Fish Chaser

Christmas day bass!

2011-12-29T19:29:00.000-08:00

I had some time between visiting families, and the weather was nice, why not? I jumped in the river and stuck a few shallow water bass! Here is a quick clip of one. Not huge, but it is always nice to have a bent rod, and get to try my underwater camera housing.

Ice action 12-17

2011-12-22T06:15:00.000-08:00

I got out for thew weekend and got lots of panfish action,plus a big bass and a pike. here are the photos.

Icing some Sunfish

2011-12-11T05:48:00.000-08:00

A few shots from Saturday 12-10

early ice action

2011-12-04T14:33:00.000-08:00

I got a few bites today, here is a keeper

Fish eye view

2011-11-27T07:33:00.000-08:00

I just got a new flat lens housing for my gopro camera that allows for much clearer underwater photos. Here is one of my first shots, of a slab crappie I just put back in the water. More to come soon!

A few photos from my fall outings

2011-11-21T19:58:00.000-08:00

Some new Fish chaser videos from this fall

2011-11-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

Some new videos, I have been hitting the panfish pretty good this fall, with a few surprise appearances from big toothy fish too!
I will be hitting the river Thanksgiving day morning for some bass hopefully, Ice is forming up north so I will be doing that soon too.

Backwaters action for panfish

2011-11-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

More sumo panfish!

2011-11-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

The deep water panfish frenzy continues, all fish were released. Hot baits were a pink and yellow T.H.E. Jig, and a heavymetal tungsten jig with a J@S Magnum ice mite.

Jumbo Bluegills and slabs! 10-22

2011-10-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

I got up North to chase some big slabs and bluegills with Chad "crappiesniffer" and his friend Joel.
We had a blast nailing big sunfish in 23 ft. I had my best luck jigging nightcrawlers
a foot or 2 off the bottom. The crappies came on a tugsten jig with a little atom jumbo wedgee, I also boated some slabs on a Northland mimmic minnow.

I am getting behind on my blogging since I have got out on the water so often. I still have pike and bass with Dave maas, and backwater action with jack I haven't posted yet

Iceless Ice fishing!

2011-10-20T19:12:00.000-07:00

While many ice anglers are chomping at the bit for cold weather to freeze things up, My short rods and ice reels are getting a workout, by gold stren ice line is getting stretched, and my flasher is lit up like a Christmas tree!
I am just sitting over 10 to 20 ft vertical jigging and getting many nice bluegills and crappies. It is a bit harder to stay vertical and read the line in my float tube in the wind, than it is on ice, but on the other hand, no hole drilling needed, so it all equaled out. Heavy metal tungsten jigs helped it from drifting out too far, and tipping with live bait caused them to hold onto the jig longer, so I had time to see the bites in the wind.

Panfish action 10-1

2011-10-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

I had some great panfish action the first weekend in October up north. I did well with two different presentations. here are some fish I caught on a 1/100 oz hair jig from a blue and white really did the number on the crappies.

Bluegills, Crappies and bass! 9/17-18

2011-09-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

I finally got up to fish with Patrick Kealy Olson this weekend. We had talked about it for a couple of years now. It almost seemed like we had fished many times before, since we chatted often on the internet and seen many pics of his adventures. We had a great time on a couple of lakes in the bemidji area he had lined up for us.
The first day we hit a bigger lake with his friend who had a small boat. We started looking for gills in their usual spot, but it was too windy, so we found a calm cove that had some nice clear water with deep grass that held quite a few bass and a few pike. A few bluegills showed up and were pretty nice sized. I should have got more photos, but I was into getting video clips that I will post later. The one bluegill I got a pic of was 10.7 inches!
The next day we hit a small bass pond his relatives live on, with the float tubes. Patrick went to chase some panfish while I worked the pads with a plastic frog. I got a few right away, they were really aggressive, nailing the frog good, but they were pretty small fish. I went out to the edge and worked a jig in deeper with the same results.
Patrick was in deep water jigging with a short ice fishing rod with a forage minnow spoon tipped with gulp minnows, and hammering the nice gills and crappies. I was wishing I had a shortie too, but had to settle for my 10 ft crappie rod. threw a leech on a jig and dropped it down in around 18 ft, and got a nice big bluegill! It was nonstop action for gills with the leech and nice sized ones too. I decided to try for the crappies, and in place of the leech I put on a purple radical glow tube and started getting good crappies, some over a pound!

Thanks for the great weekend Patrick! It was a blast!

New Topwater frog bassin' video from 9-3-2011

2011-09-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

Bassin' with the topwater frogs 9-3

2011-09-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

I got out in my float tube for a bit of bass action. got some on a spro bronzeye frog, and some on a ribbit buzzing frog around pads and coontail mix. I tried the usual pattern of pitching a jig and pig at the floating cattail bogs with no success. it appears the water has gone down quite a bit in the dry month of August, and it was now not deep enough to hold bass.

A few more bass in the float tube.

2011-08-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

Different day, same lake, same floating bog, same bait, and maybe even the same fish!

Kayak bass fishing 7-16

2011-07-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

I got out in the metro area for some bass fishing from my kayak!
I had a hard time finding them and it looked like a skunk, until I came upon a huge floating cattail bog over fairly deep water. flipping a heavy jig and pig in the pockets got my some good fish, the biggest looked all of 4 pounds

Panfish action 7/3-4

2011-07-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

I met Jack up in Pelican Rapids, and we hit an area lake that was really going for Slabs and big sunfish. Some of the crappies were close to a pound and a half.
My best bait was a 16th oz jig tipped with a 2.5 inch gulp alive emerald shiner colored minnow. Also slow trolling or fan casting a paddle tail plastic put many fish on the line too. Just about anywhere we found healthy stands of broad leafed pondweed, we would get fish.

Float tubing 6-26

2011-06-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

I finally got out in the float tube for a little panfish action . I love being close to the water for great photo opportunities, but it sure is hard on my back for some reason, so I probably won't do it too much.
I got lots of sunfish, mostly smaller, but a few nice ones in the mix, plus some nice colors. Plenty of crappies around, but they were pretty small, same with the bass.
I got some on a hair jig
Also the purple green glow tube bait was hot too, especially for the big hybrid sunfish

Up North panfish and bass 6/11-12

2011-06-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

I got into some more nice sunfish and bass this weekend in the Grand Rapids area, getting them up shallow.
The bass were done spawning, though a few males were still on beds, got some up to 18 inches on a thorne bros 6 inch slug bait. Bluegills were just moving up to spawn though they have not made beds yet, quite finicky as well, not willing to venture out of the thick cover to bite until the sun got behind the clouds and a breeze picked up. I got some on a small hair jig . When that bite cooled off, I tried a small leech on a plain gold hook and was able to get a few more. I went nuts with the camera , so enjoy the pics!

