Curious about clutter on Vexi on Gunflint Lake???

[Christopher Quast]

Was wondering what all the clutter could be all over the water column from under the ice to 5' off the bottom is this likely to be smelt,ciscos, or herring because they actually show up red on the vexi if I have it set so my bait is just showing up do lakers travel in schools I'm thinkin not since they are a predator fish but once in a while they would actually bump the bait or chase it aggresively anyway. Just curious

[erikh45]

I have noticed this on some of the lakes around here when I have been fishing in the afternoon. It seems to show up around dark. I have asked and never gotten a straight answer. I have heard it is bug or small "things" emerging from the bottom, and also have been told it has something to do with the setting sun. I have tried to use the "Gain" on my vexi and it stays there. This year I lowered my Aqua-view and could see no bugs either. Sorry I can't answer your question. I am curious too.

[tearin' lips]

Could be small trout, but more than likely it is tulipee, smelt, etc. Occasionally we run into the same thing on the lakes I fish in Canada. We lowered the camera once, and found a whole bunch of tulipee.

[Catfishunter]

clouds of plankton?

[FishermanHart]

Its Patrick and SpongeBob and they think the Carnival is back in town.

[redhooks]

On gunflint it's usually smelt, every now and again you can hook them while jigging. I've put 'em back on for bait but don't seem to anything special. Other area lakes have some kind of aquatic bug the fish are eating, cut open the guts and there are a bunch of brown bugs/larvea? I'm not sure what they are but either way I usually mark more fish while jigging in a cloud of bait.

redhooks

[Surface Tension]

I'll adjust my gain to just barely pickup my lure. Those are your traditional Laker Lures. If smelt or ciscos are at the same depth they'll also mark on your weak color. Vex=green MarCum=Yellow.

Assuming your fishing off the bottom and that you know your lure will mark hotter up high and weaker 70' down on the same gain setting. If you have smelt coming in higher they'll be marked at your middle color or possibly your hot color. Not much you can do about that but observing your lure color higher in the water column will at least let you know what going on. What I mean by that is knowing how your lure is marked at different depths gives you that information to use as a reference. So even though your getting hot marks up high you can still go by how wide the mark is to interpret size. Yes you can tell size of fish with a sounder but you need to refernce

what your seeing to something. Like I said use your lure as that reference. Now thats assuming your using proper gain control or should I say, finesse gain control.

As to what it was you were seeing. I've never seen smelt or ciscos strung out in the entire water column at once. Schools tend to move at one depth that could be anywhere from top to bottom but not everywhere.

The super braids will mark on a sounder. Their fibers trap air which reflect a return signal back to the sounder. Normally though as the line gets saturated that return signal goes away.

I've marked Plankton which typically rise off the bottom in the evening and eventually fill the whole water column. Rarely would you seen them during daylight hours though. Maybe under certain light conditions and thick ice that migration of plankton changed or happened early.

Interference from other sounders. Being in deep water with irregular rock shapes will send signals fling all over.

Those are some explanations of what you could've been seeing.

[Mimic Shiner]

On Gunflint I'm pretty sure it's smelt. A couple fish we caught that day of the derby I looked in the stomach, nothing but smelt, one big on too, 7 inches. I have found on Bearskin that the smelt seem to stay closer to the bottom, at least in 25 to 40 ft of water, which is what we are fishing in anyway. Caught a few a couple weeks ago, worked great on tipups on that lake. I haven't gotten any lately, haven't even really been seeing them lately except for a few today. I'm sure there could be some tulibee in that cloud on Gunflint, but they sure seem lethargic most of the time which would indicate to me, smaller smelt that are willing to look at a teardrop with a waxie but aren't willing to hit it.