daverichey December 31st, 2009

She's tuning up. The distant sounds anglers and hunters hear are those of a big fat lady preparing her song. It's not over, they say, until the fat lady sings. Well, she's tuning up her vocal cords right now.

After tomorrow's last day of deer season, we'll all be ready to put the final stamp of approval or disapproval, on the past deer season. The Fat Lady will sing at 30 minutes after sundown tomorrow evening, and another deer season will have faded into oblivion.

The days of parties, getting drunk, waking the next morning with a mouth that tastes like a goat herd walked across my tongue are things of my past. We're usually in bed long before midnight, and will celebrate the New Year over dinner tomorrow evening with friends.

Many years ago I decided to stop drinking and did. I dedicated my whole being to not inbibing in alcohol. I did the same thing several years ago about cigarettes, and I haven't smoked one since.

Herb Boldt with a nice buck I put him on years ago.

As the year slowly draws to a close I prefer to celebrate by remembering people. Some like my father who died more than three yearss ago at 94. Brother George passed Sept. 10, 2003, but there have been many others who I miss for a great variety of reasons.

Some key folks from my life have fished around their last bend, and some have hunted for their last time. For each, I cherish those memories that have become far more important than going to some silly party to get hammered.

The memory of who have passed on are far more meaningful to me than getting sloshed. As an old drinking friend once noted about New Years Eve: "Getting drunk on New Years Eve is for amateurs. The real drinkers can get drunk anytime, and a holiday isn't needed to do it."

Wow! Now there's a personal philosophy not to live by.

There are so many old friends who have turned life's corner, and are but faded photographs and fond memories. I miss the late Bernie McKenzie, who gave me a job in his sporting goods store in 1958 when jobs were tough, and I became the go-to guy for sighting-in rifles.

Then there were Bobbie and Max Donovan. Max was my mentor, and Bobbie was his younger brother. Those two, and G.V. Langley were always up to running fox with hounds. Both Bobbie and Max are dead, and who knows about G.V. and Paul Duncan and Jerry Miller, three dog jockies who often ran red foxes all winter.

There is Frank McKenzie, who has done a bit of outdoor writing, but he and his brother John are still good friends although I don't see either one as often as I'd like. John worked for me as a steelhead guide many years ago, and they are both still going strong.

Arnie Minka (left) and guide Mark Rinckey with a nice steelhead.

Another who has moved on to where the steelhead always bite is George Yontz. He was another mentor from my formative years of the 1950s, and I miss him a great deal. His acts of kindness to me when I was a kid have never been forgotten.

Another who has passed, and I mourn his uniqueness, is Robert Traver. This legendary trout angler and Upper Peninsula author wrote under that pseudonym, but his real name was John Voelker. He set a writing standard that others like us can only hope to emulate. He was the Bard of the Upper Peninsula, full of fun, and a fan of the fly rod and tiny fly.

I miss the quiet strength and strong sense of purpose that was the late Russ Bengel. He was the last Michigan market hunter to pass on, and he hated shooting ducks and geese for the market at a time when making money was difficult. He regretted his market hunting days, and quietly donated millions of dollars to Ducks Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited of Canada. He donated money to make our habitat a better place for wildlife to live, and he was exceedingly kind to me.

Also gone but not forgotten are guys like Al Lesh who could always help me get a story on short notice. The legendary muskie guide Homer LeBlanc was another person who was a big help, and he had more stories than anyone I know and I honestly believe that all were true.

There's my old friend, Herb Boldt of East Tawas, who is still alive and kicking, and we fished and hunted together often. We seldom have much chance to get together these days, and it is my loss. He helped hire me at The Detroit News years ago, and I've never forgiven him for it. Years ago I was responsible for choosing a deer-hunting spot on the firearm opener, and he shot a big 11-pointer that day.

Roger Kerby with a big coyote.

There are many older and younger friends, some I have fished or hunted with once and others that we haven't got together for many years. Friends, after all, can be the glue that holds many of us together.

