Tip-ups + Jigs for Pike

Over two of pike caught in a yearly basis in Wisconsin and Minnesota are caught ice fishing.  Of those fish caught ice fishing, tip ups account for more of those pike than any other method.  Tip ups are a highly effective way to target northern pike because they allow you to keep several baits in the strike zone for long periods of time, being fished effectively with minimal attention.  In addition, you can use maps and depth charts to place your tips ups in spots that you know are likely to hold fish.  But jigging is also a highly effective and overlooked method for taking winter pike.

In Minnesota, it is legal to fish two lines per person.  If you have a few people along for the trip, you can put out a bunch of tip ups and jig as well.  I like to put out two or three tip ups and then drill another hole right next to each of those tip ups.  I'll get an ice rod with 12 lb test, a wire leader, and a lure like a Lindy Darter or Rattletrap - something that makes sound.  I'll jig this lure next to the tip up and what often happens is that the sound of the lure attracts fish to the area, but they then see the bait on the tip up and take it.

There are a few different ways you can set up a dual jig approach.  If you have enough people to be fishing multiple tip ups, then you can drill holes in between the tip ups so pike attracted to the sound have to pass the bait on their way there.  You can also set up the tip ups in a circle and jig right in the center of the circle to "call the fish in".  Or do the opposite if you are by yourself and can only have one tip up - set up a tip up and then jig at four different holes surrounding your one tip up.  If possible, set these surrounding holes up on pike structure (rocks, saddles, weedbeds) as well.

For this "call em in" approach, you'll want a lure that makes sound.  That's crucial.  Try to have it also mimic the natural forage in the lake - often perch in the metro area. Or you can tip it with a bit of minnow.  Although your lure is helping to boost the effectiveness of the tip ups, you'll often find that you take pike on the jigging rod as well.

Preparing for the Winter

I was running around Plymouth this weekend and saw a small pond with a thin partial skin of ice over it and it made me sit up straight in my seat.  Most of the ponds and lakes haven't frozen at all yet.  It varies by a lot of factors like exposure to wind or sunlight.  But this was the first ice I saw all year.

My family was in town for the weekend and I convinced them to drive me to Cabela's so I could stock up on fishing stuff for the winter.  I got everything that I thought I needed - quick strike rigs, depth finders, and an auger for $55.  Total bill was around 90 which isn't too bad considering I probably won't need anything else for the year.  

I just thought that I would run over a few necessities for those of you that are thinking about getting into ice fishing.  A lot of it depends on what you are trying to catch though.

I'm mostly a pike fisherman so I use tip ups.  Tip ups can be used for a variety of fish, like walleye and trout as well, but they are mostly used for northern pike.  They work by suspending a minnow or piece of bait in the water and springing a flag when a fish takes the bait.  You then have to set the hook and pull up the fish.  Tip ups often work best with dead bait, not live, because the fish are much less aggressive in the cold of winter.  Live bait will work best in very early season and perhaps at late season, but the pike will take dead bait all year.  Suckers do if you don't have anything better but oily fish like smelt, shad, or ciscoe are better.  Use a quick-strike rig - a rig with two treble hooks - so you can hook the fish quicker and easier.  If you are practicing catch and release, don't get too far from your tip ups, and don't keep the fish out of water too long because their eyeballs freeze over.  

You'll need an ice auger to drill the holes.  Match the hole size to the fish.  Most fish in the metro will fit through a six inch hole, except for unusually large pike and musky.  I use at least an eight inch hole because I find it easier to work with and I do a lot of pike fishing.  Gas augers are fast and powerful, but they are also heavy and loud.  Noise, although it can sometimes attract fish, is more likely to scare the fish.  Electric motors are much quieter but expensive.  Hand augers are quiet, portable and cheap but they also take a long time.  Make your holes count... hehe.  Resharpen your blades periodically and wipe down after a day on the ice to prevent rust.

Ice fishing rods are largely similar but there are differences.  Again, match the rod to the fish.  There are a large variety out there nowadays. 

A sieve-like spoon is good for getting slush out of your hole.  Small clip on depth finders take your line to the bottom so you can find depth easily.  Warm clothes are an obvious must.  A shovel clears off snow.

The stuff piles up quickly, especially if you opt for a portable tent, heater, and fish finder.  Make sure your sled has room in it for everything.  I also like snacks :)

The Point

A dear friend of mine that goes to UW River Falls likes to make fun of me.  And so, when she found out that I release most of the fish that I catch, she poked quite a bit of fun at me for loving to do something that seems so pointless.  Of course, she knows why I love fishing, and I didn't have to explain to her the point, but it still made me think.

I was still thinking about it Sunday morning.  I spent the first seven waking hours of my Sunday morning, until 3 in the afternoon, sitting in a church listening to the training for the mentorship program I'm participating in.  It's important and good stuff but I was sleepy so I got a little distracted.  I was sitting next to a large window that looked out across a medium sized pond next to the church.  It must have had small sunfish in it, because every so often I would see a dimple on the surface of the water as a fish came up to rise.  The simple beauty of the sunny fall morning and the pond in the cattails made it harder for me to focus on the speaker.

