Throughout many of the states located in the Ice Belt, ice fishing series targeting Panfish have been taking off. To name a few of the series - the North American Ice Fishing Circuit (NAIFC), Team Extreme and the Ultimate Panfish League. They each have their own set of rules & regulations, as well as sponsors and payouts. This season upon my move back to the Midwest I decided to try my hand at competitive ice fishing and joined the Ultimate Panfish League. The Ultimate Panfish League event on Medicine Lake, MN is in the books. It was the coldest event of the year so far but the teams battled through it and brought in some decent weight to the scales. Medicine is a new lake which was voted in this year and many of the teams were unfamiliar with it when it came to ice ... [ Read More ]
12 Walleye Ice Fishing Keys Help Pinpoint Structure
Catching walleye consistently when ice fishing structure, often means finding the point of contact. The edge or structural element that funnels and pinches fish movements when fish move through a particular location causes them to pass through or over a specific location. Amazingly, these fish movements are often very precise. Most of the fish will come through a location passing along the same route often from the same direction. The beauty of fishing walleye is that they love structure and the fish movements over locations are seldom random. With the accuracy of map chips and lake contours, finding and understanding structure is no longer a guessing game. This makes our ice fishing amazingly accurate. Walleyes roam to feed during low light periods or after dark. On some ice ... [ Read More ]
Grand Rapids-Bowstring-Deer River-Marcell Fishing Reports
Grand Rapids-Bowstring-Deer River-Marcell Fishing Reports - MN Lakes by Fishing Guides, Minnesota Resorts and Members. If you can't find what you are looking for below, #1 - Become a member and ask for a fishing report, then please be sure to check out the Minnesota Fishing & Hunting forums. [wp-rss-aggregator source="8150"] Visit the Grand Rapids-Bowstring-Deer River-Marcell fishing reports Community for even more info. Click Here... Grand Rapids-Bowstring-Deer River-Marcell fishing reports are provided by fishing guides, area resorts, local residents and visitors fishing the lakes in the Grand Rapids area. If you use the fishing reports above, consider sharing your Grand Rapids-Bowstring-Deer River-Marcell fishing reports and help others out with first hand experiences to make ... [ Read More ]
Dog Day Blue Gills – The Dinner Plates
by Jim Uran Late summer bluegills keep the doctor away, it’s a proven fact. Well maybe I stretched the truth a little but they sure can make a person happy this time of year. Even during the dog days of summer, these tanks are more than willing to bite, and they are as easy to find right now as ever. Weeds seem to be the key location year round for bluegills. And as the summers water temp has peaked and is slowly on the downfall the fish certainly have a lot of options to hide in out there. What I look for out there is a weed bed that isn’t too thick, has openings for casting, but enough cover to keep the fish hidden. In a perfect world I will look for a mixture of cabbage and coontail in the 8-12 foot range, and anchor on the outside edge of it. I’ll slip bobber the area or ... [ Read More ]
Secrets to Catching Big Walleyes – by Jason Mitchell
Big fish will typically push smaller fish off off a spot if the big fish want to set up on that spot. Bass fishing is probably the best example of locations or spots that are typically big fish spots because so often, we can readily see what makes a location so attractive. Not all docks for example are the same. Some docks have a better scour hole from a big motor powering up on a boat lift. Docks with wheels or tires might have better structure below the dock that attracts fish for example. A particular dock will produce a big bass and a few weeks later, the same dock will hold a different big bass providing the spot has had a chance to rest. Some rock piles just have the complexity and all the right ingredients to produce several big muskies. Some particular holes or log jams ... [ Read More ]
Bulking Up For Dirty Water Bass.
Bulking Up For Dirty Water Bass A lot of people cringe at the thought of fishing a lake with pea soup colored water, I'm talking lakes that swallow secchi disks alive. I've grown to love this particular situation as most of the biggest bass I have boated were plucked straight out of the darkness. Don't be overwhelmed, simply bulk-it-up and get the camera ready. The first thing I do is up-size everything; braided line, powerful rods and the biggest, nastiest jig combo you can put together. Now I don't necessarily mean the heaviest jig you own, but instead the biggest and bulkiest profile. The majority of your bites will come on the fall with this type of presentation. I prefer a 1/4oz or 3/8oz jig which allows me to slow down and keep that lure in the strike zone longer. ... [ Read More ]
Spinning for Panfish by Matt Johnson
When most anglers think of panfish they think of small jigs and hooks tipped with a crappie minnows or crawler chunks. They might even think of throwing a few smaller profiled plastics like tube jigs and twister tails. But what about spinner-baits? And we’re not talking bass spinner-baits; we’re talking small-profiled panfish spinner-baits. Why can’t we burn-up the water in pursuit of monster panfish with a method that has worked so well for bass anglers across the country? Often this method gets pushed aside when in pursuit of slab crappies and bull gills, but that shouldn’t be the case. Targeting big panfish, both crappies and sunfish, can be made easy when using spinner-baits... and the results can really be worth the effort. Spinning for Panfish The spinner-bait has proven its worth ... [ Read More ]
Pitching Crank Baits for Walleyes
Pitching or casting crank baits into shallow water is one of the most enjoyable ways to fish for walleyes early in the season. Some lakes like Devils Lake in north central North Dakota are notorious for producing shallow patterns where anglers routinely cast crank baits but these patterns can be effective well beyond Devils Lake. Casting crank baits into shallow water not only allows you to cover massive amounts of water, shallow fish are often utilizing some of the warmest water available in a system and are typically aggressive so shallow fish typically respond well to crank baits. Not to say that fish deeper wont respond to crank baits because they will but in my mind, fish that are percolating in that warm water tucked in close to shore when the water temperature across the lake is ... [ Read More ]
Summer Windows For Out-Size Bass By Brett Richardson
The late summer period, just about two weeks prior to turnover, have produced multiple trophy largemouth and smallmouth summer bass for my fishing partners and I for more than 50 seasons. Chasing off-shore giants during the latter part of the summer season has been quite rewarding. The largest bass in the system can be locating on main lake basin forage in various parts of the water column, or by pounding crawdads on pelagic humps, ledges and basin channel depressions as the hot weather period is just about ready to start to change. Big bass seem to sense the oncoming seasonal change and slight variance in water temperature preceding the start of the first stage of turnover, and gorge themselves for approximately a 2 week time frame. Looking back at our meticulously kept logs and data ... [ Read More ]
When to feed and not feed line when Lindy rigging
What separates Lindy rigging from other walleye presentations is the use of a sliding weight. A jig has the lead molded onto the hook, a split shot rig has the spilt shot weight pinched securely on the line, a bottom bouncer has the leader tied directly to the trailer wire. The sliding weight on the Lindy rig can be used to let the fish run. I use the words “can be” because there are many days on the water when rigging, where you do not have to feed line. Let me back up and explain rigging to those of you unfamiliar with rigging. Again the key component to a rig is that the fishing line slides through a hole in the weight. So when a fish bites and you feed line to the fish, the line glides uninhibited through the weight, and the fish feels the weight far less than if the weight was ... [ Read More ]