There are people like Gary Baynton,  Lee Blahnik, Mike Borkovich, Bob Brunner, Gordie Charlies, Tom Coles, Boyd Crist, Emil Dean, R.J. Doyle, Doug Esch, George Gardner, Jim Gauthier, Bruce Grant, Fred Houghton, Roger & Paul Kerby, Scott Kincaid, Bob Kook, Jerry Lee, Ron Levitan, Stan Lievense, Pat Marino, Arnie Minka, Paul Nickola, Phil Petz, Claude and Matt Pollington, Bud Raskey, Lou Razek, Jerry Regan, Jim Riley, Mark Rinckey, Ken Roberts, Mark Romanack, Steve Scott, Steve Southard, John Spencer, Al Stewart, Sam Surre, Walt Tilson, and John and Steve VanAssche. Any whose name I've missed, my sincere apologies are offered for an unintentional mental lapse.

Some are household names among sportsmen, and others are not, but know that all have figured significantly in my life for many years, and I cherish their friendship and loyalty.

And to them, and to you, my wishes for a Happy New Year!

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

• The Daily
• Comments(0)

daverichey December 30th, 2009

Some bucks do fool hunters, but in many cases, the animal simply gets lucky and the hunter never gets a shot. Over many years I've watched this happen to me and other hunters. Now as the 2009 deer season plays out the couple days of the season, the thought of being fooled by a buck's actions brings to mind several instances from previous years.

One year a buck came sneaking in from behind me, and then stepped out into the open, away from any ground cover. He stood, only 15 yards away, and it would have been an easy shot except for one thing.

The tall pine tree that my stand was in had long boughs that dipped down almost to the ground. This nice 10-pointer was perfectly positioned for a quartering-away shot except one end of a big pine bough covered his heart-lung area. His head and rump were clearly visible but not his vitals.

The buck stood motionless, sniffing the air.

That buck stood there, motionless, for 15 minutse watching other deer walk past, and never moved. When he felt it was time to walk off, he turned around and walked back exactly the same way he had come, and I never got a shot.

Did this buck fool me or did he just get lucky and decide to stand in the only place where I couldn't thread an arrow through? He didn't know I was there, but he chose just the right spot to stop. He didn't do it on purpose to avoid being shot; he did it because it was the natural thing for him to do.

I've hunted caribou many times in northern Quebec. I've also watched caribou come across the tundra for two miles directly to me only to reverse directions and head back the other way.

Did those caribou fool me? No, caribou do that all the time. I don't think even they know what they are going to do next. The same holds true for some whitetail deer.

I was up in an elevated coop where I could see deer come for 200 yards. A big buck began moving my way, and over the course of two hours, the buck kept coming. He was coming from my right and behind me, and his head was up even though he was upwind of me.

I couldn't turn to shoot so I had to wait until he walked past. Ten yards from where I'd planned to shoot him, a big doe sidled up next to the buck. The angle was just right so I couldn't shoot the buck because the doe was blocking his heart-lung area. The two deer walked off without ever knowing they were very close to extreme danger.

Did this buck fool me or was luck on his side? He was just plain lucky that night, but the doe that came from out of nowhere was what really fooled me. She was totally unexpected.

Bad luck when a doe takes an arrow meant for a buck.

A buddy got fooled last fall. He was watching a nice buck circling around checking out some does. The buck eased around the deer standing out in front of him, and when the buck was perfectly positioned, he drew and shot. Between the hunter and the buck was a doe that chose the wrong time to move. The arrow hit that doe as it started walking past the buck, and she caught the arrow in the heart. In fact, even though I'm aware of last-second doe movements, I've shot two does that moved into the line of fire when I shot at a buck. Bad karma on their part.

Again, the buck didn't fool the hunter. Bad stuff sometimes just happens and there is no way to prevent it.

Another time I sat in a treestand that had been productive all year. Two or three bucks and a couple of does had been taken there, and I set up  one night in that stand. A big 10-point had been seen nearby on several occasions by other hunters. The wind was right, and I made a last-minute decision to try it.