Big panfish from the weekend

2011-06-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

A few of the many panfish I got this weekend. the two biggest bluegills weighed in at 1 pound one ounce. I got some on plastics and gulp, the best bait for the bigger sunfish was small leeches. Most were up shallow near reeds or bulrushes.

Bass opener 2011 weekend success

2011-05-31T17:40:00.000-07:00

I went fishing with Jack this weekend , he was looking for crappies in the shallows and the action was pretty slow, so i did a lot of bassin' my main producer was a bluegill colored 6 inch bass slug on a 5/0 hook, casting at mainly dead emergent vegetation. I got some in the grand rapids area, but most of the big bass came out of mille lacs lake.

The lunker, almost 21 inches and very fat with eggs. I think it is over 6 pounds, but Jack's scale only gave me 5 pounds 9 ounces. still in my top ten all time biggest bass, and number one for smallmouths

Opener 2011

2011-05-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

I got out on the opener for a little while, and ended up getting 3 nice pike. Another boat near there was throwing spinnerbaits and seeing a few follows but not hooking up. I went with a larger crappie plastic with some flash hoping to get their attention and it worked. I all got two smaller bass and no crappies.

Friends Dave, Eric, and Andrew out trying their luck...

Finally out on the water 4-30

2011-05-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

With the cold weather this spring I just have not been interested in fishing once we lost the ice, but I finally got out on clearwater lake with lowell to check out the tournament spots. Totally blanked on the spot I wanted to fish, the fish were still in early ice out patterns, finally ened up going into the shallow bays just to get some action, got a few panfish, it was nice to get a few, but i am not liking this setup for the tournament saturday, with below normal temps most of this week too, I don't know where the fish are going to be, probably still in the bays. yay, with 50 boats in them haha!

Super shallow panfish on plasics 4-9

2011-04-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

I got out to the Alexandria area for what could be the last ice outing of the season. I found many panfish really close to the bottom of the ice, mabye feeding on flies emerging in the holes, or on baitfish eating the flies.
You could see them clearly, I made a few videos of strikes I will post later, but they were skittish about any movement above the holes and I got more and bigger fish staying back from the hole and watching the line. The best bait was a jumbo wedgee in red glow or pink, got some on black too. Also iced some fish on a 1.5 inch radical glow blue tube.

Weekend panfish frenzy 4/2-3

2011-04-05T18:49:00.000-07:00

Me and Andy decided to do another up north panfish chase for the weekend. it landed us on a small lake up north of grand rapids where I heard from a few that panfishing was great. We got to the landing and saw there were still trucks going out. the landing looked pretty rough, but I figured if I got up enough speed I could make it trough the water fine.
I was right, but unfortunately I did not see the ruts out about 500 ft from the old ice road covered in a slushy layer of snow. My right side wheels whent down in that and I was stuck good. Good thing Nathan was there with his big 4X4 to pull me out. It came out easy, and I was able to drive back to dry land! Greg Clusiau from the life and times in the great outdoors blog was there too and got a good laugh at my ice trucking flop.
Finally got to fishing and it was a slow start with small perch and a few sunfish. We then tried by a point and I got a nice rockbass and a few sunfish. then they had to go, so I got a ride back to the landing and parked my ranger closer on the road and walked down to keep fishing. as the day wore on the bite got really good, with lots of nice bluegills, then nicer crappies moved in to finish the day.
Sunday we woke up in grand rapids to slushy snow falling with nasty winds.
we decided to scrap our plan to hit leech lake and head south. Doug was out on Pelican lake near Monti and gave us a great report of a good bite and sunny weather. we ended up going down there meeting up with Doug, Terry, and Boone and getting a bunch of nice panfish again. there was actually a hatch going on with flies emerging from the holes.
I wish I had pics from sunday, but I forgot to put the memory card back in after loading pics from saturday.

Day 2 perch frenzy on leech lake 3-27

2011-03-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

Me and Andy stayed overnight in grand Rapids hoping to hit my favorite bluegill spots sunday. We got there early and started getting fish right away, then they moved. Tried another spot, same thing, then another, same thing. then we tried the first holes again, nothing, It got really tough totay on them. I called Nathan, a guy that fishes the area often to see whats up. He said he was on a good perch bite on leech, so we left the sunfish behind and drove out to chase perch. after some searching around different holes we ended up sitting on a couple of holes that produced non stop action in 16 ft. they would hit just about anything, but waxies and spikes paqcked on a jig seemed to get the best results. No huge Jumbos, but we took home a bucket of nice keepers

Icey weekend day one 3-26

2011-03-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

I got out for some crappie action Saturday. I met Doug and his Son Collin, and a few of his friends on a spot that produced well last year. we had great ice conditions, the whole lake was my parking lot with over 3 ft of solid ice and just a few deep snowdrifts to dodge in my Ford.
I was hoping to put on a clinic on those slabs and had a good start nailing some really nice ones on a heavy metal 3mm green with a j&S icemite. But then I started having a tough time marking fish. That is when Collin really took over the show, he would hop around picking a fish here and there still fishing with a jig and waxworm, then he would go in his Dad's tent to warm up, where he would catch some more! Nice job!, he got the most, and big fish with a 13 inch mule too!

Doug got some great shots of my with my big crappie, nice! thanks!

golden crappie

Collin with a slabbosaurus

Ice vacation day 3 back to the bluegills!

2011-03-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

Day three had us back on our bluegill spots, the fish were moving shallower, and we had to drill a bunch to get back on them, but it was well worth it. nuggies and ice mites worked well for me, but others got em on waxworms too, we also got up early sunday and punished a few more, before the all too soon time to go. Thanks to everyone who made it up, it was a great time, and we will have to do it again and again and again!

Day 2 tullibee and perch action

2011-03-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of my up north "icevacation" had up trying a few lakes rumored to hold massive panfish. the first one we tried deep and shallow and all depths in between, we found mediocre perch from 5 down to 40 ft. Then the chase continued to a different lake. We found some abandoned holes in 20 ft and soon we were on agressive biting fish! Only they were all tulibees, which no one seemed to want to catch. we fished em for a while then headed to catfoot souix, where we heard a panfish bite was going. We fished quite a while in many different spots and got lots of perch,some nice sized onmes mixed in. but no pan fish.
I wandered out to where quite a crowd was gathered, but they were not getting too much, a few medium sunfish, and no slabs, so I headed back with our group and was content icing some more perch. Then something came in around ten ft down and annialated my jig and nuggie. It fought good and near the end, flashes of silver down there had me thinking 2 pound plus slab, but it ended up being a large tulibee.

