Ice, Ice, Baby

Using WRI funding, Steve Loheide looks to chart the occurrence of a unique stream dynamic across Wisconsin.

September 10, 2014
By Aaron R. Conklin

It was just supposed to be a routine groundwater monitoring exercise on a little stream in Barneveld, Wisconsin. Instead, it opened up an unexpected research project on an unrecognized hydrologic process.

A couple of years ago, Steven Loheide, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering with the University of Wisconsin-Madison,  and his then-undergraduate student Matthew Weber went out to a stream in Barneveld to collect some general data on its flow.  

They noticed something unusual almost immediately—the stream stage was unusually low compared to the remaining ice that was attached to the stream banks at a height more than double the current water level.

“It made us wonder—what’s going on?” Loheide asked.

Several weeks of observation and data collection gave them the beginnings of an answer. The stream’s dynamics were being heavily influenced by frequent ice formation and ice melt. It turned out that the formation cycle was occurring one out of every four days between December and February, and it was causing the stream depth to increase more than 100 percent as the ice cover slowed down the in-stream water velocity.

‘We weren’t out there to study this,” said Loheide. “This is a process unrecognized in the literature. It’s a big gap. We don’t know the full importance, but we know it’s definitely affecting in-stream hydraulics and potentially inducing hyporheic exchange.”

Loheide is referring to the hypoheic zone, a mixed zone in a stream bed where surface and groundwater mix, creating critical chemical exchanges that have an impact on both the stream itself and the surrounding aquifer by filtering out contaminants and providing habitat for benthic organisms.

According to Weber, who’s now a student in California, it’s possible these exchanges could be significantly altered by the frequent fluctuations in stream stage, and those changes could impact everything from sediment transport to benthic insect populations in spring.

“Because it’s happening in winter, we wouldn’t expect this to have a big impact on nutrient cycling,” said Weber. “But if it’s happening frequently—as it seems to be –the stage fluctuations will have an impact on streambed morphology and potentially affect benthic organisms like overwintering fish eggs and macroinvertebrates in the stream itself.”

The dynamic could also be creating positive impacts.  One possibility is that increased winter ice regimes could be backing water up into the landscape, creating a reservoir and making more water available for ecosystems long after the ice is gone.

On larger rivers, this type of ice-formation process creates troublesome ice dams and ice jams that can wreak havoc on docks and shoreline structures. In a small stream like the one in Barneveld, the effect isn’t nearly as easy to see.

“The question we’re pursuing is, how does it affect surface-groundwater connections?” Loheide asked.  “We [scientists] haven’t looked at how ice level affects that.”

Having discovered the phenomenon in a single small stream, Loheide and a new graduate student will use funding from the UW Water Resources Institute to see if it occurs—and if so, how often and how it varies--in other geographic areas around the state.

“The new project looks at the bigger picture,” said Weber. “What are the other conditions that allow for this to occur?”

More specifically, beginning in fall, the new student will pore over raw historical data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey using stage and ice regime changes to identify long-term trends. The second stage of the study, which won’t begin until next winter, will involve measuring the ice regimes at five different sites in Wisconsin, looking specifically at the quantity of water exchanged between the stream and the adjacent aquifer. Finally, Loheide and his student will take what they’ve gathered back into the lab and model it.   Given that the stream dynamics are tied to the length and severity of winters, which in turn is tied to the discussion on climate change, Loheide’s work takes on an added significance.

“The exciting part of this project is that it’s so new, Loheide said. “This is not like working out the third decimal point of a discovery that’s already been documented. This is an entirely new process.”

Fishing slump, the Internet and casting an umbrella skeleton

I’ve just gone through a brief period of nothingness comparable to going fishing and catching nothing. My computer reminded me of what it’s like to have fishless outings. I had signed on, signed off, rebooted, only to have been met by a less responsive computer each use.

I tried all kinds of techniques that should have brought success to my methods.

Nothing!

Read More

L. A. Van Veghel, Milwaukee Fishing Examiner

Gamefish on the humps

Humping For Late Fall Open Water Gamefish

A cold wind crept down his back, but he did his best to ignore it. He knew soon that the ice fishing season would arrive. He liked to cast and fight his quarry in open water. It was big fish season, and a real outdoorsman and a veteran of snowy, frigid Packers games could take it.

He continued to cast…retrieve…cast…retrieve. The repetitive motion helped keep him warm as did a thermos of hot coffee. He made a well-honed cast toward and just beyond some broadleaved aquatic plants and began his retrieve.

Read more ►

 

Paul Redel with a typical largemouth that hit his special balloon tipped Mepps inline spinner.

Photo: Courtesy Paul Redel

Lawrence Van Veghel

Milwaukee Fishing Examiner

Pike, largemouth bass & walleyes remain active into Dog Days

Roger Stack is the owner of R&R Sports, aka fishin' hole, and he's been in business for decades. His large, current store is at 3115 E. Layton Ave., Cudahy, WI 53110, (414) 481-6888.

My favorite St. Croix panfish rod had suffered a life-ending blow, so I'd retired it to tomato plant stick status. Of almost 70 ready-to-go rod and reel set-ups, this had been my most productive set-up. It was light, and so was the sturdy metal, black Browning spinning reel.

I was replaceing the St. Croix with a longer version, as I had done in the past. I toss light, plastic-bodied Dick Smith Panfish Grubs, so I wanted additional casting distance while having excellent feel of even the lightest bites. I place the line in the crease of my index finger, so as to feel bites that finger tip callouses would not notice. 4# Fireline Crystal line went onto the reel. The line that had been on it when the reel was bought had been the worst line I'd ever had regarding coiling and coming off en masse' from the reel spool. The line had more memory than could a herd of elephants.

At the other end of the spectrum was the South Bend musky rod that had decided to break rather than be bent to fit into a smaller space than was possible. The panfish rod was needed for Friday of the same week, and Saturday required the musky rod.

This time, I asked Stack's advice. I wanted to go into the 7' to 7'-6" range, as current musky pros were using longer rods in place of the old broom stick models. Besides my brass Shimano Calcutta looked awful sad and lonely mounted to the reel seat of the old, broken rod. Not knowing how I'd react to my cancer treatments and with professional fishing rod suggestions from Stack, I again went with a St. Croix rod. It was longer and lighter than the previous rod, and it had excellent backbone. The Shimano reel and this rod were a perfect match. I added some off white crankbaits because new lures always help motivate.

The Fishin' Hole is known for its accurate, over-the-phone, fishing reports. You'll get plenty of fishing related advertising, but the reports are excellent. Stack covers effective baits, depths, active species and lots more.

Roger told me the bass were coming from along drop-offs, and anglers have been catching these fish on dropshots with 7" plastic worms along weedlines during the day. My success had been on black Chatterbaits.