Several does and a few small bucks filtered past my stand, and I let them go. Fifteen minutes of shooting time remained when I spotted the big buck coming. He was moving in a direct line to me, and would pass cross-wind at 15 yards.

He stepped right along and kept coming. Closer and closer, and a big branch concealed my body. He couldn't smell me, and on he came. I could just see a bit of him between the branches, and he continued on until he was well within easy bow range.

All of a sudden he stopped. The buck looked in all directions, and the only thing around was the tree I was sitting in. He stood stock still, as if waiting for something to happen. I was at full draw, and I had to slowly ease down. The buck didn't see the movement, but he was really wired.

The buck stood, and stared at the tree, and moved away.

He turned slightly, moving sideway away from me, and once he was 50 yards from the tree, he broke and ran.

He didn't see, smell or hear me. I think he may have seen another buck or a doe get shot from that tree, and once he got too close, he stopped and stood motionless. He fooled me because I really thought he would continue along the same trail where other deer had been shot/

Some deer researchers believe a deer's memory doesn't last long but I'm convinced that some gut instinct may warn a deer. And this buck was one that completely fooled me. It's this uncertainty that makes deer hunting so interesting. We really never completely know what a deer will do, and it's this trait that makes it so much fun.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

• The Daily
• Comments(0)

daverichey December 29th, 2009

It's already started. A dream came wandering through my brain last night, and there I stood, knees braced against the boat's stern with a rod bowed almost double from the force of a big muskellunge. It was taking line, and then began circling back to stare at me with an evil look on his toothy shovel-shaped face.

The dream had some basis in fact, and it was three years ago when I first fought and lost a huge Lake St. Clair muskie near Detroit that wouldn't come up off the bottom for the longest time.

Muskie dreams are just what they are: dreams of big nasty-looking, toothy fish. Most dreams have some basis in fact, and occasionally my muskellunge dreams contain combined elements from two or three different unforgettable fishing experiences. These dreams always show up during the middle of the winter when most water waters wear a mantle of thick ice. We still have four to five months before Michigan's muskie 2010 season opens.

Larry Ramsell with a 45-pound Upper Peninsula Great Lakes muskie.

What causes these dreams? Beats me, but I suspect it comes from thinking of fishing for them.  Two years ago, I tipped an old buddy — Larry Ramsell of Hayward, Wisconsin — off to a Michigan hotspot I've known about and fished for 30 years. I couldn't go because I was recovering from one of many eye surgeries, so I gave him a clue.

The general locale was the St. Marys River in the eastern Upper Peninsula, which encompasses a large chunk of watery real estate. He and two others fished the first day and caught a 42-inch fish.

The next day one man landed and released a small fish, another one hooked and lost a large muskie, and then Ramsell nailed a 53 1/2-inch muskie that weighed approximately 45 pounds, and they missed my hotspot by 30 miles.

Ramsell is a great muskie angler, and perhaps the most savvy of all. He recognized good muskie water, and fished it hard and caught fish.

A photo of Ramsell and his trophy fish appears above, and I'll probably dream of it tonight. However, to illustrate how fickle muskie fishing can be, Ramsell returned the following year and never caught a fish. A cold front moved in, and he and I fished in high winds and rain for two days without having a strike.

The odd thing about muskie fishing is the reason we fish for them. It becomes a personal quest for a trophy fish. The above fish isn't Ramsell's first 40+-pounder, but very few fish of such honest sizes will tip the scales that far. He admits that the quest, the enduring search, for an even larger muskellunge is what drives him and many others to travel widely and to fish often for a larger fish.

Satisfying that quest does occur, but not for everyone. I've hooked three or four 40-pounds in many years of fishing for them. The trick is to fish all the known big-fish waters but never fail to try other lesser-known lakes. Long Lake near Traverse City, Michigan, undoubtedly holds 40-pound fish or even larger, but very few are landed. Most are hooked by accident by people fishing for other species, and invariably the fish breaks off and gets away.