First day of my ice fishing vacation! 3-17

2011-03-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

The first day had me drilling many holes looking for bluegills, and find them we did! mine were caught on a tunsten njig 3mm with a pumpkin pepper nuggie tail

Panfish frenzy 3-13

2011-03-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

I got out for a day of panfish chasing with lawrence, who I met at the NAIFC tournament in febuary.
we hit a couple of spots he has done good in earlier in the winter, and had some action from mostly smaller fish with a few decent ones mixed in.
Then we hit the inside edge of the big community hole, and found very slow action with only a few small sunfish. We decided to hit some new spots that haven't been fished all winter. the first was a bust, drilling 20 holes and not even seeing a fish on the flasher.
We moved in towards another shore about a hundered yards and tried again. we had fish right away with me losing a large bluegill near the hole.
Lawrence had some holes cut a bit shallower and really started nailing the crappies, so I moved that way and joined him for non stop action for 2 hours or so. They were almost right under the ice and quite aggressive. We got our fish on little atom jumbo wedgees, but they were hitting so hard I could have cast a 8th oz roadrunner down the hole and caught them. I was hoping for more bluegills mixed in though, so we stuck with the smaller baits, and got some good gills mixed in with the slabs.
Lowell came out and some of lawrence's friends too. the fishing slowed a bit but we still were getting em good. Another feeding frenzy toward the end of the day and we had to leave the bite to get off the lake befrore dark!

lawrence, he was a fishing machine!

Lowell with a nice slab

Como lake kids ice fishing clinic pics

2011-03-08T19:24:00.000-08:00

We got out on Como lake and cut lots of holes in shallower near the pavillion, but no fish were marked in any of them. I was thinking they O2 levels were down, so I moved out deeper closer to the areators were, but not too close, the ice was still 2 feet thick. I dropped a jig down and soon had a big hungery school of crappies willing to play. we got to drilling about 50 new holes in the area for the kids clinic. That scatterd the fish quite a bit and made the bite pretty tough when the kids got there.
I rigged up a palm rod with a 2 mm jig with larva and that was enough to tempt a few finicky panfish and perch to bite!

We tried quite a few tricks to tease those skittish fish to bite, here they try double teaming, using the scratcher and tapping the rod to impart the right movement in the bait .
the best thing seemed to be a slow lift with a light shake or vibration...

Rush lake Pike!

2011-03-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

I was out on Rush lake looking for crappies, but catching bluegills and pike.
The first two pike I was able to get them to drop the hook, but this one would not let go, it was solidly hooked in the tip of the lip with my last 4 mm gold tipped with a pumpkin pepper little atom nuggie.
I decided I wanted my jig back so the fight was on! He first made some hard runs, I just let go of the handle and used my fingers on the edge of the spool to slow him down. then it slowly came towards me, trying different moves to snap my line, but gave him enough slack to keep the 2# stren intact, and soon it was over! I don't know why a big ol pike would bite a panfish nuggie, but they do! Got a few pics and sent him back to his buddies. I dont think he told them how he got whooped by a 9 dollar rod, 6 dollar reel, and 2# line haha!

pond hop 2-18

2011-02-25T06:02:00.000-08:00

I got out to a small pond where they were planning a kids clinic to scout it out for fishy spots. as soon as I got there it started to snow pretty good. I whent to the far end of the pond where the fishing pier was think that would be the deep area. wrong! only 5 ft
I started cutting holes towards where I got on. it started dropping off.
No fish were marked on my flasher, but I did pull up some small shiners while cutting holes.
Then I got the call that the event was canceled because of the snow.
I fished a few of the holes, even using a
my super micro palm rod to see if I could hook a shiner or tiny perch, but the snow was piling up and I had to drive out of the valley with my 2 wd ranger, so I bailed. Skunk!

Birthday bluegills 2-19

2011-02-24T06:09:00.000-08:00

I got to spend my birthday chasing my favorite fish on East rush lake Saturday. I found a pretty good bite around 8 ft with lots of bright green pondweed. I got 50 or so gills and kept a dozen nice eaters. A gold 4mm tungsten with a pumpkin pepper nuggie got my fish today.
Then jack bought me a burger that was great at flickabirds resort.
This coming Saturday is jacks birthday, so we are going to the same place, only we will be after his favorite fish, crappies. Though I bet I will "acidenally" nab more than a few sunfish too haha!

Morning pond hopping

2011-02-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

Now that we are having longer days, I am able to get out and wet a line before work. I think I will explore little potholes around the metro area and see what I can come up with.
Monday had me out on a small pond near the airport in Richfield. I have to travel light because I need the space in my pickup for work. just two rods, a folding ice auger, and my A-rest chair is all I had.
I got going a bit late and only had a half hour to fish. I found some holes froze over with only a inch that were easy to open up. I dropped a gold jig and nuggie, and dropped, and dropped. it was over 30 ft deep!
Now I was wishing I had my flasher! I worked the bottom 10 ft of water in a couple of holes without so much as a twitch of a bite in my line.
I cut a few holes towards shore, and worked my way shallower. my last holes were near shore, and it was still 12 ft! No bites and time was running out! I grabbed my other rod with the indicator and a 2 mm jig, baited it with a half a waxworm in hopes of at least a small one to dodge the skunk. then work called, they had a rush run I had to go like, now!
Looked like the skunk got me, but i looked at my rod and the indicator was straight down. must be a tangle I thought. but as I pulled in I felt something wriggling, yes, a fish! whoohooo! still no skunk for my yet this winter!
More pond hopping reports to come next week!

Rods locked and loaded!

Mighty perch, came to save my day!

Sunday on Tonka 2-13

2011-02-14T18:59:00.000-08:00

I had a good time sunday chasing some panfish. they were still up in the shallows and willing to bite jigs with plastic tails or larva with ies and sunfish, with a couple of largemouth bass in the mix.
It was kind of spotty, with lots of hole hopping needed. get one or a few, then on to the next hole. It was nice not having refreeze issues with the warm weather!
Thanks for coming out Mark, Jack, Dave and Andy. Special thanks to Dave for buying us pizza and delievering it on the lake, that was great!

Chisago panfish tournament pics 2-12

2011-02-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

We had some great weather for this event and the crappies came out to play!
During practice the weekend before, nicer crappies were hard to find, but they found us this weekend. i think just about everyone got some good ones. both deep and shallow tactics were taking fish. We got alot of ours in shallow grass,with many hitting right under the ice.
The sunfish were biting well too, getting them on larger plastics meant for crappies even. The key to winning was to find the larger sunfish to go along with the crappies. Congrats to Pat and Chad for two wins in a row!!!
See everyone on Rush lake!

Sunday Chisago Sunfish

2011-02-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

Panfish chasing on Chisago was pretty good, with sunfish all over the shallows willing to bite plastics. Not huge, but they make up for it with brilliant colors!

Afternoon had the Rodger brothers grilling up some burgers, yummm! thanks guys, and we had a nice little Thorne bros/UPL get together!