As he has for a few decades, Roger uses the Diving B's, by Berkley, along weedlines in 20-35 feet of water. This is where big pike and muskies suspend and watch for dinner to swim past. Smaller pike and muskies tend to inhabit the weed jungles. As the bottoms of the aquatic plants drop their leaves, pike and muskies have little trouble cruising in search of food.

With the welcomed normal summer weather consistancy, panfish are found in traditional locations including along drop-off and suspended off of drop-offs. Panfish anglers have had excellent success when using ice fishing jigs and Gulp.

By: L.A. Van Veghel - Milwaukee Fishing Examiner

Crappie is a good word

By: L.A. Van Veghel

Ages ago, the “sunfish series” was started. The big fish, the bass, the smaller fish having big mouths, and the smaller fish having the small mouths -- that weren’t smallmouths -- were covered. Most of these fish fed on worms, insects, invertebrates – to be covered soon -- and smaller fish. The sunfish family members preferring smaller fish remain.

Unlike the Model T Ford which only came in black, crappies come in black and white, but not literally.

Due to the Latin alphabetization, the white crappie, Pomoxis annularis (Rafinesque) comes first. “Rafinesque” is the biologist who identified this “annularis” species of the genus Pomoxis.

White crappie start spawning earlier than do other local sunfish. 57 to 73°F is their preferred range. Most spawning occurs between 61 and 68°F, and the fish nests in colonies. White crappie eggs hatch in approximately one day at 70 to 74°F, per a study by Morgan in 1954.

Black crappies, Pomoxis nigromaculatus (Laseur) prefer spawning in 64 to 68°F water, although a low of 58°F was recorded by Siegler and Miller in 1963. Black crappie eggs take longer than do those of their white crappie relatives. 57.5 hours at 65°F was recorded by Merriner in 1971.

Male crappies guard the spawning nests with more vigor than do most other sunfish. Both crappie types build nests near vegetation. Blacks hybridize with whites.

The white crappie has a moderately oblique mouth. These fish inhabit turbid rivers, sloughs and lakes, even over muddy bottoms especially when feeding, and in fast-warming bays in spring. The black crappie has an oblique mouth, and the fish is found in clear, lakes and impoundments having healthy, green aquatic plants providing plenty of prey and oxygen, and in larger streams and flowages, like Okauchee Lake.

Both Pomoxis versions feed on insects, crustaceans and small fish, but white crappies dine on fish throughout the year. Black crappie switch to benthic, or bottom-dwelling, insects during springtime.

Crappie are food for various larger species and when small for yellow perch. Gamefish feeding on crappie include walleye, pike, grass pickerel, and muskellunge. The great blue heron, American merganser, kingfisher and bittern find crappie to be quite tasty. Mink and otter find it easy to catch these sunfish.

White crappie cover the state, except in the very north. Longer living but slower growing black crappie blanket the state including in our northern counties. Black crappies can reach 10 years of age.

Years ago, the Wisconsin DNR found that waters having garfish and crappie produce bigger crappie. Due to less food, crappie in these cases will not stunt.

Surprisingly, non-native, aka “exotic,” carp can help black crappie populations increase by “converting the habitat from a weedy to a more open-water environment” says George C. Beckler in “Fishes Of Wisconsin.” Most cases see the removal of vegetation via weed killing or weed cutting as eliminating plants supporting natural, living crappie food and causing starvation and death.

In a 1957 experiment by Mraz and Cooper, black crappie, carp, largemouth bass, and bluegill were stocked in numerous ponds of the Delafield Hatchery. Five months later, the survival rate was carp in the lead with a whopping 95.5%. Largemouth bass lead the native fish with 49.5% while bluegills fared poorly at a mere 35.8%. Black crappies did slightly better at 44.0%.

Being popular with anglers means crappie have numerous nicknames. White crappie are called silver crappie, pale crappie, ringed crappie, crawpie, crappie, silver bass, white bass, and obvious misnomers such as newlight, bachelor, campbellite, white perch, strawberry bass, calico bass, tinmouth, papermouth, bridge perch, goggle-eye, speckled perch, shad and John Denson.

Many local black crappie nicknames refer to fishing techniques used in catching these fish, and common nicknames are shared with the white crappie.

For white and black crappie, use small minnows and various diminutive artificial baits such as Dick Smith’s Panfish Grubs, Pinkie Jigs, Beetle Spins, curly tail jigs and little crankbaits. The clear metalflake grub body on a yellow with black eyes Dick Smith Grub is the color pattern I created. The metalflakes imitate small fishes’ scales. Yellow and white grub bodies are also good.

Black crappie can stunt when there are too many fish and not enough food. Don’t feel guilty about keeping some crappie for a fish fry.

ICE FISHERMEN BE AWARE OF DRUNKS ON SNOWMOBILES OR ATV’S

By: L.A. Van Veghel

Ice anglers know that they must be aware of speeding snowmobilers who go from tavern to tavern and sometimes from tavern to tavern on a series of lakes and then unsafely speed on ice that is sometimes too thin for these heavy yet small vehicles. Some, but certainly not all, snowmobilers hit speeds to 70 mph on ice where there are open water limits of 40 mph. Snowmobilers have been known to run over ice anglers' tip-ups. I've even had an ice sailboat do that to me on Nagawicka Lake.

Drivers' licenses should be required for operating any powered vehicle that hits those unsafe on bumpy ice speeds where ice pedestrians are on the ice in droves. Drunk people are not supposed to drive cars or trucks. The same should be mandatory for ATV'ers and for snowmobilers. Members of safe-minded, quality snowmobile clubs are given bad vibes by these drunks.

Ice anglers who get drunk and have snowmobiles or ATV's can be equally obnoxious and unsafe, both for their lives and for the lives if other people. Doing doughnuts around their own tip-ups as I've witnessed on Little Green Lake both meant these people caught no pike, and it meant others around them couldn't catch fish due to these drunks' ice cacophony. These people were both unsafe and completely rude. Getting drunk does not mean these irresponsible people own the lakes. Yet, who wants to confront a violent drunk at the time of the obnoxious behavior? Anglers go fishing to get away from this kind of stuff.

Why do we have to put up with these adults who are irresponsible drunks? Let's start giving them "dui" tickets. Drunk driving is drunk driving. Recklessness is recklessness. Fools are fools. Abuse is abuse. Have a happy new year and watch out for ALL drunk drivers.

MILWAUKEE FISHING EXAMINER as printed on the WISN-TV website.

New Year's fishing thoughts are filled with a history of wisdom

By: L.A. Van Veghel

When we need help with anything, it pays to go to the experts for advice.