Years ago, I boated a big muskie on Dale Hollow Reservoir, on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. That fish weighed 36 1/2 pounds, and it is the biggest muskie I've landed. But this type of fishing is an itch that always needs scratching.

The only thing that relieves the itch is to go again. And always, lurking in the darkest corner of our brain, is the thought of our biggest muskellunge. A quest to top that fish, and not necessarily to keep it, is what keeps us pounding the water when others have quit.

The Lake St. Clair fish I hooked three years ago was never seen. Fish hooked while trolling, and this holds true with big fish, is the muskie will stay deep. It may roll on the surface toward the end of the fight, but they normally stay down until they get wore out.

My unseen fish hit a down-rod on the corner of the boat, with the lure in the prop wash, and it ripped off yards of line. We cleared other lines, and that fish and I tussled for more than 20 minutes. I'd move it up off bottom, and down it would go again, and take out more line. Back and forth we went until I could sense the fish tiring, and it rolled under the surface where it was impossible to see the length or girth, and then it rolled again, and the lure came free.

Ralph Cagle with a nice muskie but one under 20 pounds.

Then there was a muskellunge hooked while fishing after dark. The lake was Murphy Lake in Tuscola County, and this happened years ago. Me and another guy were casting huge plugs that sputtered along on the surface with gurgles and small splashes from our muskie-size Hula Poppers and Jitterbugs.

"Blub-blub-blub" would come the watery burble as we retrieved the surface lures with an occasional pause. My partner got a big backlash when his lure was near the boat, and a big northern muskie chose that moment to strike the lure and it broke the line.

An hour later as we lamented the lost fish I had a massive jarring strike. I'd worked for an hour on those hooks, and they were razor sharp. That fish hit, and I pounded the hooks home twice. That fish took out 30 yards of line, and I played her with a cool hand.

Even at that, the fish was a monster. One develops a sense for big fish after hooking a number of them, and I'd triggered that fish quick and hard. It was hooked well, and I played it under the light of the moon. Nearly 20 minutes into the fight, the fish ran toward the boat, rolled over, splashing us with water and we came undone.

I suspect the prolonged fight and the big hooks wore big holes in that fish's jaw, and when it rolled, the heavy lure fell out, and the giant muskie swam free.

I remember another big muskie that followed a Suick twice in three days on Wisconsin's Tomahawk Lake. It looked half as long as the 16-foot boat but I know it wasn't quite that big, but it was well over 50 inches long. Could it have hit that magical weight of 40 pounds?

Perhaps. My buddy from Wisconsin, who had seen and caught several large muskies, estimated the fish at 55 inches and at least 45 pounds, perhaps more. That 'lunge still appears in the my dreams.

Another time on Ontario's Lake of the Woods near Kenora, I had a savage strike at boat-side from an unseen muskie. The fish had missed the plug as I lifted it out for another cast.

The next thing I knew there was this enormous muskie camped three feet behind my Bobbie Bait. I kept the lure moving, plunged the rod into the water at the boat, and kept it moving. That fish followed it through several Figure-8 and J-stroke rod movements, and then it sank slowly out of sight without offering to strike the lure.

How big was it? I caught a brief glimpse, and it was well over 55 inches. Was it one of those legendary 60-inch fish? Beats me, but I know I saw that fish in my dreams for two or three years. Writing about it now may bring the dream back to life again.

Years ago, Craig Lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was a hotspot for big muskies. It was a small lake, hard to reach at that time, and motors were not allowed. A good man on the sticks could row around the lake easily in two hours.

A buddy was fishing a spinnerbait when a muskie struck at the fast-moving lure and missed. I pitched a black Suick over there, and the fish bulged the water behind the lure but didn't hit. I applied rod-tip English to the lure, and it followed the lure all the way to the canoe. That fish probably weighed 40 pounds but we'll never know.

Later that day a buddy caught a muskie weighing 25 pounds at the other end of the lake. It would have been dwarfed by the earlier fish.