Holes for Heros fishing report

2011-02-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

I had a great time at this event! I rode up to medicine lake with Dave Lindmark of GEM fishing, and Darius, one of our regular fishin' kids.
We got there and found a huge area plowed off the lake for the event, but no holes drilled yet. So me and Dave got out our augers and started to make the ice look like swiss cheese.
I am sure glad I had my Tanaka power auger with the 6 inch nilsmaster bit, that made cutting those holes a cakewalk!
Aftyer around 200 holes, we got our lines out to see what was down there, I was dissapointed to find it was only 10 ft, but there were some perch down near the bottom willing to play, so that was a relief!
During the event, Dave found an area where the bluegills were stacked pretty good. I set up there for the rest of the day , and got many kids to give it a try. the fish were willing to bite and many young fishers got to catch their first fish ever through the ice!
Plus many got to learn hnow a flasher works, how to hook a larva, tightlining, and watching a springbobber. One kid won a prize for smallest fish caught during the contest from my hole, a .01 # sunfish!
We had over 400 hundred participents for a very successful event!

Early morning panfish action

2011-02-04T16:39:00.000-08:00

We finally got enough daylight to make it worth getting out early before work for some panfish chasing!
We decided to go back to Minnetonka, and see if any more of those monster mules was in last weeks spot. If they were, they didn't bite! But we had lots of panfish action making it well worth getting up for!
I decided to travel light, since I need to keep space in my truck for work all day. I grabbed a couple of rods and my folding A-rest chair and a box of jigs and plastics. I did not use a flasher, didn't really need one as we were in 9 ft. I got mine jigging up and down in the lower 4 ft mostly.
I tried the blue radical glow tube rigged backwards on a eye candy jig before it got light. I had one right away, and got a few more too with it.
I like to try new things when the bite is good, helps me gain confidence in them.
I got most of my fish on a gold tungsten with a glow nuggie.

Minnetonka Panfish report 1-29

2011-01-31T17:08:00.000-08:00

Fished Minnetonka for the UPL panfish tournament Saturday.

We went out to a point with some good grass on it that was loaded with fish, that we found two weeks before.

It looked like it was recieving little or no fishing pressure, so we were pretty confident we would do well.

When we got there in the morning, some of the top teams were already cutting holes on it, haha.

One spot was still open where I caught a nice slab before, so we cut our holes and got to fishing.

We found loads of crappies just waiting for us, the hot lure in the morning was a two inch plastic tube with a 1/32 oz jig inside. They would come in as you were lowering it down, then I would shake it a bit and they would hit pretty hard.

We had our 8 specks in the bucket in 15 minnutes, then worked on upgrading size.

The bite started to slow and I downsized to a gold 4mm tungsen with a glow nuggie, and put a couple of decent crappies on the ice.

I decided to let Jack continue to chase the slabs, and start working on bluegills and they were stacked in the grass and ready to bite. a 3mm heavy metal tipped with a red J&S ice mite gave me constant action, as long as I moved every 15 minutes or so.

After a couple hours, the plastics bite waned, I switched to larva and started rearing on more gills and a couple of bass. We ended up with 7 # foe 15 panfish, not a bad pail of fish for tonka!

UPL tournament results:

http://ultimatepanfishleague.com/Pictures_Results.html

A few pictures from the tournament

Pelican lake NAIFC panfish tournament report 1-23

2011-01-24T17:43:00.000-08:00

I got to fish the National Ice Fishing Championship qualifier on Pelican lake Sunday. Though I have fished many panfish and bass tournaments, this was our first NAIFC contest.
We decided to practice two days since we never ice fished the north side where the tourney was, and the south side we only fished once 2 years ago. The first day we fished in the community holes near the shanties to get an idea what kind of water people were fishing. We found some fair fish and lots of dinks, but thought mabye we would fish there.
The second day of practice had us looking for some fish in new spots not getting fished so hard. We found an area that looked promising, with the right depths and plenty of good green pondweed, with some sparse stands of milfoil and coontail mixed in, and some patches of weed free hard bottom. there were tons of fish on this spot. No really huge ones, but all the keeper crappies and gills I could catch.
I was really thinking it would take a huge catch to win, so I was a bit concerned with the lack of lunkers.
On Tourny day, we decided to head to our new spot, hoping that the noise and fishing pressure would keep the catches down in the areas most were fishing.
It did have put the bite down quite a bit, but not enough, most of the best weights came from where we were the first day.
We ended up with a mediocre tournament limit that consists of 8 crappies and 8 sunfish.
We startede out for crappies and they were pretty easy to catch with fish flying up almost to the hole to grab my forage minnow spoon, or jig and plastics.
lots of good keepers around a half a pound. I think we may have spent too much time with the crappies trying to get a big slab or two for the "kicker".but none came.
We then hit our bluegill holes, with plenty of fish waiting for us. Unfortunately frustration set in as all we could get were smaller gills. The nicer 'gills we had in practise were nowhere to be found.
I tried downviewing with my camera to see if they were down there and just not biting, but they were not. then finally a decent bluegill came in and gobbled my jig tipped with a wax
worm. But I got excited and set the hook too hard, snapping the line (choke) and got to watch it swim away with a new gold lip ring! uggh, wouldn't have helped anyways without more.
We were running out of time so we couldnt make a big move, so we just kept trying to upgrade the sunfsh without much luck.
The crappies also got in the way with much time spent pulling those in between the sunnies.
We had a good time though and we will be back next year! The tourney was run really well, Hats off to Jack Baker, Mike McNett, and every one who helped make the event a success.
Also good job helping with the kids, NAIFC pros! When I was 4 years old, someone took me ice fishing and it changed my life for the better for sure!
Also impressive was some of these teams, having never fished the lake before, took the time to help these kids ice their first fish, then went out and still placed well, you know who you are.. You are truly "icemen" ! well done! See ya next year!

Red sky in morning, fish take warning:

Cold start! around 15 below zero couldn't stop these guys and gals from chasing down some panfish!

A decent slab I caught during practice on a JR's pannie pill and radical glow tube

weigh in time

Jack was busy here, I believe he did all the bucket transfers! wow!

I peeked in one of the buckets and saw this toad. It got mye thinking I would see some monster weights, but it turned out to be the only hawg caught!

the big one at the weigh in, and a nice prize too!

Congrats to some of the Thorne Brothers pros who did really well !
Lonnie and Dustin taking the win, and Chris and Juan also cashing a check and qualifying for the Nationals next december! well done!

Chris and Juan reveal some of their sucessful stratedgy

Lonnie and Dusting capture "the Wood"

Weekend up north Bluegill frenzy

2011-01-11T20:07:00.000-08:00

I got into some great action with the bluegills this weekend. They were in 17 ft of water just outside the weedlines. my best bait was a 4mm heavy metal jig with various colors of nuggies. green pumpkin, red and black, and motor oil, where good. Also got some on the jumbo wedgee two tone black and silver.
I also got some on spoons. I caught at least 70 between 8 and 10 inches. I needed a good weekend, fishing has been tough so far this year!