Anglers can do likewise. To widen our learning experience, we will glean knowledge and advice from sages of the ages. It might be a surprise to many, especially those who are anti fishing to find out that many of their conservation experts from the past were catch and eat anglers.
Audubon, for example, loved to fish and eat his catch.

Aldo Leopold, from A Sand County Almanac: How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstances shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook.

Charles Darwin: I had a strong taste for angling, and would sit for any number of hours on the bank of a river or pond watching the float.

Peter Kaminsky, from Fishing For Dummies, regarding what qualifies as bait: Anything that works.

Robert Elman, from The Fisherman’s Field Guide: Bullheads are the most nocturnal feeders…
Izaak Walton, from The Compleat Angler: The Carp is the Queen of Rivers; a stately, a good, and a very subtil fish…

Sir William D’Avenant, from Britannia Triumphans: For angling-rod he took a sturdy oak; For line, a cable that in storm ne’r broke;…The hook was baited with a dragon’s tail—And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.

Henry David Thoreau: Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish I the sky, where the bottom is pebbly with stars.

Paul Quinnett, from Darwin’s Bass: When I get up at five in the morning, I wake my wife up and ask, “What’ll it be, dear, sex or fishing?”And she says, ‘Don’t forget your waders.’”

No wonder there is a need for column such as this. Thoreau fished in the clouds. D’Avant talked about using big bait, and I wonder what size hook he recommended. Elman would have had to stay up late at night and have visited every body of water to come up with his belief about late night fish.

As long as these sages couldn’t help much, here’s a last attempt to improve our angling in the New Year.

Anonymous: Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet, and they won’t bother you for weeks.

Natural Baits For Panfish

by: L.A. Van Veghel

Here’s a list of live baits that are ideal morsels to use when panfishing. Sure, some bait types are missing, but these are basically “variations on a theme by L.A. Van Veghel.” Newly swatted flies and bees are ideal for use when panfishing for most species.

Small Minnows – Yellow perch, crappies, rock bass, white bass, yellow bass, and also rock bass.
Earthworms – White bass, rock bass, yellow perch, occasionally crappies, sunfish (including bluegills, pumpkinseed, perch, rock bass and crappies.
Crickets – Bluegills, pumpkinseeds, yellow perch, occasionally crappies, both black and white,
Grubs - Crappies, yellow perch, rock bass and all species of sunfish,
Caterpillars – Crappies, yellow perch, rock bass & sunfish,
Hellgrammite – Rock bass, yellow perch & sunfish,
Nymphs – (Examples: May fly or Caddis Fly) – Yellow perch, crappies and sunfish,
Nightcrawlers – Yellow perch, rock bass, warmouth & sunfish,
Grasshoppers – Yellow perch, crappies, & all species of sunfish,
Newts & Salamanders (Small) – Rock bass & warmouth,
Wasp larvae – Yellow perch, crappies, rock bass & sunfish,
Freshwater Shrimp (scud) – Yellow perch, crappies, rock bass & sunfish,
Dragonflies – Crappies, white bass, warmouths, rock bass,
Darters – Crappies, warmouth, yellow perch & rock bass,
Sculpins – Warmouth and rock bass.Cut bait (small) – Yellow perch, crappie, rock bass, white bass & warmouth.

COMMON PANFISH TYPES:

Contrary to popular belief, there are more panfish types than just crappie, bluegill and yellow perch. Our planet includes warmouth, green sunfish, long-eared sunfish, Sacramento perch – It’s a sunfish family member --, pumpkinseed, redear sunfish, redbreast sunfish, Roanoke Bass (Similar to rock bass), spotted sunfish, yellowbreast sunfish, white perch – This one’s a whitebass relative --, and we might as well include the following smaller fish that are not normally included in the larger gamefish groupings. Among these fish are lake herring, bullhead, chubs, smelt, mooneye, eulachon (or candlefish due to their oily skin. These fish were once burned as candles), and the threatened Wisconsin specie the goldeye. Brook trout have the luxury of being panfish but are upper crust enough to also be called gamefish.

This article is not in the continuing sunfish of southeast Wisconsin series that will pick-up again with crappies. This piece augments that series. Look forward to an article on Wisconsin’s forgotten gamefish. See if you can guess what it is.

Here’s a suggestion for a New Year's Resolution for private pond owners. How about switching from importing non-native fish that the history of past species such as silver carp or snakefish shows will end up in our state’s public waters and displace native panfish and gamefish to raising threatened and endangered native fish species? Switching is a great way to help save protected and getting rarer native fish species while helping protect biodiversity in our southeast Wisconsin waters. See what the DNR thinks.

Fish Base Consortium (Fresh water & salt water fish identification) – http://www.fishbase.org/search.php

Rare Fishes - http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/biodiversity/index.asp?mode=detail&Grp=13

Sunfish with small mouths

A late friend used to enjoy telling women a joke ending with the punch line, “The smallmouth bass is the male, and the largemouth bass is the female.”

Not true, of course, but some sunfish family members have smaller mouths than do other family members.

The bluegill has a smaller mouth than does the green sunfish, and this is a major clue as to the size morsels bluegills want both in natural forage and in fishing baits.

Bluegills, Lepomis machrochirus machrochirus, whereby Lepomis is Latin for scaled operculum, or ear flap, and machrochirus means large hand, either in reference to the size of the pectoral fin or that a keeper bluegill is often the size of a large hand.

The bluegill is the panfish of summer and of brisk ice fishing outings. Many people earned their fishing chevrons by seeking bluegills. A large angling portion remains hooked on ‘gill fishing for life.

The #1 panfish in popularity in Wisconsin, bluegills are called bluegill sunfish, northern bluegills, sunfish, common bluegill, strawberry bass, blue sunfish, sunfish, pale sunfish, chainsided sunfish, roach, dollardee, sun perch bream, blue bream, bluegill bream, coppernosed bream, and blackear bream.

True bream, Abramis brama, are not bluegills, since they are a deep-bodied, but thin, yellowish gray fish found in Europe and Asia.

Bluegills dine on plankton and aquatic insects. Minnows, if small enough, fool some ‘gills into biting, but red worms, pieces of night crawlers, garden worms, various grubs including those from acorns and blackeye Susans, are effective.

Find healthy, green aquatic plants; expect bluegill action.

Pumpkinseeds, Lipomis gibbosus, with Lipomis being the scaled operculum, and gibbosus referring to the nearly full moon body shape, are snail crushers preferring cool ponds and lakes, at least for warm water loving sunfish, and shade. The males are aggressive nest protectors.

Smaller than bluegills, pumpkinseeds provide countless fine fish fries.

Nicknames for these colorful sunfish consist of pumpkinseed sunfish, yellow sunfish, common sunfish, sunfish, round sunfish, punky, sunny, sun bass, pond perch and bream.