I've been privileged to have caught a great number of muskies in my life. I've missed some very big fish, hooked some truly huge fish, and lost all but the Dale Hollow muskie, and it remains my largest to date.

Guide Steve VanAssche with a big Lake St. Clair muskie.

Will Lake St. Clair produce something big this year? I honestly don't know. It has produces plenty of big fish, and numerous 40-pounders have been taken and several fish much larger have been seen. Luck, and being in the right spot at the right time, are what anglers need. Skipper Steve VanAssche of Harrison Township, Mich. is a great guide. Phone (586) 524-2827 for information.

It is very difficult to crack that hallowed 40-pound mark, and although a few people do it each year, it is not a common situation. Granted, on occasion a novice will catch a truly big fish by accident or good fortune, but for dedicated muskie hunters, nailing a 40-pound or larger muskie is why we chase these grand game fish.

Crack that 40-pound, and it becomes much tougher to continue climbing that bigger and bigger ladder. Granted, muskies to 50 pounds are caught but very few are hooked and landed over a year.

And, if we crack that 40-pound mark, we'll go for a 45-pounder. And then a 50-pounder. Fishing for big muskies cam become an incurable addiction.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

• The Daily
• Comments(0)

daverichey December 28th, 2009

Forget all the New Year's Eve hoopla. I'm not even interested in small home parties. Such things no longer interest me.

All the parties celebrating another year ending doesn't mean diddly to me. I'm in bed and asleep long before the Big Ball drops in New York's Times Square or the Big Red Cherry falls in Traverse City, and the crowds of people go wild. I'm zonked out when all the bars empty out and the drunks hit the highways. The roads are not a safe place to be on that night.

A bit of celebration may be in order, and I'll do my celebrating one of these afternoons real soon. No, no drinking for me. I quit alcohol 26 years ago, don't miss it, and prefer peace and quiet, solitude, wild nature and the sounds of silence. However, sometime between now and Friday night, I'll renew an old tradition of mine.An old fishing tradition of mine.

A typical brown trout from the early 1970s.

Many years ago while guiding from 1967 to 1976 on the Platte and other rivers, I celebrated New Years Eve in a certain way. For many of those years my celebration took place on the upper Platte River, upstream from Haze Road, and it was just me, my Shakespeare Black Beauty fly rod and the river. The fish and I had a quiet celebration of another fine year of fishing, of guiding and living, and of taking care of one another.

I'm not really sure why this year-end personal celebration ended, what caused it to stop, but it ended some 25 years ago. I've thought about it for several days, and about the time the salmon and steelhead disappeared from the upper Platte River before Dec. 31, was about when I quit the tradition of a last-day fish.

No bells or whistles this year. Just me celebrating life and living, giving thanks for the good things in my life. and there was always something about the upper Platte River that has been haunting me. This year, like  the last three, will be a necessary trip, one of another personal reunion with flowing water, and if a fish is hooked and landed, it would be a bonus.

Twenty-five years ago there were still plenty of fish in the upper Platte River on New Years Eve, but things changed years ago. I suspect it's been a decade or more since there were a few steelhead in this river stretch at the tail end of December. No matter, because I wasn't there to catch them. I was there to celebrate my many years of fishing the Platte, and the river had indeed been kind to me.

Renewing the tradition and bringing it back to life.

Last year I slipped into the river at Haze Road, and worked very slowly upstream, scanning the shallows through Polarized sunglasses. I came to the old cabin on the right, and the owners had added a second story to the building. The old cabin had been there even before I started guiding in 1967.

There, just upstream from the cabin, was where a tree had toppled into the river during a storm in the late 1960s. The top of that tree landed six feet from the far bank, and the current dug out a bath-tub sized pocket under the submerged tip. That spot, for nearly 10 years, would produce big browns on a daily basis. How big? They averaged eight to 10 pounds, but one memorable hook-jawed old male of 15 pounds sucked up an orange fly of mine, and we kicked that river apart for several minutes determining who was boss.