Pool 8 crappie chase

2011-01-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

Jack had some great action last week down there on the backwaters of the Mississippi river last weekend on the way home from Christmas with his family in Iowa. Catching nice panfish and some jumbo perch. So we decided to head back there for some more this weekend.
Weather changes and high pressure changed the fishing alot this weekend.
No jumbos were to be found. We really had to work for the bites we did get, bluegills came on the 4mm heavy metal jig tipped with a waxworm. I got a few on a nuggie tail, but they did not seem to want to take plastics that well.
Crappies, though theye were really scattered, were more willing to hit a lightly swimming mini eye candy with 2/3 of a green glow LA jumbo wedgee.
We were fishing in 5 to 7 ft. the water was quite murky, we couldn't look downn the hole and see them even that shallow.

Below zero sunrise

Ice conditions have improved dramatically with the snow washed away and the cold temps, but I think these guys are jumping the gun with their full sized trucks!

Some slabs

A few panfish

2010-12-27T19:10:00.000-08:00

it has been tough chasing panfish with all the snow and slush, hopefully I can start getting out more soon, but walking in this stuff is getting pretty painful, we need a good thaw and then a cold snap, to make travel easier.
Not a lot of action for me yet this winter. had a pretty good gill bite the day before the UPL on peltier, but that was not happening for me during the tourney.
We got into a few crappies yesterday evening.
Hopefully I will get out to the backwaters next weekend, I have heard some good reports and am in need of some good fish action!!

North metro panfish chase 12-12

2010-12-13T17:04:00.000-08:00

I got out for a little panfish chase Sunday. We were not even sure we could get on the lake with all of the new snow. Fortunately, a lot of the snow had blown off, but there was plenty to make it a tough walk. A snowmobile would have been nice.
We couldn't get to the spots we wanted to fish, but we found some scattered fish in the basin of the bay.
I got some Gills and perch hole hopping, using a gold jig with half a glow nuggie.
towards evening I fished with Jack in his portable and we got a pretty good flurry of gills and crappies before sunset. I didn't get too many pics because it was so cold the fish would freeze almost instantly on the ice.

Panfish, walleye, and bass, oh my! Alex area chase 11-28

2010-11-29T18:11:00.000-08:00

On a tip from Chad of hungry fish and solid ice, me and Jack headed up for a piece of the action!
We were not dissapointed , the ice conditions were excellent, around 6 inches thick with just enough snow to quiet our steps over the shallow roaming fish!
I went out to where it looks like people were fishing before with frozen over holes. Soon had a fish on. They were in a weed bed about a foot off the bottom. They were quite fussy, but I found the smaller tungsten jig with a nuggie tail to be irresitable to them. We also got a few largemouth bass and walleyes on our panfish tackle, fun indeed! Chad came out later in the day and iced some good fish too.I am glad I got this chase in, it looks like I won't get out again for 2 weeks, I will be at the ice fishing show next weekend. Hope to see you there!

Look real close on this one, you can see my reflection in the lure!

Chad fishin in the sunset

This is what the sky looked like when we got off the lake, no color changes done at all!

Ready to chase some fish on ice

2010-11-27T17:44:00.000-08:00

I got my vexilar all ready to go, just need some hard water and some fish!

Blog change

2010-11-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

There are some small changes to my blog. It is now going to be fishing stuff only, since I have 3 other blogs for other stuff now.
Bye bye,"MTbucket"
I am renaming it Fish Chaser, because that is what I am! I got the idea from the Virgil Ward Championship fishing TV show from the 70's I used to watch when I was a kid.
They had a song in the beginning that started out with this line: "" From the lakes of northern Canada, to the gulf of Mexico, wherever fish are biting, thats where we're gonna go"
I have chased fish from North to south, though Minnesota is where mose of the action is for me.
So it will still be the same blog, just no posts about other things besides chasin' those fish

More dock panfish action 11-20

2010-11-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

Hit the docks again saturday, the bite was better later in the day, I started out finessing some gills with a tiny heavy metal tungsen jig tipped with a nuggie tail.
When the slabs started moving in, I upsized to a 1/32 oz eye candy with a red glow jumbo wedgie. They were hitting pretty hard when they came through, so larger summer time plastics probably would have produced too.

"iceless ice fishing"

Some slabs and gills. the biggest close to 13 inches...

Panfish off the docks

2010-11-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

I got out for a little panfish action off some docks. Since all the panfish chasers I know are putting away the boats, this will be the fishing I do til ice fishing starts.
I pulled these from about ten feet down, on SDIs new heavy metal tungsten jig, tipped with a little atom glow nuggie.

Weekend of halloween fishing

2010-11-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

I got out Saturday with casey for some bluegill action. it was slow compared to last year, but found enough action to keep it interesting, including this 10 # plus bowfin on 2 # test!

I got a few nice bluegills on a 1/16th ounce eye candy glow jig tipped with some crawler at 18 feet, near the bottom. we also got a few nice crappies, though we didn't really target them.

Halloween had me and ben newton out in his boat near the dam, jigging for walleyes.

the water was much higher than the week before, and all the spots we got them last time were so full of leaves we couldn't even hardly fish.

we finally found walleyes near the rocks and in smaller eddies and current seams, we also got a couple of football shaped bass, all with a 1/8 ounce jig with a fathead.

Alexandria report 10-9

2010-10-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

I got out with Jack in his boat Saturday for a little panfish and bass action on Lakes geneva and Darling. I got quite a few decent crappies, earlier they were shallower and I got some 2 to 3 feet down near weeds with a light jig and a float.
Later in the day I was tightlining with a 1/32 oz sdi eye candy jig with a yellow radical glow tube.
I also got a few largemouth bass in the shallows around docks and weed edges on a black and blue senko worm.

Typical crappie, not monsters, but nice keepers.

Tried to "catch" some fish with my camera. I was really impressed with how much air the crappie got, they usually don't fly!

Finally got out and caught fish

2010-09-28T18:37:00.000-07:00

I got out for a few hours at the luther Dell fall Retreat, when Dan Pilla invited me to go out in his boat on Boy lake Saturday. They started off fishing pike and I was just going to relax and take some pictures, when one of the guys started catching nice perch on a rapala.
Soon I grabbed my crappie rod rigged up with a SDI eye candy jig 1/32 oz with a two inch power minnow, and started working the shallow weeds. It was a sight fishing bite with many fish hitting near the boat.
We had some fun with that, til I saw another boat getting some bluegills near reeds. I moved us over to some reeds and one of the guys rigged up with a bobber and leech pulled in a big one near 10 inches. Soon we all were flinging leeches at them and we got a good mess of gills from eight to 10 inches!

