Owen_007

No wonder the cabelas jerkbaits were out of stock!

Well, Bass can be tricky under ice. Impossible to purposely catch at times. I have my best luck with sucker minnows on a tip-up and believe it or not, panfish jigs. I lost a 6 lb bass last year at the hole on a northland bro bug tipped with a skeleton minnow. Target panfish/crappie and you will catch the bonus bass. I’d start with some small Swedish pimples, and some northland ice fishing jigs as well as their line of plastics for ice fishing. Love them. I have most luck on white and bloodworm plastics. Always have a pack of Waxies in your pocket Incase the bite gets tough, sometimes that’s the only way you can get bit. I also would invest in a ML/L rod. When you start fishing light jigs with a MH for crappie you’ll find out why. Do you have a flasher?

I wish I had that problem!!;) I can fit all my stuff into about 7 boxes and I stay pretty organized. With plastics I’m trying different methods and haven’t found one I really liked.

Pit Boss, crazy leg chigger craw, and baby brush hog. All in some variation of green pumpkin

They are the same thing as a laser MG just a different paint job

I use a mop jig for almost every situation personally, and the 3/8 "Brown" Buckeye is my go to. Ive never had a issue skipping it...just takes practice

Straight shank flippin hook. You just don't miss fish with em

I run exactly that way. All braid on all my setups and then either a mono or flouro leader based upon technicque I'm setting the rod up for. Only ever broke one knot but that was with a Uni-uni. I now use the crazy Alberto knot and I've never had one problem with it on hundreds fish, and ive bent hooks straight with it. I see no downside to this. I replace line wayyy less, cast farther, and Have much more sensitivity.

Hey guys. With weather finally daily being in the low 40s here in MN, I'm putting the ice gear away and getting my boat prepped. Since the Mississippi is the only place with a year round open season on bass, that'll be my only option for fishing for the next month or 2. Anyone have tips for ice out bass fishing on rivers? Location? Etc. If it helps I fish pool 4 (Has Lake Pepin on it) and pool 5. Thanks in advance ??

I have a pond I have exclusive ability to fish and I've fished it for 5 years and still finding new things about it! For a pond without anything I'd pay attention to the height of the grass around the edges, as well as the position of the sun. On those sunny days, those bass love that taller grass that throws shade on the water. Another thing I'd recommend is wading if you feel comfortable doing so. During the summer I throw on my boots and wade a couple feet off shore and cast parallel to it. From this angle you notice small differences in the shoreline, and on a featureless pond, a place where the grass hangs a little bit farther or a small point on the bank can make all the difference. Just my .02 from personal experience

Power pro is my go to. I run braid and a leader on all my setups. Crazy Alberto knot.. Picked up some sunline braid and I have no complaints about that either. I do avoid spiderwire like the plague though....

$5 on a clearance lure here and there. This winter I sold a marcum and bought a striker 5 for the boat/ice. Bait monkey only gets me if it's a rod and reel that's super cheap....and even then I can honestly say i have a good control on him. Hasn't always been that way but I spent thousands this summer on fishing stuff. Totally worth it:)

For my jig rod I use a 7' Fenwick Elitetech MH. Handles everything I do with it well, skips great, and is very sensitive and flips my jigs into cover accurately. I've pulled nice fish out of laydowns with it and have never had a problem with it. There are guys that can skip a hudd on a broom stick if they had to....I'd say it's more practice then gear.

Always either a mono or flour leader for bird depending on what I'm doing. Saves me money in the long run, and I can get the benefits of mono and flouro, while still having the ease of use and castability of braid. I use a crazy Alberto knot. The line will snap before the knot does.

i always flip a jig right in the middle to start with, if no bite I just make my way around it, and then dissect the food pile if there is one depending on time of year. I seem to always catch a nice bass or 2 off them so I love finding new ones.

for me when gaining confidence in jigs, I first felt the bite, reeled down the slack until I could feel the weight of the fish, and then dropped the hammer. I got 100% of the fish that bit and held on, If I'm having on if those days where I just am missing hooksets, I do that to get my confidence back. I will also probably start my season out doing that. Couple weeks in I seem to develop a rythem of reeling slack, dropping and hammering, and I only miss a couple once and a while, but that's fishin.

The northland spinnerbaits are awesome for $3. Good colors, sharp hooks, closed wire(awesome feature) and are tough as nails. I caught over 100 bass/pike on a single one last year in chartreuse and it looks no different from the day I bought it besides half the skirt missing and no red finish on the hook. That's my .02

Flip it into visual cover or cast by visual cover and just drag and move it with the rod and reel up the slack and repeat. Make sure your always on the bottom or near it. Once you catch one fish on the jig the second will come easier and so on. Like all things in fishing you can read a book on a topic but until your actually doing it you can only learn so much. Don't over complicate it! ??

For me it's more presentation than anything. But that being said most lures I own are either a green, brown, black, or white base color and then small differences between them like sparkles, shades, etc...unless the fishing is really slow will I mess around with different colors, or if I'm just bored. If it's a high pressured lake I go towards more variations within colors as I feel every bass at a lake I fish weekly tournaments at has seen a watermelon or a green pumpkin, so I throw a green pumpkin purple flake or red flake, or a darker watermelon with candy flakes. For me it works. But Brown and green colors have never failed me and probably never will. Bass will eat oddly colored things, but i just think more natural is the way to go when it comes to color in plastics

A pair of good snow pants and layer up.

So I sold my winter flasher (Marcum VX1i) and bought a striker 5 chirp CV/ DV ice kit for $300.(gonna use as my winter unit as well as my summer bow unit) I currently have a echomap 73dv chirp on my console and love it. I plan on linking my units to share waypoints, And can't wait to finally have A unit on the bow. With this being said, should I spend $85 and get a downvu transducer, or should I get a $30 link cable and run it off of my universal transducer on my maxxum? I'm on a budget (senior in high school) but also want to learn how to fish deep and learn something else besides my typical bank beating. Would having Downvu and traditional sonar as opposed to just standard sonar be a major advantage?

Most of the open water stuff we use for bass is just too big in the winter. They slow wayyyyy down and shy from the bigger stuff. I've found a small spoon style tipped with a waxie will catch you anything from a panfish to a bass, as well as a small jig with a minnow style plastic. If you want to target bass specifically I'd go with rapalas new ultra light rippin rap or. A slab rap. They both work great. Just work em nice and slow. Overall, I've caught more bass on a 1/16 or 1/32 ounce jig with a northland impulse panfish plastic then any other lures combined. It's just a matter of weeding through the panfish to catch a bass:) good luck and stay warm

Learn how to fish deeper water, learn how to slow down, and learn how to fish the jerkbait. And a 4+ PB smallie would be nice:)

For a majority of my senko fishing I use green pumpkin and green pumpkin purple flake. I can't count the amount of times when one didn't work he other one would. Call it dumb luck but I'm a believer in that a slight change can make all the difference in the world. I've had luck with blue red and purple flake, along with candy color lures with multiple flakes. If I were to choose one though Id choose flake over no flake.

Just color