Scratching The Panfish Itch- By Slab Seeker Guide Service

Scratching the Panfish Itch

By: Garett Svir

Photography: Kim Svir

It’s finally my favorite time of year, early ice. My auger is tuned up and ready. My new Clam shelter is assembled, and my Vexilar battery is charged. My thoughts have started to drift to what skills I would like to hone this season. The addicting part of ice fishing for me is putting together the puzzle and unlocking the mysteries of the world below the frozen surface. That equals finding fish where others seldom look. According to a recent survey on my Facebook page, an overwhelming amount of anglers say the greatest skill an ice angler can improve on is the art of finding fish. This was seen as a greater skill than jigging style and bite detection. Then why do some anglers congregate over community hot spots, so accepting that the fish are simply not biting? These anglers have yet to be stricken with what we refer to, in my group of friends, as the fish itch.

The fish itch is extremely contagious and usually comes on shortly after having success off the beaten path. Far out of sight, anglers with the fish itch, strike out confidently over fresh untapped ice. Symptoms begin as a feeling of persistence that drives you to keep searching until you have located fish. As symptoms eventually progress, you will begin to find larger concentrations of willing biters. Rumor has it that some anglers, who have had the itch for years, will eventually be able to pursue some of the largest specimens in a given lake, known as slabs and bulls. You will begin to recognize anglers with the itch this winter as they move quickly between holes, Vexilar in hand. If you have been stricken, here are some ways that you can scratch the fish itch this season.

Lessons from the Past  

Taking lessons from the past is a huge part of finding fish on your own and gaining confidence away from the community hot spot. When going to a new body of water, try to find areas that have the same characteristics as the areas where you have caught fish in the past. Panfish tend to relate to similar areas on most bodies of water. Learning to identify fish holding characteristics and translating them to different bodies of water will lead to future success. One of my favorite crappie spots is a 20’ depression in the middle of a small shallow bay. When I study a lake map of a new body of water, I always highlight areas that mimic my favorite spot back home.  One tip can be to visualize a contour map in 3D. Looking for fish holding areas on a piece of paper can be difficult. When you begin to see maps in 3D, you will get a feel for how fish relate to a particular spot. You will begin to understand how they find cover from predators, and how they find food.

Drive thru Panfish

Drive through the community hot spot. It is always worth seeing what type of areas the locals are fishing. Let’s say many of the permanent houses are spread out over a 30’ hole, surrounded by a shallow weed flat.  I will begin to search the lake map for other areas with similar traits. Chances are if you can find a similar spot with less fishing pressure, you may hit the jackpot.  It can be a huge advantage to work in a team with one angler walking ahead drilling, while the other follows with the Vexilar. Quickly driving up to each hole on the snowmobile and swinging the transducer in different directions will let you know if fish are present. If fish are seen when swinging the transducer, it will alert you to which direction to drill next. Once located, we drill holes closer together until we are right on top of the bio mass. Missing a school of fish by ten feet is like missing by a mile. The new Pro View Transducer from Vexilar has been a real game changer the past few seasons. It allows an angler to control the cone angle with the gain knob. The ability to search a larger area with fewer holes is a huge advantage and allows for more time scratching the itch.

Be Shallow

                Searching shallower than everyone else will often produce the largest panfish in a given water system. Panfish grow large because they are able to avoid predators, including anglers. Noise from anglers can push large panfish out of deep water and into heavy cover. Once in the weeds they will find the oxygen, food, and cover they need to thrive. The two factors that seem to draw fish are green healthy weeds and proximity to deep water. Coontail and curly leaf pondweed specifically will often stay green, even through the harshest fall weather. Hungry panfish will roam through the weed stocks, like a pack of lions, looking for that next easy meal. While pre-fishing for a tournament last winter, my wife and I stumbled on an interesting pattern. While most anglers drilled out deep basins looking for plankton feeders, we found huge bluegills gorging on Amphipods or freshwater shrimp on a large weed flat. Watching these fish with our underwater camera uncovered larger bluegills than we had ever encountered on this lake. We watched in fascination as these fish made their way through the weeds with ease, sucking shrimp off the stocks. Shallow water is where fishing fast really shines. Because fish aren’t as visible in shallow water on electronics, we briefly fish each hole we drill.  By drilling a large amount of holes we are assured to find the open patches, pathways and edges, which hold the largest numbers of fish.

It’s a Slippery Slope

Steep drop off’s surrounding main lake structure can also hold large concentrations of fish. These areas hold food such as mayfly larva and dragonfly larva. While these food sources can be present in many different areas, the base of a steeply dropping slope will provide some of the highest concentrations. For years, panfish guru Dave Genz has talked about these sticky bottom areas. These areas house the correct type of substrate to allow larva to burrow.

                It takes a certain type of angler to strike out away from the pack to uncover that next hot pattern, an angler with the fish itch. Once you get the itch, you may acquire a renewed passion for the hardwater season. It just may leave you dreaming for a late spring.