What is the point of my fishing.

I feel like I've written on this a lot before, but I still have people ask me that.  To be honest, I like talking about it.  I like discussing my passion for something that other people see only as a casual pasttime.  So here it is again.

I love fishing because of the challenge it gives me.  The fact of the matter is that I can fish during every single month for the rest of my life (and probably will try) and I will still not understand everything there is to know about fishing.  There will always be more to learn.  Fishing challenges me and makes me think.  It's an equation, really, an equation that I somehow enjoy despite my loathing of math.  It's about putting together all of the factors - fish species and characteristics, preferred habitat, body shape and size, predation strategies, season, water temperatures, light levels, water clarity, time of day, forage base, and so many others.  It's about having to use my mind to maximize my time and my resources.

I love fishing because of the beauty.  There is something about the sun rising over a lake on a summer morning through the mist at 5 o clock, with the call of a loon in the distance that raises the hair on my neck.  The sound of the waves lapping on the shore and the quiet splash of bass around you.  The delicate movement of a fly through the air.  Deer coming to the shore to drink and watching you.

I love fishing for what it means to me.  It's something that has made me so much closer to my dad, the person I respect most on this planet.  It's been our bonding time for as long as I remember, something that sets me apart from my other siblings.  Fishing is also a defining feature for me, something that I can take pride in because I'm good at it.  Something that other people know me for.  Finally, fishing has been a spiritual experience for me.  I've spent more time praying to God while fishing that I have while at church.

And finally, I love fishing for the payoff.  The heart pounding excitement of the flash as a fish takes my fly or the tightening of the line.  The splash and the whine of the drag and the feeling of pride as you carefully release the fish into the water that it came from.  Or, adversely, as you clean and prepare the fish for a delicious dinner that you caught yourself.  The feeling of outsmarting a wild creature.  Of accomplishing something by yourself, of taking complete responsibility for a prize gained.

I also love the fishing for the disappointment.  The days that you miss a fish, the days that the fish remind you that you will never be as clever as you think you are.  The days that remind you why it's not called catching.

Valentine Pike on the Fly

Today I was planning on going to a football game but overslept and didn't wake up until 1:30.  It was a gloomy day, cloudy and rained on and off.  

Since we know that fall revolves around three great activities - football, deer hunting, and fishing - I try to include at least one of those in every one of my days.  I missed football and hunting isn't possible yet, so after the rain stopped at around dinner time I headed out to fish for an hour before dark.

I've found a decent spot to do some fly fishing on the shores of Valentine, which is important because they pulled the dock for the year and I'm gonna lose my bike at the end of October so I won't be able to go down to Johanna as easily.  It's a spot with open room, the only problem is the cattails that just kill me whenever I get lazy and start casting wider loops.  

The algae is mostly gone from the shorelines, which leaves me able to cast both topwater flies and streamers, depending on conditions.  A safe bet is that, while topwaters are more fun to watch the fish hit (and it's easier to detect a strike), you'll get more strikes with streamers because most fish feeding occurs below the surface.    I usually look around when I get to the lake and don't use a topwater unless I can see topwater rises on the lake.

It rained today and was still cloudy.  The rain makes the water murkier and reduces visibility, something that I usually deal with by using brighter colors like chartreuse or red.  The cloudiness reduces the light level.  With low light levels, use a darker lure or fly so the fish can see a silhouette in the water.  Finally, it's fall, which means the fish are willing to take bigger offerings.  

So I put on a six-inch black streamer, with a tail that is tipped in chartreuse and a few orange rubber whiskers.  This way I got the size, I got the dark silhouette, and I got the brighter colors.  

And it worked out.  I fished for about an hour from the same spot of shore and caught two pike, a 27 incher and a 25 incher.  Considering how small and shallow Valentine stays, that's probably about where the fish top out in length.  That's part of what I love about fishing - putting all the factors together to outsmart the fish and see it come out in success.  I was lucky tonight because I managed to land both pike on a bass leader - six pound test, no wire leader.  Usually that doesn't go so well with northerns.

I released both pike. The first one managed to get his teeth into my thumb a little.  Not the best feeling in the world.  

Pictures are on facebook for those interested.

Fishing Isn't a Team Sport

Part of what I loved about playing football in high school was the teamwork and being part of team with other guys.

Much of what I love about fishing is that it isn't a team sport.

How do both of those make sense?

Although I think that team sports are invaluable and were an essential part of making me the person who I am today, I also have always been a relatively solitary person.  I'm not a person that needs to be hanging out with friends every minute of the day.

What I love about fishing is that it's all me.  No relying on teammates or coaches or fans.  I make the decisions.  I do what I enjoy most.  I answer to nobody except myself.