He came to hand after a strong fight, and was landed, unhooked and released. One year, from mid-October through Halloween, that little pocket would produce five (the legal limit at the time) brown trout daily. Most of them were released unless someone wanted a wall-hanger.

The tree and the brown trout are now gone, and further upstream was the spot where in 1963 I caught my first steelhead from the Platte River. The current had hollowed  out a hole of quiet water under a shoreline cedar, and a buck steelhead and his lady friend were spawning. A local man during that era made and sold Colorado spinners, and I had one knotted to my line. This was in the days before the single-hook rule, and I'd watched the lure maker cast to a spawning male. He never fished for the female, and his rod was a fly rod with an automatic fly reel and 10-pound monofilament. The spinner was knotted to the end of the line.He'd stalk close. and begin casting. As soon as the spinner washed past the male, he'd lift it out and cast again. Cast, lift it out, cast again, time after time until the male hit. That was what worked for that big male under the cedar, and I quit counting after 300 repetitive casts, and my arm and shoulder ached like a bad tooth, but somewhere between 300 and 400 casts, the buck hit.

We fought it out with no holds barred, and I landed that fish. It's cheeks and gill covers glowed with the color of orange-pineapple ice cream, and a crimson sash streaked its lateral line, and even though it was my first steelhead from the Platte, it was quickly released.

Once the site of thousands of spawning salmon.

Further upstream was a shallow gravel bar that was once covered with the spawning redds of thousands of coho salmon. Shallow pock-marked areas all held fish back in the good old days, but not on this day nor will they be present this year.

I stood, the current gurgling around my ankles, and listened as a mated pair of Canada geese flew overhead, honking, and the sounds carried on the soft breeze with a touch of wildness on this day. Back in the woods a ruffed grouse made that little putting noise they make while feeding, and thousands of memories of people and fish washed over me.

I sat on a snow-covered log, and drank in the glory of what had been and what will never be again. In that era, steelhead followed the brown trout and chinook and coho salmon upstream to feed on free-drifting brown trout or salmon eggs.

An accurate cast with a No. 6 orange fly would work. The fall steelhead would go crazy, tail-walking across the river, trying to rip off line on strong downstream runs, and each fish was a victory or sorts and another reason to celebrate the passing of another year.

Such a venture this year will bring back other memories of another era. It was one of more fish than most modern steelhead fishermen could possibly imagine or comprehend, and it was a time when big brown trout were common, chinook salmon to 30 pounds and coho salmon to 18 pounds could be caught with some regularity. The river is no longer that way, nor has it been for many years.

Sadly, things have changed. It seems that the good things always do and all that remains are the memories, and they are enough for me.

Trips down Memory Lane no longer the same.

My two-hour memory trip on the river last year was filled with calmness, solitude, the chuckling sounds of river currents washing around sweepers, and a feeling of loss. I no longer need large numbers of fish to make me happy, and many times one or no fish will work for me, but last year was just about me and the river and more memories than I could bring to mind during a two-hour fish. The fly rod, archaic as the guy carrying it, was nothing more than a stage prop.

Not a fish was seen while covering a mile of river, and on any other day that might have bothered me, but not a year ago or this year when I return. I was there to pay homage to the river of my  dreams, one that has nurtured me through the beginning of my writing and guiding careers, and a stream that has helped make me what I am today.

Happy New Year, and this year why not take a moment to remember your home stream. Going back more than 40 years to another era will be another quiet and solitary celebration for me.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

• The Daily
• Comments(0)

daverichey December 27th, 2009

It's becoming ever more difficult to pick ice-fishing lures. There are almost as many for the winter months as during open-water seasons.

There are three basic fish groups I love to catch through the ice — bluegills, perch and walleyes. All are mighty fine eating at my dinner table, but I've almost given up on trying for lake trout, pike and splake through the ice.

Tip-up fishing is fun for the first hour or two, and then I get bored. If flags are going up, using tip-ups can be a lot of fun. However, it seems as if there are dozens of days where "wind bites" provide the only action while the days when the fish really bite well have become scarce.