New email

2010-08-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

I have got wireless internet now so I am dropping comcast. my new email is MTs.bucket@gmail.com

New Blog

2010-08-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

I am starting a new blog for pics not related to fishing, so I can still blog when I am not fishing without cluttering up the bucket! MT outdoors pics. it is now on my blog collection on the side.

Big Sandy fishing 8/14-15

2010-08-18T03:58:00.000-07:00

Me and Jack got up north for a bit of crappie chasing. We met up with crappie keith and Boone, and they showed us where the action was. light jigs tight to visable cover put most of our fish in the boat.

I love the color of the crappies in this lake, some are golden, and some are darker green, like this one.

I also went out in Keiths boat on another lake looking for walleyes. though eyes were not on the menue for me, I got some pics, and enjoyed riding around in CKs boat and trying to dodge rain showers.

These clouds looked ominous, but only produced a few showers and some wind, but no lightning or thunder til they were well past us.

More crappie action

7-3 multispecies action

2010-07-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

I got into some multi species action pitching 1/16th ounce jigs with plastic slider grubs and 2 1/2 inch gulp alive minnows around the edges of weeds that were getting hit good by the wind. I got a coupple of good walleyes, bass and lots of panfish. Depths of 5 to 12 ft were best and I got some down to 17.

I am going up to GEM camp for the week so I will not be on the internet all week. have a great week everyone!

went for walleyes, got bass

2010-07-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

I tried for some walleyes on both the outside and inside weedlines and hard to soft bottom transitions, working a red glow tube on a leadhead. I found bass everywhere willing to bite, and a few small crappies.

"smallmouth" bass? hehe

After Work Pond hopping

2010-06-24T20:09:00.001-07:00

I was out in the west metro waiting in my pickup to see if I would get anymore work, when I decided to get out and walk around by a small lake that I drive by all the time but never seen to much fishing going on. I was at a park and saw thick green weeds all around making it hard for shore fishing, but i rounded the bend and found a small dock. I walked out to the end and saw some tiny young of the year sunfish darting about, then I saw something swirl in the lilly pads! I went back to the truck and got my rod, rigged it up with a jig and a yellow glow tube, and gave it a go. i was hoping it would hold some big green sunfish, since it was a shallow pond known to winterkill.
I flicked it under the dock and nailed this nice hybrid sunfish.!

No more action under the dock after that, so I turned my attention to the slop where I saw some fish movement.

And quickly nailed this chunky bluegill. not huge, but it sure has one mean looking bump on its head!

I kept working the heavy weeds and missed a couple, then was rewarded with this nice colored bull 'gill

I then got a small greenie with a big appetite, then that was it for that spot.

I wanted to get some more action somewhere, so I went north a ways and tried some other ponds I drive by from time to time. The first pond had the species I was looking for, but they were pretty small, plus there was a ton of annoying 7 inch yellow perch to contend with.

medium green

small but fat green

even small fish have good color

I found another small pond on the other side of the hill that had crystal clear water. not a sunfish to be seen, it seemed to be full of small largemouth bass and nothing else. I had a little fun with the bass and called it a night.

tubin for panfish

2010-06-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Tube, referring to both my boat, and my bait.I got some good action with a 2 1/2 inch red glow tube on a 1/16th ounce eye candy glow jig. the glow really called in the fish in the very murky water.Another thing that worked well was a small salmo hornet lure. The fish were shallow, and appeared to be done spawning, though there were still some bluegills on beds. I could see some of the strikes as the fish would often times come right up near the float tube, mabye curious at the noise and bright colors, but I would drop the bait down and they would nail it. I had to use bigger baits because there were a lot of 7 inch largemouth bass around that would instantly gobble anything that would fit in their mouth!

Crappiemasters on Rathbun

2010-06-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

Me and jack hit our first Crappiemasters tourney this weekend at lake Rathbun IA, we got there thursday for practice and found a tough bite. At least for locating the bigger fish. they would bite fine if you could find them. There were tons of 7 inch "cookie cutter" crappies everywhere from 3 to 40 ft, and if you used to small of bait you would be catching one almost every cast. The water was 10 ft high from the rains in the last week flooding much of the brush around the shorelines, and the water was like a chocolate milkshake in color. You had to get your lure right in the wood to get bit by a bigger fish. Once I made a perfect cast with a big jig and gulp minnow under a slip float near a tree and it went right down. I reared into a huge slab, only my "slab" had wiskers! Yep it was a catfish, dang thing jumped two feet out of the water when hooked too! We decided on a cove to fish about 5 miles from the landing where we got a few fish up to 13 inches, and talked with others who said they got them up to 14 in the spot.
We had perfect weather for 2 days of practise, but tournament day of course, was anything but!
We waited out a thunderstorm before heading out. Then we find jacks bilge pump was not working, not good! As soon as the lightning stopped we headed to our spot and fished for mabye 15 minutes and got a couple of small fish, when a new storm came rumblin' in!
We waited on shore for quite a while til it was done and the rain started filling the boat. We then got back out and the wind started blowing bad, muddying up the water even more with huge muddy whitecaps. We fished a bit more, but it was futile, and more dark clouds were coming so we decided to cross the lake to get out of the wind. Well got about half way across and the rain really let loose! Finally we got out of the waves and we took off for the landing, er we tried to, but the boat was too full of water to get going. Ended up stopping at the nearest landing and jack got a ride back to where the truck was while I got to sit in the boat and wait.
When we got the boat out we drained it, and headed to the weigh in site to see what was going on. then the sun came out and it got nice, so we put thew boat in to fish the last two hours. We ended up getting enough fish to fill out our limit by jigging around the flooded willows not to far from the landing. They were not too big, but we were not sure, mabye everyone struggled too, so we weighed in. Soon there was a big line at the weigh in, and we found out that some teams did get some good slabs despite the weather. the winners got 7.85 for 7 fish, better than a pound average. Well it is good to know there are big fish in there, we will be back next year to try again!
Crappie masters Rathbun report

Nice day on the lake

cookie cutter dinks

my 2 pound "slab"

Jack at the weigh in with our little fishies

Huge line showed up with fish to weigh in

look at those mules!

Some nice ones were caught!

See ya next year Iowa slabs!

Big Panfish action 5/29-31

2010-06-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Me and jack hit some good panfish this weekend. Water temps were in the upper 60s, perfect for shallow panfish seeking, and they were not hard to find! We started off in the alex area and were getting a bite on just about every cast sight fishing plastics around docks and pencil reeds.
We got some pretty good sized crappies up to 12 inches, the sunfish were mostly small to medium. We decided to head further up north to look for bigger fish. we ended up fishing some lakes up by pelican rapids, and found nicer fish on the same patterns, though many crappies were in the thickest cover and you couldn't see them, but they couldn't see us either, I got many nice ones by using a long rod and dropping it in the holes in the reeds, watching my line, almost like ice fishing. My best bait for the weekend was a black and yellow culprit paddle tail. I got some nice ones on gulp alive minnows and plastic twister tails put fish in the boat too, mostly tightlining or sight fishing with 1/32 oz leadheads, though we did use some floats when we found pods of fussier "gills. We also caught lots of bass and rockbass, a few pike too. All fish were releases except 8 crappies for dinner.