 

Bluegills Secrets Reveled

Bluegills Secrets Reveled

By: Garett Svir

Photography: Kim Svir

It’s 5 am and you’re up brewing coffee. Lake map in hand you make last minute decisions before heading out to load gear. Mother Nature’s icy grip has taken hold as you head out to temperatures well below freezing. Armed with an assortment of jigs and plastics you make your way out into the frozen tundra. Big bluegills can do crazy things to a person. They can consume your thoughts. If this sounds like a normal weekend to you, then you just may have what it takes to ice a bluegill over 10” this winter. Big bluegills can be tough customers. The best eye sight in the business coupled with an uncanny way of tasting a bait before committing can make them very difficult at times. When it comes to winter bluegills it seems like 10 % of anglers are hooking 90% of the fish. So what are their secrets? I decided to pick the brains of two of the best in the business… Dave Genz and Dave Young.

Dave Genz is considered the founding father of modern ice fishing. The winter fishing system that he developed has forever changed the way that anglers ice fish. Instead of dragging a small house out onto the ice to stay comfortable, we can now stay out of the elements and remain mobile with the advent of his Fish Trap. His inventions were born out of necessity on his quest to catch more and bigger bluegills.

Genz fishes more by feel than by line watching. It is something that he refers to as cadence. “It’s just like fishing with a crank bait, you want the fish to feel it in their lateral line” says Genz.  He has learned to feel his jig pounding in the water. When he can no longer feel the jig pounding he sets the hook knowing that a fish has inhaled his offering. He prefers clear line in 2 pound test over the high visibility stuff. Genz expressed that sometimes a person has to cut the bluegills a little slack. He informed me that when the bite gets tough and you find yourself missing fish to briefly drop the rod tip and immediately set the hook. This is something that he learned by years of bobber fishing. “Sometimes you have to let them take it” explains Genz. When he started using Vexilar 25 years ago he used to write articles about how to catch sniffers, those picky fish that would not bite. He wrote about finesse presentations and dropper rigs. He has now changed his school of thought regarding this and opts to drill more holes and search out active bitters. “I want to make that first drop down a new hole” he explains. He firmly believes that those first drops down a new hole produce his biggest bluegills of the season. “At the end of the day that strategy will produce more fish” says Genz. You want to have the mindset that a small percentage of the fish in a particular body of water are bitters, and that it’s the anglers job to search out those bitters. When asked about structure he expressed that his favorite spots for bluegills are deep weed edges. He prefers to search these areas over deep basins because he can usually find less pressured fish. “Deep basin areas can be good early before the crowd develops” he explains. Once the crowds hit an area, it is beneficial to strike off to find less pressured fish.

You may remember Dave Young from the television reality series Ice Men that aired on the Versus Channel. Young is considered an authority on tight line fishing for finicky bluegills. Spending 35 years on the hard water, Young has also seen it all. He knows how to get it done in tough conditions. Young has spent countless hours showing others the art of tight lining. When he is teaching someone to tight line, he does not let his students use a flasher. He believes that this can be a distraction for anglers new to this style of fishing. “An angler must first learn to watch their line and detect subtle strikes” he explains. This also forces new anglers to fish the entire water column and they will often catch fish that come in quickly from outside the cone angle of the flasher. The amount of concentration that Young employs is unmatched. He jokes of bringing Advil with him on tournament day because he gets headaches from concentrating too much on his line. If you watch Young with a jigging rod it almost looks like he is jigging in a circle. When questioned Young stated, “A jigging style is like a finger print and is unique to every angler.” You can still believe that I am going to add circle jigging to my bag of tricks this winter. “I am watching my line as far down into the water as I can see it” tells Young. This allows him to see even the slightest irregularities in his jigging sequence. He’s watching the small kinks in his line that appear while jigging. If he notices the kinks in his line straighten out, he sets the hook. He is also looking for his line to go slack. This alerts him that a fish has grabbed his bait and swam up in the water column. His line of choice is 2 pound test Stren in high visibility yellow. He likes the way yellow shows up against snow and ice. He developed an ice rod for HT and pairs it with a small plastic reel called a Schoolie. On tournament day, 28 rigged rods will make it onto the ice. This allows Young to switch presentations quickly without taking the time to re-tie. Throughout the interview he stressed the importance of versatility. “Some times I work fish from the top down and other times I work them from the bottom up” he explained.

The play book is open. The best in the business have revealed tactics to help you ice more bluegills this winter. I hope that some of those bluegills make it back down the hole. I recently learned of an organization called Recycled Fish. They are encouraging anglers to release their largest bluegills to keep big fish genetics in our favorite lakes and ensure big fish in the future.  Become more than a sportsman, become a steward of our lakes and take the sportsman’s stewardship pledge at http://www.recycledfish.org.