20151108-FIVE LAKES- CONTROLLED VERICAL JIGGING WITH SHORT RODS WERE THE KEYS FOR TODAY

20151108- Today was about” Fishing in the Zone”
Exploring the shallows in Five Lakes with sonar scans and slip bobbering live waxies revealed an absence of fish life no minnows no nothing! So moving on to the next break was a significant drop off extending into the main lake basins up to 60 FOW. I marked waypoints on significant tight schooling of unidentified fish to be fished later. Continuing sonar scanning of the break revealed a total absence of fish in over 99% of the water. Today if you were without electronics you would have literally been screwed and fishless. We started fishing one of the waypoints with short rods UL ice fishing presentations and vertical presentations with live waxies on tiny hooks. We caught multitudes of B’Gills in the 5 to 7” range at multiple waypoints showing tight schooling of fish. I tagged a 25” N.Pike fishing the school. This fish needed to be teased off the bottom on the Pink GULP Waxie tipped on the 1” long Siska Smelt Stix. Saw this fish on the sonar hit the bait presentation. No sonar = no fish would have been the equation for the day.
Our rigs consisted of my ice fishing arsenal from the winter all rigged and ready to go. Two rigs had 2 # fireline ice braids and one had 2# fluorocarbon and lastly one with 2# mono. Earl and I quickly displaced use of the non-super line rigs with the braid. Absolutely no-feel with the floro and mono rigs… you relied on visual tip movement. This ice fishing season the non –superlined rigs are getting respooled. The definitive argument in the decision to respool for the winter was mono and fluorocarbon provided a significant diminutive fighting experience from the gill. Fighting a sponge Bob feeling on the end of my rod is not what im after in the sport. Super lines have always provided an electric solid feel to the fish and was severely absent in these two rods. They were quickly put aside in favor of the braided rigs. This is the final decisive argument for me and braid… im in it for the fight and braid provides that edge. I feel every head shake and jaw grinding experience provided by the gill… sadly if you are not using super line … you are seriously missing out!
We quickly filled a no-cull slot of 12 fish under 7.5” for filleting.