Nice "bull" 'gill

Jack got this Mule toward the end of the last day. He saw the fish and worked it for quite a while befor it gave in and bit!

slab for me. they were like cookie cutter fish11 to 12.5 inchers all over!

bigg gill

nice seed

Bluegill beds in an Alex area lake

very red redeye!

Weird blue sunfish, very vivid blue coloring, the photo does not do it justice. Mabye a mutant or hybrid or both?

mean looking 'gill, look at that tooth!

crappie release

Weekend fishing 5/22-23

2010-05-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

I got out on clearwater saturday morning befor the GEM even and we got some nice panfish before the storm hit in the shallows. long casts with a weighted float 3 ft above a small jig with a paddletail toward the reeds.
Sunday we went out to waconia sunday and found really warm water over 70 degrees. We found some crappies in the shallows. the spawn is just about over, the fish we caught were spawned out. Then we moved to another area and found huge areas of very hungry bluegills! Thet were really feeding getting ready for their spawning time. Some males were already starting to make beds. we got some nice ones on whatever we cast that would fit in their mouth. I forgot my camera memory card in my computer so no pics sunday, bummer!

Nice black crappie

nice bass on the crappie pole!

One very nicely colored pumpkinseed-greensunfish cross!

We got out again for a bit in the evening with Dave and Eric from GEM , but nothing much was happening

Bj'sBait & Tackle 20th annual crappie tournament

2010-05-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

Jack talked me into fishing this tourney finally after a few years of trying. usually it is easy to do, but the catch is, I would have to find another partner and would have to fish against him (ulp) because he has been fishing it with his regular partner Wayne halvorson for 10 years now.
I don't have a boat in working order now so I tried to get a couple of guys with boats interested with little luck. I pretty much gave up, when i was at a Thorne brothers seminar I saw Kyle Sandberg, and he was talking to someone about his boat, so I ran the idea by him, he didn't think he could, but he called me the next week and said he wanted to, so I let him get us entered and all, since he lives close to the bait shop. We didn't get to prefish at all because I had to work and he was going to school, but I fished with Jack a few times earlier in the spring and had a pretty good idea where i wanted to fish.
We got the boat in and got to take off 29th, Kyle has a nice boat and it is fast too, we got to the first spot in no time.
My game plan was to fish some humps out in the middle of the lake that top out at 5 ft. The wind was blowing pretty hard and I wanted to move along the edge of the breakline and cast up onto it, hitting pockets of weeds and hard bottom where the large slabs were scattered in verious spots. It took me only 3 minutes to relize it was not going to work, with the extra wide 17 ft boat with a tall windshield and only a 55# thrust bowmount, the wind pretty much had its way making pin point boat control impossible.
We soon gave up on that and tried throwing an anchor, that didn't work, it didn't hold at all, threw out the other one and it finally held after some drifting.
We tried that a couple of times but after an hour of struggle and not a bite I completely lost confidence in fishing out there, I decided we better get out of there and try to get out of the wind.
I wanted to try a bigger bay with a point that came out into deep water with a small hump on the end that me and jack fished a couple of times earlier this year. there was not much there at that time, but with the weeds coming up, I thought it could be good.
We got there and found it pretty windy there too, but not impossible at least. and it was raining ice pellets too, then the sun would come out.
We got on top of the hump and I cast a paddle tail under a float off the drop off on the end of the hump, and it went down right away. it was only a sunfish, but that was a good sign. there should be weeds and bugs, and hopefully crappies. We anchored up on top and casted out over the edge with our floats set around 3.5 to 4 ft down . I nailed a couple more 'gills, and then the first crappie!
I got a couple more keepers, then the bite quit.
We then pulled anchor and moved around with no action so we decided to got right back to where we had the first fish. I switched to a 1 inch gulp alive minnow, and go a nice slab right away. Kyle switched up and got a good one too. It was on and off but pretty slow. We tried repositioning the boat, and I put on a tiny northland mimmic minnow fry in perch pattern, and that really got em going. Kyle was trying some bigger plastics and a small spinner bait with no bites. I suggested he try something smaller and he put on a 1 inchgulp minnow, and soon got a nice fish. with time running out I wanted to get the boat on top of the end to try some jigging. We found a nice area of standing weeds that were holding our fish. we were positioned good for my to fish off the deep side, and started nailing fish, one big one then a bunch of small ones. Kyle stuck with his float casting to the shallow side of the weeds. he noticed hit float lift slightly and set the hook, he got it to the boat and I got it in the net, a big mule crappie at 1.55 pounds, that turned out the be the second biggest fish of the contest!
Soon we had to get in for the weigh in. Jack and Wayne were at the dock, they stuck it out in the middle of the lake and it paid off, they ended up with 10 fish that weighed over 11 pounds! We had 10 for 8.75
He beat us by over 2 pounds! I thought we wouldnt even finish in the money, after seeing Jacks fish, thinking othered must have got into the mules too! there was no need to be concerned, we ended up second! Way better than I thought we did!
It was a fun event (once I got out of the wind) and had a good turnout of 100 teams. I will have to make this a annual even. I am glad it is the only time I have to fish against Jack this year!
BJ'S Bait and tackle crappie tournament Top 15 catches

Boats ready to go

we were waiting to hear 29!

blast off time!

got this big one, but it is the wrong species! would have been nice for the UPL though!

Kyle with his big slabosaurus

i meet jack at the dock, one look into his tank revealed he beat me good! I was not suprised.

Jack and his catch. I will get him next year hehe!

Long line at the weigh in. many were dressed in their ice fishing suits to fight the cold wind

Bucket of slabs getting the weigh

big fish 1.6 pounds!

waiting to hear the results

The champs!

Sunday fishin'

2010-05-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

Got out Sunday for prefishing for the big crappie tourney on clearwater lake. Unfortunately, it was too windy to search out the main lake reefs that hold the big slabs. We also found the spawn has yet to get started. We ended up in the back bays to get out of the waves, we found a few decent slabs with an occasional largemouth bass or sunfish in the mix. saw a bowfin, but couldn't get it to bite.
A 1/32 oz jig with a culprit paddeltail did it for me, mostly tightlining, but I got a couple with floats, and one nice one sight fishing around some emerging pads in real shallow water.

