Slip’s 2015 LOGS, STATUS AND STRATEGIES… 2ND HALF EDITION

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... postings concerning the second half season of fishing 2015

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20151126- ...------<")))))><(...... Happy Thanksgiving!

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Go Lions! 

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20151127- ...------<")))))><(

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20151127-had a busy weekend planned...

Earl and I agreed to shore fish Friday afternoon and fish for preds... Cold water preds... Walleye,pike, and SMB... keep one walleye under 20 in or SMB between 14 and 16inches then 10 pan fish... crappie or gills crappie under 10 and B'Gill under 7.5" no culling and freeze no fish. Some tough rules but steps up the game by making it a little more competitive.

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20151127-…today was shore fishing for preds only between a couple lake Wixom and Ross Lake

I started the beginning of the year only fishing Ultra Lites because of arm, shoulder and neck pain and continued with success for the remainder of the open water season thus far. Panfish has been my main focus and have done quite well approaching the Master Angler many times with the Black Crappie and B’Gill… I nailed the P’Seed again this year as well as the SMB and Common Carp. All fishing tiny baits and presentations on Ultra Lites and Super Lines.  Ive been hammering the SMB from shore wit 2 and 4# test nanofil and 2” long swim jigs, Berkley Ripple shad and Power Minnow. Sooooo why change rigs when targeting the preds SMB N.Pike and Walleye from shore today.   I loaded up (3) UL rigs and the tiny jigs and swimbaits  and proceded to do quite well. Of course lost a few pike with bite offs and that’s expected and landed a decent one. Earl caught many SMB and I added to the tally as well. 2” Power Minnow in shad color on a 1/32 oz jig was the key bait… the northern liked the bling and I soon ran out of blades with the bite offs. Larger baits did not produce at all.

I believe there is something to this small bait presentation with the 2” minnow pattern swim jigs for both panfish as well as the BIg Preds.

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20151128- ...------<")))))><(

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20151128 – today we had the great opportunity to fish the most severe cold front conditions I have ever faced on a lake…

a 30 deg drop in overnight temps the past few days today’s left air temps hovering in the upper teens producing skim ice across the lakes surface with clear skies and calm winds. Earl and I were anxious to get started. What! Why would any knowledgeable fisherman expose themselves to inevitable failure! One of the most heavily fishing pressured lakes I have had a pleasure to fish and no one else was out on the lake! The reason why we were out there is to gain the knowledge and log time on the water… “fishing those bad days makes you a better fisherman”

Starting off Earl was at the bow scanning the shallows for activity… minnows… b’gills anything. He spotted a few crappie and gills sitting close to the bottom widely scattered in the gin clear water. Some shorelines still had skim ice. The sonar registered out in the deep basin widely scattered fish expanding to all vertical space in the water column. I was hoping to spot some congested schools of B’Gills to vertical jig but could not mark a waypoint on anything. I through over a tungsten jig attached to an UL ice rod and dropped it down to some fish suspended above 30 ft of water. Nothing no response. So we moved shallow to where we had the last activity of days ago. Earl noticed a pattern of many crappie including some jumbos widely scattered over the barren flats. We drifted the boat in very calm water over these fish and literally dropped the jig in front of their noses with no response from the fish. Comatized is the word I just then coined for that behavior… amazing… you had to touch the jig to the fish for a response.

I then confirmed we were in for a very tough outing but we kind of knew that going in. so our best strategy lie before us… we knew some gills and widely scattered crappie were present but were inactive so we would fish till they start responding… so while doing that we picked off a number of preds and kept a LMB in the slot at between 14-16” long… no N.Pike were targeted for the day so all of them were released. We experienced a wide gap of non-activity and remarkably at 16:01 we started getting hits with the N.Pike missing many Jumbos at the boat with cut offs and experience d many bite offs with lost jigs. The 2” Power Minnow with bling was hit many times by the pike.

The cold started settling in quickly and Earl called 3 more casts … I agreed. In those 6 cast we boated 2 crappie in the slot of 10 Inches or under… now they awake! Sun fading fast we adhered to the call and started tidying our tackle and straightening our rods. I noticed a loop in one of my rigs and I lightly casted it out and nailed my best fish of the day a 13” class crappie on the Power Minnow.

The pattern of the day was we luckily noticed the neutral crappie on the bottom in less than 6 ft of water and waited them out while catching a few preds along the way. Its to bad they started hitting so late in the day but we came out of this with valuable gained knowledge and the time on the water. We were Panfish Rigged and Pred Ready … baits that have been proven with experience to produce pan fish as well as the larger predator fish and Ultra Light tackle rigged with Super Line to winch them in. ultra thin and strong line on Ultra Light spinning rods gives you that great fighting experience and yet gives you the extra confidence against line breakage.

... highlights of the day

 BFOTD!! 13" CLASS CRAPPIE AT 93% MASTER ANGLER

many pike were tagged along the way...

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20151130- ...------<")))))><(

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20151130 ... skim ice in the protected areas ... ice is sticking thru the afternoon

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20151201- ...------<")))))><(

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20151201 - Looking forward in some ways to the extended winter forecast for 2015-16... hoping there is thin ice for a short ice fishing season this year. id rather have an early open water season.

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20151202- ...------<")))))><(