The thing about fishing is that nobody can let me down.  Nobody can make me promises or encouragement and then break it.  Nobody can lie to me or try to one up me.  It's all me.  Does that make sense?

And part of what I like about fishing is that I can rely on it to always be there.

Reflecting, bass on the fly

When I went to Colorado with my family a few summers ago and tried fly fishing for the first time, I fell in love with it.  The grace and the skill and the movement involved all spoke to me in a way that fishing with bait  doesn't.  I came back to Minnesota and, a few months later, received my first fly rod for Christmas, a six weight perfect for bluegill and crappie.  I bought an eight weight at Cabela's for pike and bass and couldn't wait to catch some bigger fish on the fly rod.

But fly fishing is tricky to pick up at first, and I struggled.  My cast still seldom breaks fifty or sixty feet.  I caught small bass about a foot long, and a few snake northerns, but nothing of any size.

Added to the equation was that this past summer was probably the hardest few months of my life.  My youngest brother, Nicholas, was severely infected with a fungus and fought for his life for several months.  He teetered on the edge and spent a month in intensive care in the children's hospital before recovering.  In addition, my father continued a fruitless job search before finding a job... in Michigan.  My family moved and I still haven't been to the house that I technically am supposed to call my home now.  Finally, I suffered heartbreak in the relationship department.  Priorities were misplaced and communication failed and it was one more thing to pile on top.  All of this happened as I was preparing to enter college and start my higher education at Bethel University.  My relationship with God, much like my relationship with Cosette, started to fall apart and was replaced with anger - anger at Him and anger at the world.  If not for my friendships with people like Sonia, Alex and Mya, I don't know how I would have gotten through it.

Needless to say, I didn't get much fishing done that summer.  My fly rod was relegated to a corner of the garage as I spent my days on the phone, in the hospital, or snatching time at the house that would quickly become someone else's.  But I still found a little time to spend on the lake.  When nothing else made me feel better, fishing always could.

There are two types of fishermen - those who enjoy fishing because it's fun, and those who live fishing.  I live fishing.  It occupies my thoughts of every waking hour.  I'm constantly thinking, reading, dreaming of how to improve my fishing knowledge.  Most guys know football or basketball - I know fishing.  It's just what I do.  One of the ways that you can tell the fishermen who live fishing are the ones that keep fishing even when they don't catch anything.

I had a dry spell.  The whole summer, I didn't catch a fish on the fly that was bigger than a foot long.  Sure, I caught little guys on flies, and I caught sizeable fish on spinning gear, but my fly fishing was marked by many mornings of zero fish.  In a way, it represented my failures that I felt burdened by from the summer.  I failed in my relationship and was powerless to protect my brother or help my father, failing three of the people I love most in the world.  And now, even what I knew best was failing me.  My longtime sanctuary was letting me down in much the same way that I had been let down all summer.

Then I came to Bethel University, still struggling with my issues and my new shaken faith in the Lord.  But I fell in love with this school - with the people, the environment, the beautiful campus.  The lake that you can see from the cafeteria and the weekly nights of worship with thousands of men and women stretching their hands to the Heavens.  I realized that life is never as bad as it seems.  My brother recovered and my dad got a job.  I even go to a college on a lake.

I biked down to Johanna the other day in the early morning with my fly rod in a pack on my back, and fished from shore.  It was one of the many beautiful fall days we've been having at Bethel lately: blue sky, crisp air, light breeze and the smell of leaves.  My fly, a baitfish imitator, danced out over the water before scurrying in between fallen leaves.  I cast for over an hour without a fish before the water humped up behind my fly and my rod bent in a quivering bow.

A few minutes later I pulled a tired largemouth out of the water, a little less than two pounds.  Not any monster by any means, but as I looked at that fish, it seemed like a symbol of hope to me.  A symbol that despite the dry spells, the luck always returns and it always gets better.  As I carefully released the bass back to the lake and watched it swim away, I felt a swell in my spirits.  I don't think that it's a coincidence that the fish came to me at this time.  I believe that from here, my life is only going to keep getting better.  I survived the storm and can look the future with renewed hope.

Many of the people that read this, if they read this far, will be frustrated with me putting so much of my life and my religious beliefs in this post.  It's a fishing blog, after all.  But part of who I am, part of the whole reason that I even have a fishing blog, is that fishing is inextricably connected to my person and my life, and it is impossible to separate. Fishing has given me some of my most exciting moments and my most peaceful moments, my most challenging and my easiest, my most relaxed moments and my biggest andrenaline rushes.  Most of my talking to God has been done on a lake.  That's part of why I am pursuing a major in environmental science - I love this world of God's and believe that it is part of my responsibility and calling to help preserve it.

I caught another mediocre largemouth that day at Johanna, and another tonight at Valentine that was bigger, about 16 inches.  Pictures are on Facebook under mobile uploads if interested.