Orange spotted sunfish are more numerous in southeast Wisconsin than is commonly known by anglers. These orange bellied sunfish that are not as gaudy as are pumpkinseeds, but they do have red or orange tips on their “ears.” They look like bluegills having a more rakish forehead. See flank view--above.

Nicknames for this tasty sunfish include orangespot, redspotted sunfish, dwarf sunfish, pigmy sunfish, and erroneously, a pumpkinseed.

These fish reach keeper size in southeast Wisconsin, and they provide variety in any panfishing outing.

Often being smaller than bluegills, with many welcomed exceptions, “orange spots” feed on insects and were once thought by biologists Barney and Anson, in 1923, to be excellent in controlling the mosquito population.

Orange spotted sunfish are ideal as forage fish for their larger centrachid (sunfish) relatives

The northern longear sunfish isn’t a popular sunfish with anglers because of its small size. These sunnies prefer warm spawning temperatures of 74 – 77°F, and anytime from June to early August is fine with these rascals. They are active on warm afternoons.

The main difference between the central longear sunfish, Lepomis megalotis megalotis (Rasfinesque), which inhabit Ohio south of Lake Erie ­­– Ohio River divide down to Louisiana, is that our northern longear sunfish, Lepomis megalotis megalotis (Cope), has its ear flap extending upward at a nice, rakish 45º angle, a large red spot within the white border, in place of several red polka dots, and by being the smaller of the two subspecies.

Our northern longear sunfish is widely scattered throughout Wisconsin but not in the Superior drainage basin. These fish were more abundant, but they do not tolerate siltation. Like pumpkinseeds, snails form a large portion of their diets. They grab the snail’s foot and crack-the-whip sideways to fling off the snail’s shell.

Common names for the northern longear sunfish include northern longear, Great Lakes longear, longear, blue and orange sunfish, and erroneously, a pumpkinseed.

Many of the sunfish family hybridize, so identification is sometimes difficult.

Watch for part four in this series. It’ll be Crappie Time!!!


NOTES:

First in the Sunfish Series: Meet-Mr--Mrs-Centrarchidae-aka-the-sunfish-family
Second in the Sunfish Series: Sunfish-with-big-mouths

Milwaukee Fishing Examiner
L.A. Van Veghel

Sunfish with big mouths

Three of Wisconsin’s panfish portion of the Centrarchidae family have larger mouths than do bluegills. Well, actually five do, but I’m saving the minnow loving crappies for a later article in this series.

The largest is the northern rock bass whose Latin name is Ambloplites repestris meaning having a blunt armature (Ambloplites), and living among rocks (repestris) per “Fishes of Wisconsin” by George C. Becker, University of Wisconsin Press. Most anglers in our area just call them “rock bass.”

Nicknames for the “rocky” include redeye, redeye bass, goggle eye and rock sunfish with the latter being the most accurate, since the rock bass, like the largemouth bass and the smallmouth bass are not true bass.

As mentioned, these fish are found in rocky bottomed areas where they spawn in warmer temperatures than do other sunfish. These fish are often found in shallower water that warms earlier.

When fishing for bluegills on a lake, such as Walworth County’s Lake Beulah, panfish anglers casting almost onto the shore are often surprised to get a bite in mini-depth water. This is rockbass territory. These fish are seeking terrestrials, that is insects like grasshoppers who end up in near shore water, and any other tasty invertebrate or fish deemed edible. The diet for a rocky is a combination of meat and fish. Think of them as eating what both bluegills and crappies eat. Rock bass are nocturnal, so midnight snacks are common.

The slightly smaller and darker colored warmouth, Lepomis (Chaenobryttus) gulosis, whereas Lepomis means “sealed operculum” and gulosis means “gluttonous.” It can survive in lentic, “still,” or slow-moving, waters having low oxygen content.

This specie is a fairly recent addition to the family. The warmouth had been thought to be the solo member of the genus Chaenobryttus, but it is now considered a Lepomis family member, and Chaenobryttus is considered a subgeneric rank.

The Wisconsin record warmouth came from Eagle Lake, in Racine County, before its current redoing.

Other nicknames for this aggressive sunfish include warmouth bass, goggle-eye (shared with the rock bass), black sunfish, wide-mouthed sunfish, stumpknocker, mud bass, wood bass and weed bass.

Our final triple panfish threat member is the green sunfish. This tasty fish is best described as looking like a bluegill with a big mouth. Green sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus, whereas Lepomis is a scaled operculum and cyanellus means blue, are usually smaller than are warmouth, but occasionally a larger fish is caught. This sunfish can tolerate turbidity.
Green sunfish, like many of the sunfish panfish members can stunt due to inadequate food supply and lack of angler harvest. It can hybridize, making for difficult fish identification.

Among the sound making fish, green sunfish males grunt during courtship.

Nicknames for this inhabiter of lakes, ponds and slow-moving creeks include green perch, black perch, logfish, blue-spotted sunfish, sunfish, little red eye, blue bass, creek sunfish, rubbertail and sand bass.

The green sunfish diet consists of invertebrates and smaller fishes, so it too prefers a combination of the bluegill and crappie menus.

Milwaukee Fishing Examiner
L.A. Van Veghel

DNR on the ball for Milwaukee area salmon anglers

“The salmon are coming; the salmon are coming,” Paul Revere might’ve shouted this if his historical ride was for the benefits of fall, southeastern Wisconsin anglers. Indeed, this is a major fishing event, and it signals fall has arrived.

Here’s what the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says.

50 places to fish from shore within 60 minutes of MilwaukeeNew resources spotlight fishing the fall spawning runs

MADISON – Like clockwork, it’s that time of year when trout and salmon begin staging in the river mouths and harbors – ready to run the course back to their spawning grounds.

Full Story: Click Here

Meet Mr. &. Mrs. Centrarchidae, aka the sunfish family

Southeast Wisconsin is the watery home of the sunfish clan. Members include the largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides, smallmouth bass, Micropterus dolomieu, the aggressive feeder, the warmouth, Lepomis (Chaenobryttus) gulosis, green sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus, the northern longear sunfish, Lepomis megalotis peltastes, with “megalotis” meaning “big ear,” the colorful pumpkinseed, Lepomis gibbosus, the #1 panfish in Wisconsin, the bluegill, Lepomis machrochirus, the more streamlined orangespotted sunfish, Lepomis humilis, northern rock bass, Amblolites repestris, white crappie, Pomoxis annularis, and the black crappie, Pomoxis nigromachulatus.

Full Story: Click Here

Catching fish with books

The most written about sport in the world is fishing. It’s not baseball, football or basketball, and fishing takes in more U.S. dollars than do those top three, in that order, watcher sports combined. There would be more fishing and hunting news in the newspapers if there was more gambling money invested in school tournaments. Fortunately, this is not yet rampant.