Besides, I like having a rod in my hand. I've used the oldfashioned  custom-made jigging sticks, home-made jigging sticks, and rod and reel. I much prefer a light-action spinning rig spooled with two- or four-pound line, depending on what I fish for. I usually have one spinning jig set up with six-pound FireLine when jigging for walleyes.My favorite baits and lures for these game fish are:

Bluegills and sunfish

My favorite rig is two-pound clear or green monofilament line and a tiny tear-drop jig or ice fly jig. I choose sizes like 1/16 or 1/32-ounce, and buy them in a variety of colors. Yellow is always a good choice, as is yellow with red spots. If fish are really picky, use smaller lures and shift to one-pound monofilament. Even small 'gills feel like a whale on very light line.

My preference is to pick a teardrop jig and bait it with a mousie or wax worm. Fish off the edges of green weed beds, and it doesn't take much effort to catch bluegills and sunfish. Start fishing near bottom, and slowly work your way up at least halfway to the surface. Most of the action will come near the bottom of the lake.

My bluegill rods have a tiny fine wire spring bobber at the tip. I use coiled wire rod holders, stick the rod in them, lower the jig and bait to bottom. and raise it an inch or two off bottom. Jig it a few times, and let the rod and rod holder sit on the ice. Reach down, jig it again, and keep trying different depths or different holes until the fish are located.

A late-winter bluegill will barely suck in the jig and bait, and if the fine wire bobber bends a bit, set the hook. Occasionally they will hit quite hard, but it's better to count on a soft take. Don't set the hook hard or you'll spend most of the day tying on new tear-drop jigs.

Yellow Perch

These game fish are even more fun to catch , and i use a similar rig for perch as for bluegills but use four-pound clear or green monofilament line. Two basic methods work: using a Russian spoon baited with a perch eye, emerald shiner or a wiggler.

Of these methods I favor a line with a egg sinker on the bottom and two dropper lines spaced six inches above the sinker and another hook a foot above that. It's not uncommon to catch two yellow perch at a time with this rig.

Again, I like the wire rod-tip bobber, but perch often hit hard enough to make the need for a bobber useless. Bait both hooks, making certain the the minnow is hooked in the fleshy part of its back behind the dorsal fin. Hook the minnow too deep, and it will puncture the spinal column and kill the minnow. Ease the bait slowly to bottom, and reel up slack line  so there is a bend in the rod that sits on the ice in the rod holder. Lower the minnows too fast, and the rapid descent will tear the minnows off.

The Russian spoon rig is meant to be jigged up and down, and white, white-red, yellow, yellow with red spots — all work. Bait the spoon's single hook and lower it to bottom, raise it up a few inches off bottom, and then use short jigging strokes of two or three inches with frequent pauses that allow the lure to flutter back down to bottom.

Walleyes

These fish love jigging lures baited with emerald shiners. My favorites are the Hali, jigging Rapala, and the Do-Jigger. I add an emerald shiner to each hook, and jig it softly with short two-inch strokes. Hard and forceful jigging strokes will litter the bottom with dead minnows and be unproductive.

This is a sport where it's important to keep moving and trying different locations until a school of fish is found. I use either a spinning or bait-casting rig with six-pound FireLine, and make certain the hooks are sharp. Use short jigging strokes, and most fish hit on the up-stroke although some will hit as the baited lure flutters down. If there is a secret to successful winter ice-fishing, it is to begin fishing near bottom, keep moving in search of roving walleyes, and fish all depth but most of these glassy-eye game fish will be found near bottom. The biggest secret to catching winter walleyes is to find they. After that, the fish are not all that difficult to catch because they are always on the prowl for a quick and easy meal.

The lure, the bait and the jigging method is what turns all three of these winter game fish on, and fishing through a hole in the ice is a great way to spend a winter day.

122709_droblog_FavoriteWinterGameFish_((tag: bluegill, Dave Richey, ice fishing, line, lures, Michigan, minnows, outdoors, shiners, walleyes, yellow perch))

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

• The Daily
• Comments(0)