close the shore. Ever fished that lake since it is up in your neck of the woods?

[Jim Panfish Uran]

I've never fished it in my life, I've been there with the kids swimming and stuff but never tought of it as a crappie lake, I bet there are some brutes in there! That might be one to try, I need to find that 16"er yet, I need some help

[bak2MN]

There is another lake up through the campground at long lake not sure of the name but that might be a good one too.

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Ok, hit my little perm last night, I drilled a few holes to the north and some to the south and dropped the Humminbird ducer down the holes and one of them was loaded. I dropped down a red diamond jig tipped with a red impulse plastic and something rushed in and smoked it...

So I decided to slide my house over this hole and fish for the evening. It was a lights out bite for an hour straight. But they do get picky and you have to throw a little variety at them. I'd switch between the red diamond jig and the red Lindy Frostee and they kept me busy for a while. I didn't stick around to see if there would be a crappie bite, my ice neighbor said he doesn't even drop a line until 6:30, because that's when they start biting. But he is a little deeper than I am.

Anyways, these fish would be anywhere from 2 to 6 feet off bottom, there is no way I would have known that with out my Humminbird.

Biggest gil was 9 3/4"

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Wow is it nice out! I'm taking my son and my girlfriend back out to the house tonight. Hopefully we catch the bite, and perhaps stay a little longer to find some crappies

[bak2MN]

U keep talking about the bird and getting me closer to pull the trigger!!

Good luck tonight. I should have been out fishing but I'm working on my boat!

[eyedawg]

VEXILAR!!! lol

[bak2MN]

LOL!

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Vexilars are nice, no doubt. But I love my 'Bird!!

Ok last night I didn't get to the lake until 5:30, figured I'd catch the end of the bluegill bite. I marked fish on the bottom but they just weren't cooperating. They were spooky and I just couldn't get them to come up to take the bait. Last night the fish were aggressive and just slammed what I was throwing down at them..

Well a half an hour into it, I figured out why. I was working the bottom trying to get the fish lifted up with my lucky Lindy Frostee and a wax worm, when a big red blob showed up on my Humminbird about 3 feet off of the bottome. I reeled up a few inches above the mark and it came up and slammed it. A fun fight on an Ultra light and 3 pound test!

We stuck around until 6:40 and my girlfriend and son were getting hungry and restless so we took off for home. I think I'll give it a whirl again tonight.

[eyedawg]

Hey leech we've been doing great in 11ft. It's been an all day bite and into the evning. My dad was out the other nite and caught them late into the evning. I believe we are on the same lake??

[Jim Panfish Uran]

No I'm about 20 miles north of that lake... Well I have been most of the time anyhow. My brother just called me though and he is heading out on the lake you are talking about as we speak to do some drilling and searching with my dad. I got an invite to go out with him tonight. I think I will take him up on that.

Thanks for the info! One of these days we will meet up out there.

[eyedawg]

Sounds good. Good luck and will be waiting for the report