dabluz

I did a similar thing when I was about 8 years old in the creek in front of our home. In the spring when the water would start to receed, I would churn up the water by stomping around in the bottom of the creek and when the fish's head would appear at the surface, I would hit it with a baseball hat. I got a few nice pike that way. This was over 50 years ago in southern Ontario. Where I live now, it's easy to catch brook trout that come close to shore at night. All you need is a flashlight. It's against the law to do this. Here is a trick that is legal where live minnows are allowed. First you hook a small minnow quite near the tail with a small hook. Use no other terminal tackle. Give a few quick hard taps to the head of the minnow so that it gets somewhat stunned. Cast him out and he will struggle on the end of the line. The small hook will sink his tail into the water and his head will be pointed up. Every time he struggles, he will make a disturbance on the water. This works very well in deep very clear calm water.

Wow, the tournament shirt is very nice. Do I get a rebait if I win a tournament for trout, landlocked salmon and walleye here in Quebec? :

There's always the option of quitting school right away...going on social security and spending the rest of your life hunting and fishing. There are always ways of making a bit of extra money on the side. Sure, you can forget about buying a nice boat, nice car, nice house, nice fishing trips etc. If you don't get into drugs, booze, smokes....you could do all right if you live thriftfully. You could get a job for an outfitter and some day some rich business man's daughter who likes those outdoorsy types of guys and marry's you and you end up with a high paying job doing almost nothing. But hell, you can still do that after you get a good education. At least with an education, you have more options.

I see nothing wrong with using baitfish or some small "scrap fish" like bluegill, perch, crappie as bait. The big problem is the fact that there are too many guys who will not hesitate to transport these small fish to another waterway and use them as bait, therefore transporting any fish diseases and viruses or even new species to a waterway.

Fishing from the bank is very effective. You can creep up to the fish silently while keeping your profile low or even hidden by brush on the bank. You can wade, which is very silent and you have a low profile. However, it is more difficult on the average because of all the places you can hang up and having to pull the fish towards the bank through all the brush, branches, shallow water and vegetation. To me, the ideal machine would be a canoe and paddle. That's what I use. But there are no bass where I live. I fish for pike. However, fishing for pike in thick cover is very similar to fishing for largemouth bass.

I guess if you say "brrrrrrrrrr", that means you do not dress warm enough. When well dressed for ice fishing, it's as cozy as fishing on a nice warm summer day. Much more cozy than fishing when it's very hot. There is no way to feel real comfortable when it's very hot.

quote " I start on one end and fish my way to the other end with crankbaits and catch a limit of small fish " quote " I culled out most of my limit also " In the U.S., are you allowed to keep on fishing when you have caught and kept your limit? Here in Quebec and probably the rest of Canada, when you have caught and kept your limit....fishing is over. The only way to keep on fishing is to catch and keep "one fish short of your limit". Yes, I guess you could say that you are fishing for another species of fish if a conservation officer intercepts you. Is this common practice with tournament fishermen? I find this practice a bit degrading for the law abiding fishermen.....unless it's allowed in the U.S.

I do a lot of ice fishing. I like it. I have to like it.....I live in Quebec. First thing....dress warmly. Warm boots are a must. Most people I see do not dress enough for ice fishing. Inner layers of clothing must be for insolation. The outer layer of clothing must cut the wind because the wind is the most disagreable part of ice fishing. A very good snowmobile suit is great but you will need something to cover your head and the back of your neck. Buy clothes that are extra large. If everything is right, you should be able to sit for hours without feeling the slightest bit cold. The nice thing with ice fishing is that you can bring stuff to make the experience more comfortable (folding chair, small propane stove for heating up your lunch, bucket to put your fish, lots of hand cloths, extra mitts, gloves, scarves etc.) Fish that spawn in the spring are active during the winter. They have to feed as much as possible in order to sexually mature for the spawning season. All the trout species are very active during the winter...no matter what time of the year they spawn.

I fish for fun. I rarely bring along my sonar. I use my eyes to tell me where I should fish first. I guess if I was a pro, I would certainly look at maps and contour lines before the outing. But even as a pro, once on the lake, I would rely more on what I saw (wind direction, shade, visible structure, weeds, river mouths, streams) while keeping in mind what I saw on the maps. I've been fishing for 55 years and I am what you can call a lucky fisherman. I like fishing. I am an observant person. Even the jobs and hobbies that I have done are based on a lot of observation (conservation officer, wildlife biologist, detective, store detective, photography, fly fishing and tying, hunting etc.). First thing I do when I get to a lake is stand by the shore and set up my fishing rods before I get into my canoe. I always carry my rods in cases and my reels in bags. I scrutinize the shoreline to see what kind of bait there is in the lake. There are hundreds of visual signs that will dictate where and how to start out the day. A map is just an additional visual aid.

I prefer line that floats. The jig clears the bottom easier because there is a downward slope in the line....the line is not near bottom. This gives the jig more of a hopping action instead of a dragging action. The floating line also helps in indicating any bites. However, using fluorocarbon leaders is a good idea.

After reading your post, I got to thinking about your use of a sonar and camera. In the old days before sonars and cameras, a long point with a drop off was probably the first place we would fish. They were easy to spot with just our eyes. Just a few casts would confirm the drop off. The next time you use your (bottom detector...sonar...fish finder), place your hand just under the transducer....palm down. You will feel a slight prickling of the skin on your hand. Now, imagine a fish who is thousands of times more sensitive to vibrations....what do you think he feels and hears? So, now that you have found your spot, the next time go there with all of your equipment turned off. Instead of roaring up with a motor....use a paddle. Anchor your boat away from the area and cast towards it.