Many sports taught in our schools, both public and private, are not performed once students graduate. Schools are supposed to teach classes on things we will do as adults. In sports, it’s most likely we take up a sport that we’ll never do again after our schooling. Most spend their time playing football in school only to fulfill their pro football careers not on the bench but on the proverbial couch. Yet, these “ballgames” are the gambling sports and in the case of football, the sport getting the TV coverage, are bringing in the money to help support the hardly attended other sports operating in the red, such as soccer, tennis, golf, etc.

Golf, bowling and tennis are lifelong sports. Our favorite lifetime sport brings in the most Wisconsin tourists’ dollars after birding, which includes many anglers, and it is often not taught in schools. So we do our reading in a period I call “school afterlife.”

STEELHEAD FISHING ESSENTIALS; A COMPLETE GUIDE TO TECHNIQUES & EQUIPMENT by Marc Davis, Frank Amato Publications, Inc., $29.95, 168 pages with a 100 minute DVD. Steelhead provide plenty of action both in Lake Michigan and in the tributaries during spawning seasons. They are rated by many anglers as one of the best fighting freshwater fish, and they are tasty. Davis’ book puts anglers in the water with their quarry. The DVD brings in other experts along with Davis to show us the techniques, tackle, and fishing action as it really is.

THE GREATEST FLY FISHING AROUND THE WORLD; TROUT, SALMON, AND SALTWATER FISHING ON THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL WATERS by various outdoor writers, with a foreword by noted fly fisherman and publisher Nick Lyons, and photography by R. Valentine Atkinson, The Lyons Press, $29.95, 328 pages. This is a full color, softcover tome that also doubles as a coffee table book. Many of the over 300 photos are breathtaking. The techniques and methods are quite usable in Wisconsin. There’s even an article from noted Western writer Zane Grey, who wrote numerous fishing articles. In this hefty book, we travel the world in search of the best fly fishing, and we bring back these techniques to take fish in Wisconsin. Have a good trip.

L.A. Van Veghel is an Examiner from Milwaukee. You can see L.A.'s articles on L.A.'s Home Page.

Collegiate Bass Fishing Benefits From Extreme Exposure on VERSUS

Almost 80 million households will have access to over 12 hours of collegiate bass fishing programming running through October when VERSUS begins airing 12 hours of collegiate bass fishing programming running through October.

Say what??

Terms such as "Texas-rigged worm," "Carolina-rigged lizard" or "wacky rig" are part of a bass angler's everyday lexicon. But to a beginner, the experienced anglers might as well be speaking Chinese.

The Texas rig is probably the most popular fish-catching innovation in the evolution of bass fishing. The term stems from Nick Crème and Crème Manufacturing, the company given credit for inventing the plastic fishing worm. Crème created a double-hooked plastic worm with a straight tail. He tied the hooks to a leader, and then added a couple of red beads and a propeller out front. People called it the "tourist rig" because it was so easy to catch bass with it.

The rig worked great in open water, but snagged logs easily. Crème introduced an improved version of this rig in 1964. He replaced the propeller with a slip sinker and a bead, and the double hook with one large hook. Crème imbedded the hook point into the worm to make it weedless. He called this the Texas rig.

The basic design hasn't changed much since.

The Texas rig shines for bass around stumps, submerged trees and in weeds, because the hook is nearly snagless and the sinker punches through the cover. A medium to medium-heavy rod with a stiff tip is needed to drive the hook point through the worm and get the fish out of heavy cover.

A Carolina rig is an evolution of the Texas rig. It employs a ½- to 1-ounce egg or bullet-shaped slip sinker slid onto the main line from the reel, followed by two red glass beads. Brass is the preferred material for the weight. Brass makes a better clicking sound than lead when it contacts the glass on the retrieve.

The main line is tied to a barrel swivel. An 18- to 36-inch leader of monofilament or fluorocarbon line goes on the other loop of the swivel. The leader material is usually a lighter pound test than the main line, such as a 17-pound test main line with a 12-pound leader. A wide-gap offset worm hook goes on the business end.

This rig is versatile because it presents soft plastic worms, jerkbaits, lizards, creature baits and even live bait to hungry bass. The heavy weight of the rig allows the angler to follow contours of the bottom while covering water quickly. The Carolina rig is highly effective for fishing large mud flats, channel drops, ledges, sandbars and submerged humps. It is the go-to bait for many bass anglers fishing deep water, especially in summer and early fall.

You can also toss a Carolina rig onto a brush-covered flat or in the middle of a large weedbed. The heavy sinker on the front of the rig punches through the weeds and brush down to the bottom with the soft plastic bait hovering just above it. This method works wonders for bass on Kentucky Lake.

The wacky rig is a departure from both the Texas and Carolina rig. Several theories abound on the origin of the wacky rig, but one of the most often cited involves two novice anglers bass fishing one of the large reservoirs in Texas. They didn't know how to thread a plastic worm onto a hook properly, so they impaled the middle of their Crème Scoundrel worms and let the ends dangle. The worms hung on the hook like a clown's frown.

The pair threw their worms over weedbeds and caught large bass after large bass. When they returned to the dock, a couple of onlookers asked how they did. The two anglers opened their livewells and showed off some huge bass. The onlookers asked what they caught them on and the anglers held up their funny-looking worm rigs.

After some mighty guffaws, one of the onlookers exclaimed that it was the wackiest looking rig they'd ever seen. This was the birth of the wacky rig.

The wacky rig is great for fishing docks and up and under overhanging or flooded trees because you can skip it across the water. The undulating action of the worm drives a bass hanging under a dock or in a flooded tree crazy.

Soft plastic jerkbaits such as the Senko work great for this technique. They also draw strikes fished over weedbeds or stumps by pulling the worm up and allowing it to flutter back down.

Don't let terminology stand in the way of learning to fish for bass. Get out this summer and toss one of these rigs in a lake near your home. You'll soon become addicted.

-- Lee McClellan
McClellan is an award-winning associate editor for Kentucky Afield magazine, the official publication of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. He is a life-long hunter and angler, with a passion for smallmouth bass fishing.

Source: Fishing Wire

Hookers go fishing

By: Milwaukee Fishing Examiner, Lawrence Van Veghel

Hooks were a fantastic, fishing world invention. No longer did sport anglers have to rely on a fish getting a wedge stuck in its throat or deeper. Catch and release had few fish that lived. Anglers had no idea how cutting the line would help the survival rate of released fish.
Commercial anglers used nets.

Before the wedges, sport anglers relied on a fish keeping something in its mouth or swallowing a small fish tied with a long manmade string, such as horse hair, to bring in a bigger fish. Many were lost just because the fish opened its mouth. Spearing was the method by the entire human race.