I see that lots of guys using jigs for the first time have a tendancy to cast too far. The more vertical you fish your jig, the less chance of it hooking on bottom. So keep the cast short....especially when the bottom is rough (rocks, logs, branches). When your jig is on bottom and you want to move it, give it a tug so that it clears bottom....you don't want it to drag on bottom. Weedless jigs won't stop the head of the jig from getting caught between 2 rocks. For walleye, I regularly use 4 lb or 6 lb mono. Using Fireline or braided line definately decreases the number of bites when fishing for walleye. Using very light line alows me to use lighter jigs and somehow, lighter jigs don't hang up as often. Use a controlled fall on the jig....meaning, keep contact with the jig with the rod tip when it is falling. You will feel it hit bottom. After a while, you can even tell if it fell on a hard or soft bottom. You will also be able to feel the bite more easily and quickly. It takes a lot of concentration to fish with a jig and it takes a while to get comfortable with fishing with jigs. There is a place where I fish for walleye where the bottom of the river is strewn with logs from the time that logs were floated down the river to the saw mill. The shore drops very steeply from about 2 feet of water to about 30 feet. It's so steep, an anchor won't stay put. So I anchor out or drift in the deeper water and just toss my jig towards shore. Every small tug I give to the jig clears it from bottom and the depth increases. I follow the jig to the bottom. When I give my next tug, I can sometimes feel that my line rubs against a log. I just let the jig fall to the bottom and then I slowly pull back on the line until I can feel the jig make contact with the log. I then slow continue to pull on the jig and I can feel it slide over the log then fall again. The hook rides up all the time and does not hook on the log. I have no hope of recuperating my jig if it does hook itself on a log when using 4 or 6 lb mono but it's the only way that I can get bites. At first I lost a lot of jigs. Yes...ball head jigs are my favourites. Next season, I want to experiment with fluorocarbon leaders (maybe 12 or 15 lb test) to see if the walleye will continue to bite. Anybody willing to sell me 10 or 20 yards of good fluorocarbon line? There is none to be found in my area.

When I fish and let the lure fall, it's a controlled fall. There is no slack line, yet the lure falls. The further away the lure is, the easier it is to follow the fall of the lure with the rod tip. You can actually feel the lure hit bottom. Once you get the feel of the bottom, whenever that feeling appears different, there's a good probability that it's a fish.

Aren't you all glad that fishermen rarely fish naked?

I'm an old man and I have been fishing for a long time. Most of the lost fish are due to hooks not being sharp enough. I have yet to see really sharp hooks on any lure. That's normal because all of the hooks on a lure are treated so that they won't rust. Just a slight touch with very fine sand paper for metal (tightly rolled) just inside the curb of the hook at the point and maybe a bit at the barb of the hook to polish the barb is enough. This has to be repeated often because the hooks are now without any finish to prevent them from rusting. Yes, lots of fish clamp down hard when they first bite. They do this to kill the bait. This is very common in fish like pike, walleye, salmon, trout and other fish with large teeth. You have to strike hard in order to move the lure and penetrate the hooks. Bass are a bit different. They tend to swallow but when you look at underwater films of bass biting, they do the same thing. They inhale the bait in their mouth and there is a slight pause before they continue to swallow. They don't move much after they first hit the bait. They open their mouths when they continue to swallow. This is when most people strike.....and this is exactly when not to strike because the fish's mouth is open. I prefer the "strike quick and hard" when using a hard lure. If it's a soft lure or live bait, well the pause must be longer. Best time to strike is when the fish is swimming away from the boat. This is when you look at the line on the water or feel the fish with the rod. I've also noted that badly hooked fish will battle a lot harder than deeply hooked fish. I admit that I have little experience with bass. I haven't fished for bass in over 30 years. But, the films I saw show that all fish behave the same. Maybe the timing changes a bit from one fish to another. Pike have a tendancy to run longer with the bait clamped in their mouths. Maybe it's due to the fact that they often eat much larger prey and it takes longer to kill. Luckily, pike are easily hooked in the side of their mouths as they move away. Landlocked salmon clamp down the hardest of all the fish I have caught. I have often stripped the material off the shank of my streamers when striking back.....and still not hook the fish. I now use only metal tinsel on my streamers and I put a couple of coats of clear varnish or epoxy on the tinsel so the hook shank will not catch on their teeth. This also has helped in hooking more pike when fly fishing for pike. Those fat chunky lures with large lips surely put up a lot of resistance when a bass clamps down hard on them....a lot more than a slim lure with a small lip. What do you think of my findings? Any other opinions?

When a fish is well filleted, you normally end up with about 1/2 of the fish's weight in meat. I think you just need a bit more technique and you will be happier with your fish fillets.

The only time a fish could be gut hooked would be when using live bait. When using live bait, the best thing a fisherman could do is strike the fish fast.....before the fish has time to swallow the bait.

I completely agree with this.

While fly fishing I caught a bat. Another time fly fishing I caught a wild duckling. While topwater fishing at night, I hooked a beaver. He stole my lure. I caught a big pike that coughed up a nice fresh 3 lb walleye when I got him on shore. Quite a few river clams. A huge, green eel while fishing for brook trout in a tiny lake very far away from any place where eels normally can be found. I was using 4 lb mono. I cut the line when the monster was close to the canoe.