We now have all kinds of hooks. For pike, many anglers prefer the circle hook. More and better hook sets are made, and the hook can be set earlier. This prevents pike from swallowing the hooks, which in turn eliminates much of the yanking on the guts of the fish and killing it. Bloody guts are not the way to release a fish. Consider it dead, and consider it useless for future spawning.

Plastic worm users for largemouth bass, and now more often with 4 inch worms for walleyes, have hook styles beyond comprehension. There are weighted hooks, bent hooks, colored hooks, wide shank hooks, Kahle hooks, jigs, which are hooks with their own weights, vertical and horizontal presentation hooks, via the positioning of the hook eyes, bait holder hooks, and I’m sure some new ones that are being invented as this is being read.

Large hooks having a strong backbone are used when fishing in aquatic plants (weeds) for largemouth bass, pike and muskie. You want a hook that won’t straighten when you rear back on your rod. The hook should “rip” through the plants. Don’t continue the retrieve. As on the Beverly Hillbillies, let the bait “set a spell.” This is a short period where any gamefish under the weeds at stalk level will hammer your offering. These fish, including walleyes, rarely see baits under the weed canopies. Sure, you’re always cleaning the weeds from your baits; you are fishing where fish live. Fishing in open and clear water has fish so scattered that finding a productive pattern is difficult. It’s like fishing immediately after the thermocline collapse when lakes homogenize. The main difference is the murky and smelly water during homogenization.

The biggest hooks for our freshwater fishing are used for lunker pike, muskies, and by those who live bait fish on Lake Michigan. You want sharp hooks, but they must be sturdy. A big fish can easily straighten a thick wire hook.

Lawrence Van Veghel is an Examiner from Milwaukee. You can see Lawrence's articles on Lawrence's Home Page.

Milwaukee Area Great for Angling

One of the great things about the Milwaukee area is its access to fantastic fishing. While many waters are crowded, due to being within the highest density of fishing license holders in Wisconsin, there are other waters having less pressure than some of the famous “up north” waters. Activity is low on Pickerel, Army, Lulu, Booth, and countless others. The trick is learning the secret to gaining access. Every species the “up north” angler seeks inhabits some lake or river near Milwaukee, and more. By bordering Lake Michigan, Milwaukee and neighboring counties bring even more species to anglers’ boats. Salmon and trout, some of which are really char, are added to the livewells.

In the Milwaukee area waters, you can fish for anything from the #1 Wisconsin panfish, the bluegill, to Lake Michigan’s powerful and fast Chinook salmon and hard fighting steelhead, otherwise called rainbow trout, and to the mighty musky, the state’s gamefish.

Nagawicka, in Waukesha County, is the most fished per acre lake in our state. It produces good pike, dandy walleye, and plenty of panfish, including bluegills, crappies and yellow perch. There are no boat liveries (rentals), yet plenty of anglers launch in the park on the east side of the lake.

2,493 acre Pewaukee, just east of Nagawicka, is home for numerous fine muskies. Traditionally anglers only fished in the daytime for these large predators, but night fishing is beginning to produce muskies, plus walleyes and bass. Many years ago, Joe Ehrhardt caught a 50# musky during gun deer hunting week. He was planning on panfishing in the Madison area, and he and his partner changed their minds. The fish would’ve officially weighed over 50#, but Ehrhardt didn’t realize he had a line class, world record fish. So, on the next day, the fish was officially weighed. It had lost some weight due to evaporation, but it was still just a shade under 50#.

Other near to Milwaukee counties offering great fishing include the small lakes and ponds of Ozaukee County. These waters feature panfish and largemouth bass. Some of these small waters have stocked walleyes.

Washington County has both small and large lakes, plus smallmouth action in the Milwaukee River. Big Cedar serves nice bass and occasional large northern pike. I’ve enjoyed many hours catching bluegills on live bait and Dick Smith Panfish Grubs, largemouth bass on black Mr. Twister spinnerbaits, and pike on trolled crankbaits such as Shad Raps. Not only is trolling excellent in the summer, especially where you find inside turns having healthy, outside edge aquatic plants, but it makes hot, humid and windless summer days more bearable.

South of Milwaukee, Racine County’s waters present panfish, pike and largemouth bass. Wind Lake, for example, also has walleye on its angling menu. The Racine Quarry is stocked with trout, and the Root River, which runs alongside this deep, manmade pond, is excellent for river run fish from Lake Michigan.

Kenosha County offers lakes similar to those in Racine County, and the Pike River is home to river run fish. Yes, Milwaukeeans, it is okay to go south to catch fish. Why not? It’s closer, and gas is no longer a bargain.
We’ll have plenty to discuss regarding the diverse Milwaukee area fishery. The seasons change fish locations and depths. Sun angle does that too. Temperatures move fish around in the lakes, and ice is another factor. We will look at moonlight, high and low pressure systems, rising and falling barometers, and all kinds of other things related to fishing. With my 34 years in area instructional fishing clubs, my experience fishing some tournaments and fisherees, and my 33 years as a published outdoor writer, we can draw on this vast collection of information, and both you and I will learn and relearn all about fishing in the Milwaukee area.Now, go and make sure your hooks are sharp. It’s time to go fishing.

Photos courtesy of the Wisconsin Fishing Club, Ltd., www.wisconsinfishingclub.com/ Joe Ehrhardt’s near 50#, line class musky from Pewaukee Lake.

Webmeister Note: This article was written by Larry Van Veghel. You can see more of what he has to say at: Milwaukee Fishing Examiner

Work A Weedline

As summer progresses, gamefish throughout the Midwest will be found in a variety of areas in a body of water. They are looking for food, and, depending on the lake, food can be found in a variety of areas. In some lakes, walleyes will be feeding on perch in deep water.

In other lakes, largemouth bass will be eating suspended shad.

Northern pike can be found chasing oily baitfish off deep points, and crappies will be hanging out around brush-piles.

And, in lakes that have good deep weedlines, you'll be able to find walleyes, largemouth, pike and crappies along those weedlines. No doubt, weedlines can provide consistent fishing throughout the summer. Here's how to take advantage of those weedlines.

First off, when we talk about weedlines, we're mostly referring to vegetation like cabbage weeds. The weedlines we're fishing are usually not visible above the water, although sometimes the tops of the weeds will poke above the surface of the water.

In some lakes the deep weedline will be in five to seven feet of water, in other lakes you'll find the weedline much deeper, maybe down to fifteen to twenty feet of depth. The clearer the water, the deeper you'll find the weedline. A little shallower or a little deeper than ten feet is pretty common.

Early in the day and later in the day, and on cloudy days, the fish will spread out across the tops of the weeds.

On bright days they'll often be on the deep edge of the weeds near the bottom, although fish don't always do what we expect them to do.

Lots of lures will catch weed-related fish. When they're over the tops of the weeds, shallow running crankbaits or spinnerbaits will be good.

Deeper running crankbaits will be good when they're on the deep edge.

However, many anglers will tell you that if they were limited to one bait presentation for the weedline, they would be throwing a jig tipped with soft bait or live bait.

If soft bait is your choice, go with a five to seven inch Gulp! or PowerBait worm. These baits will catch any fish that's swimming along a weedline. Rig them on one of the new Slurp! Jigs. Slurp! Jigs were created specifically for soft bait.

When the fish are reluctant to eat, the best way to catch them is with a jig/minnow combo. Go with a larger minnow like a redtail. Work it right along the deep edge of the weeds on a Weed-Weasel jig. Weed-Weasels have a weed-guard that enables the jig to slip through the weeds easily.

You want your redtail to be healthy. Keeping minnows alive in the summer can be a hassle, but the aerated minnow buckets from Frabill enable you to keep your minnows in fish-catching condition.

If you want to increase your odds for catching a fish in the next couple of months, go to a good weedline lake and throw some baits around a weedline. You will get bit!

-- Bob Jensen
Watch all the 2009 episodes of Fishing the Midwest television on WalleyeCentral.com in the video section and on http://www.myoutdoortv.com/.

HOT BOOKS FOR WARMER WEATHER READING

by: L.A. Van Veghel

Books have always been a part of my life. While I don’t recall much of my youth, because I’m a live for the moment type person, I do know I always had books around me. Even during high school when books were assigned for book reports and I didn’t read them, I still read books. I just read different books. In college, I made an attempt to read an assigned book. It was “Up the Down Staircase,” and it was definitely not one of my favorites. It was such an unmemorable book that today, all I can remember was that the paperback had a yellow cover. I preferred Tolkien, Heinlein, Asimov, MacLean, and even “The History of Medicine.” I read about interurbans, the North Shore, the building of America via railroads, and I read about tropical fish.

Now, I’m not getting out and fishing as much as I’d like. I’m still reading a lot, but I’d like to read more. I get tired now. I have cancer, and I’m getting chemo treatments every two weeks. My finger tips get needles and pins in them when wet or cold. It’s impossible to feel a walleye or a crappie bite when my fingertips are going crazy.

So I read and gather information for a future outing I hope to have. To me, giving up is for losers. Let’s see what’s happening in the fishing book world.

THE ORVIS GUIDE TO PROSPECTING FOR TROUT; How to Catch Fish When There’s No Hatch to Match by Tom Rosenbauer. The Lyons Press, $22.95 & 208 pages. This is a great book for anglers who like to walk in water. Fishing pools, looking for riffles, how to fish with just the right speed and depth through turbulence, finding oxygenated water, and fishing with strike indicators are just a few of the topics in this 8-1/2” x 11” softcover book. The photos show anglers plying their knowledge and techniques. Nighttime fly fishing is also covered, and the author said that night-feeding German brown trout like the big and bushy, palmer-hackled wet flies. Fly tossers who use artificial ants might like the Chernobyl Ant. It’s quite large. I’d like to try an Elk Hair Caddis. Rosenbauer says it imitates moths, caddisflies, small stoneflies, small grasshoppers, and it floats well. This means you can either use this fly in a loud manner or quietly. When the hoppers are jumping into the water, you can make more noise. Trout are less skittish.

FISHING ALABAMA: An Angler’s Guide to 50 of the State’s Prime Fishing Spots by Ed Mashburn. Globe Pequot Press, $16.95 & 200 pages. Even though I might never fish these waters, I can pick up techniques and other knowledge that can improve my Wisconsin fishing skills and results. Lots of the bass fishing techniques we use have come from B.A.S.S. tournament coverage on TV, plus the shows of many present and past bass pro anglers of various circuits. Most of these shows originate from the Bass Belt, which happens to be the same as the Bible Belt, for some reason.

You can easily tell the author is from Alabama, or a neighboring state. “Bream” is used in place of “sunfish” or “bluegill.” The true bream, Abramis brama, is a freshwater, thin-bodied yellowish fish, and it is not related to the sunfish family. It’s not even similarly shaped. There’s also a “sea bream,” and this is really an Atlantic porgy, Archosargus rhomboidalis.

Alabama offers both fresh and saltwater angling. Mashburn does a fine job of covering the region and its fish, no matter what we call them. We have a common angling bond transversing all colloquial barriers. This book provides plenty of black-and-white photos and some maps. Saltwater species and their hotspots are in the middle portion of the book while the freshwater fish reside in the last section of the book. Mashburn begins his fine book by introducing us to the species he covers, plus adding various techniques and baits to use. A listing of state record fish is a nice addition.

FISHING THE TEXAS GULF COAST: An Angler’s Guide to More than 100 Great Places to Fish by Mike Holmes. Globe Pequot Press, $16.95 & 144 pages. Holmes is no newbie to these waters. He’s fished them since the mid-1970’s, including as a licensed boat captain since 1982. He’s widely published regarding this area and the species living here.

Local saltwater anglers have their versions of Wisconsin’s freshwater panfish. Instead of bluegills, perch and crappies, Texas Gulf Coast bait tossers bring in croakers, sand trout, whiting, pompano, sheepshead, “smaller versions of black drum,” plus the gaftop catfish. The author warns the reader not to confuse this catfish with the similar looking buy not edible common hardhead catfish.

Larger fish include the bigger black drum, which Holmes says is “the redfish’s ugly cousin,” alligator gar, tarpon, striped bass, blue catfish, tripletail and the ever popular snook.

The book goes into areas to fish and numerous maps are provided. As in the previous book, both make me want to fish these waters.

CLIMBER’S GUIDE TO DEVIL’S LAKE, 3rd edition, by Sven Olof Swartling and Peter Mayer. University of Wisconsin Press, $19.95 & 424 pages. How would you like to climb Poison Ivy Wall or Rainy Wednesday Tower on a Tuesday?” Well you can in Wisconsin’s Devil’s Lake State Park. The rock here is Precambrian. That means it is about 1.5 billion years old, and the rock was the bottom content of a large sea. This rock is mostly compressed pure quartz sand that we better known as sandstone. Unlike other sandstone, studying this material under a microscope shows that this quartz was compressed over a long period of time, so that wear from water shows as ripples. This makes the Devil’s Lake sandstone sedentary instead of the faster forming metamorphic quartzite.

Reading through the beginning of this excellent book provides a treasure trove of information regarding the Cambrian Sea and its tropical islands, rivers that are only visible as remnants, the Pleistocene Glaciers, plants and animals, and the effects humans had on the region.

Numerous maps, drawings and photos put the reader right at the locations for climbing. Those aren’t white garden hoses hanging from the precipices. Those are climbing routes. The labor of love for the sport still shows in the 3rd edition. I’ve climbed the quarry rocks, but not the steep precipices. This is a great part of Wisconsin, and Swartling and Mayer show you why.

SWEET AND SOUR PIE: A Wisconsin Boyhood by Dave Crehore. University of Wisconsin Press, $19.95 & 176 pages. Every man that grew up in Wisconsin had “A Wisconsin Boyhood,” so why is Crehore’s youth worth writing about, let along read?

The cover hooked me. It shows the author in his red cowboy hat as the young boy fished from a boat while enjoying the company of his mom, -- and her upside down reel – and presumably his dad who took the picture. I thought, “What a wonderful, warm and happy life experience.” This is a time that is even more fun when looking back. Crehore does that in “Sweet and Sour Pie,” and I’m glad he did.

Yep, there’s hunting and fishing in this book. We even find out that Crehore’s dad might’ve gotten the first Rapala lures in the United States. They tried the baits on Hartlaub Lake, and they worked. Both father and son caught bass on their first casts. These fish had never seen balsa baits, unlike today’s bass that learn a lot in their schools.

David Crehore is a past public information officer for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Besides having stories in Wisconsin Natural Resources, his material often appeared in Shooting Sportsman. In his book, he invites you to visit him as a youth in Manitowoc County. Get a copy and you’ll see that time travel is possible.

ALAN KULWICKI NASCAR CHAMPION: Against All odds by Fr. Dale Grubba. Badger Books LLC, $23.95 & 520 pages. You never know what you’ll learn from a book, and I like trivia. I now know that Milwaukee’s famed WKLH DJ Marilynn Mee was Miss Springer Speedway in 1977, but that’s not the purpose of this book.

Alan Kulwicki is Wisconsin’s #1favorite when it comes to racing. Grubba follows the racer’s life from go cart track record setting runs through the small tracks and on through new model stock and Indie cars. Kulwicki still races the small tracks, but he’s also excellent on the big name tracks. Time goes fast, and I’m betting he doesn’t feel like as much time has passed since he set the Junior Reed Class track record at Wisconsin Badger Raceway in 1970. His dad had gotten him his first cart in 1969. Alan set the senior record in 1972.

Fr. Grubba keeps the story racing forward. Plenty of dialogue makes this book read like the finest fiction. The author also took a majority of the photos.

Badger Books LLC prints interesting books on Wisconsin, and this is a wonderful addition to their published works.

THE BOOMER’S GUIDE TO LIGHTWEIGHT BACKPACKING: New Gear for Old People by Carol Corbridge with artwork by Jayna Harrison. Frank Amato Publications, Inc. $18.95 & 102 pages. If backpacking keeps a boomer like me as young as some of the people in the full color photos in this book, I’m going backpacking immediately. With that minor negative comment out-of-the way, I can say I enjoyed this book. As a dog owner, dog step-father, dog head of the herd, or whatever my dog thinks of me – and I hope it’s nice -- , I liked seeing the backpackers taking along their dogs. Going on vacations is often difficult, more expensive and harder to accomplish when people take on the added responsibility of pet ownership. Should we board the animal, or will Auntie Gracie be suckered into another dog sitting job?

If you want to buy a book that is every bit as efficient as you should be when backpacking as a boomer, this is the book for you. Clothing, bathroom items, food container, including the Platypus 1.8 Hoser, camera, fishing equipment, water, food, such as instant oatmeal with raisons, jerky and coffee, especially on those cold mornings, cooking utensils, foul weather gear, light tents, first aid materials, dog food, sunglasses, and all kinds of other things must be backpack tote-able without making your treks into pure, unpleasant drudgery. Corbridge has several tables that make selections easy. She often carries just 30 pounds with her on weeklong jaunts.

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, “Life’s not over until it’s over.” Cancer or not, I’m going fishing this Thursday.

“Fish on!!!”

Swimming Jig Technique Often Produces Nice Spring Bass

If you're a bass fisherman like Greg Vinson, all it takes to convince you to master a fishing technique is catching one big bass. Vinson's first bass caught swimming a jig weighed 9 pounds, 2 ounces, and today, more than 10 years later, the Yamaha pro still prefers the unusual presentation whenever he's fish- ing shallow vegetation.

"Swimming a jig not only provides an alternative to spinnerbaits," Vinson explains, "but also seems to at- tract larger fish. A jig with a twin-tail trailer is a bulky lure that creates a lot of water movement and vibra- tion but it doesn't have the flash of a spinnerbait. "You're fishing for reflex strikes, and I think bass may hit it because they haven't seen a lot of swimming jigs yet. I really use the technique a lot during the spring, but it works year-round whenever bass are using shallow cover."

Swimming a jig is easy. Instead of letting the lure sink to the bottom, it is retrieved rapidly no deeper than 8 or 10 inches below the surface. Vinson also shakes his rod tip as he reels to give the jig more action. The tech- nique has been around for many years but it has never gained widespread popularity, probably because most bass fishermen have been using spinnerbaits.

"I was getting beaten in bass tournaments on the Coosa River in Alabama where I live," Vinson laughs, "so I learned how to do it out of self defense. The old-timers there had been swimming jigs for 20 years before that, and they were trying to keep it a secret."

The Yamaha pro prefers ¼ and 3/8-oz. jigs with triangular heads and flat sides that come through cover easily; they're made by one of those old timers who used to out-fish him on the Coosa, too. "One of the special tricks I like to use is stopping my retrieve as I swim the jig over the top of a clump of vegetation, shaking it hard for a few seconds, then letting the lure fall along the edge of that vegetation," Vinson continues. "Strikes come either as my jig is falling, or the moment I begin to raise it again, and they're vicious, hard strikes. It's almost as if bass think the lure is invading their territory."

Vinson does not limit himself to swimming his jig over grass and lily pads. He also fishes it around shallow laydowns, through stumps and standing timber, and even over rocks. White/pearl was once everyone's preferred color for swimming jigs because it imitated shad but Vinson often uses black/blue, brown/green, and even brown/orange so his lures look more like bluegill and crawfish.

"Plastic trailers like twin-tail grubs are also an important part of making this presentation successful be- cause they provide a lot of the action," emphasizes the Yamaha angler. "When the water is really clear or if it's cooler, I use a smaller one, but normally, my trailer is pretty bulky. A lot of different designs can be used, but the most important feature is that the trailer have some type of legs that swim or vibrate." He also likes a medium/heavy action rod with a soft tip that allows him to shake the jig easily, and 40 or 50- lb. braided line that improves hook-setting in vegetation. The Yamaha angler prefers to swim a jig in water less than five feet deep and with a slight ripple on the surface, but he has used the technique successfully in both calm and rough water.

Source: The Fishing Wire