Float tubin' action 5-1

2010-05-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

Me and Casey hit a lake I have heard has big panfish in it. We fished hard for over an hour with me not getting a bite, and Casey getting a largemouth bass. He mentioned a small lake he heard might have some fish, and would be small enough to get out of the wind. I was skeptical, but the smell of skunk was approaching, so I relented, off we were to try a new lake. We got there and it was barely a lake, more of a pond, but it was nice and calm, so we put the tubes in and kicked out past the thick curleyleafed pondweed. Soon we were into fish, they were everywhere, mediocre crappies and nice 'gills. along the weedline and out suspended in the middle too. I did not have my sonar and couldnt get depths, but it didn't seem that deep. We got all panfish, no pesky pike or bass. We got them all tightlining plastics on 1/32 oz jigheads, cast and retrieve, slow troll behind the tube, or vertical jigging worked good. the best bait for me was a red and white glow tube. Casey got some on a paddel tail too.

Someone call the fun police! he is having way too much haha!

Afterwork fishin' 4-29

2010-04-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

I got out on Waconia with jack for a couple hours of crappie fishing. I thought they would really be smacking with the warm day and the storms coming. That was not the case, they were finicky. I through a rattlebass with no response but a few bumps. Went down to a 1/16th oz roadrunner with a paddletail, and coaxed a few but it was still slow with short strikes. Switched to a 1?32 collarless jighead with a black and yellow culprit paddletail using a slow lift and drop retrive with an occassional pop to free it from the weed in 4 to 78 ft did the trick. Nothing huge, but enough to make it interesting.

Rainy day crappies 4-24

2010-04-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

The wind and rain were stirring up the water and the crappies were biting. Working throught the weeds with a small jig and tube produced a fish on almost every cast, but many were small. I switched to a roadrunner with a two and a half inch gulp minnow, and that kept the smaller fish off, but I was missing many strikes. I then switched to a cordell rattle bait with two trebles on it and got a way better hooking percentage. I got a lot less bites, but the fish I got were keepable sized. Not huge slabs, but fine for metro area lakes

After work panfish

2010-04-23T05:32:00.000-07:00

I got to go out for a couple hours chasing some panfish with a couple of friends thursday.
The water was really murky so I tried a 1/16th oz roadrunner jig that had some flash and made some noise in the water, tipped with a crappie thunder plastic, a little larger of a bait making it easier to see. I also got some on a red and white glow tube.

Some of my fish for the day...

Andy

Casey got some slabs on a Slider plastic.

Weekend crappie frenzy

2010-04-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

The crappies were biting again on tonka, with the warmer water they are up on top of the weeds 4 to six feet down. I must have caught 40 on saturday, and another 30 sunday afternoon, many were smaller but anough keepers made for a good day.
I got most of my fish on a blue glow tube, that was hot for me, tightlining with hi vis fireline, slowly letting it glide down, when the line stoped fish on! I also got some on a little atom jumbo wedgee. Jack got plenty of fish on a jig and 2 inch power minnow below a float.

they really ate those plastics this weekend!

Jack tangles with a Jack fish hehe

A few for the pan, yummmmm!

After work crappies

2010-04-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

I met jack out at Tonka for a couple of hours of crappie chasing.
We started out on a weedy flat in around 4 to 7 ft with no action. then we tried some back bays, found some warmer water but no panfish, just carp and small bass.
We tried outside of the weeds and found them from 8 to twelve ft of water, some hit on the drop, others were down near the bottom.
I got mine on a 1/32 oz CT jig with doublestacked nuggies, jack got some on a 2 inch power minnow.

Shallow panfish action heats up! 4-4

2010-04-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

Nice weather after Easter dinner had me checking out some lakes for shore fishing possibilities sunday. The first lake I went to didn't look good, the spot that usually is on fire on warm spring days was dead, dirty water and quite a few dead bullhead and sunfish floating near shore didnt help my confidence. after a few casts I bailed and went to check out another small lake. I got there and the water was clear, though really low. I cast out a jighead with two nuggies a foot below a float, as soon as it hit the water it was gone! it was a small bass, next cast boom! a nice 'gill. after that it was non stop action with gills crappies and a few bass.
I tried a panfish flyrod popper behind the float and they really ate that up too.
I tried a crappie thunder plastic on a roadrunner and nailed a nice crappie right away, but then started getting small bass. Switched to hair jigs and those worked well for the sunfish, towards evening switched to a black and green culprit paddletail and wacked some good crappies, they kept biting even after I could not see the float, but i could still feel the bites. A great way to kick off the season!

Nice sunfish 8 to 9 inchers

A few green carp couldnt resist the tantilizing nuggies even though they were stuffed with shiners already!

crappie thunder!

"slab daddy" jig caught only 'gills today

they were hitting topwaters good too

Monster blugill on ice derby results!

2010-04-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Some nice fish guys!

First place goes to Jim Kusuda with this monster sow gill at 10.5 inches!

Second place lance Bainville with this nice 9 7/8 slab

Third place with a 9 1/4 inch gill is Steve Fleckenstein

Nice fish guys! the open water event that includes gills and crappie division will soon commence!

Ice season closer a crappie frenzy!

2010-03-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was chasin slabs again up in the Alex area, the bite was up shallow , I could see the inside weedline through the ice and drilled a bunch of holes along the edge. The fish were right umder the ice and willing to bite plastics. I tried larger power minnows and tubes but they would not take them so I downsized to a 2 mm fiskas with a glow nuggie, and that worked well. Some did ok with waxies, but they had many small bluegills to contend with. Me and Jack ended up getting over 100 crappies and 'gills.

Doing the crappie dance:

Here is the line of holes I drilled that goes out for quite a ways. The fish were so shallow, you can see no one was using flashers since you could look down and see what is biting.

More slabs and 'gills

A few for the pan

Early spring panfish bite 3/20-21

2010-03-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

A couple of warm sunny days had me out on the ice to get some panfish action before the ice melts. Saturday during the get together there was lots of crappies scattered on a gradual drop off from 18 to 24 feet. just off a shallow bar. many holes were cut already so I just got to hole hopping marking fish in most of them. I usually got one out of a hole then I would have to move. Had to work for them, but caught many nice crappies and a couple of good 'gills and perch along the way.
I got my fish on a 4mm fiskas jig in various colors with a glow nuggie with the ball cut off.
I also tried a new ice line made by cortland that looked yellow in the store, but out in the sun it really glowed bright green making it easy to see. When I got a bite, instead of just setting the hook, I would drop the rod tip toward the hole and with that hi vis line, I could tell right away if I had a fish on, then set the hook. I found I missed a lot less doing this, and they would be hooked deeper in the mouth instead of on the tip of the lip, making it harder for them to escape.
Sunday found a few of us fishing a small 26 ft depression out near the mouth of a creek. The fish were there pretty thick for a couple of hours and were biting pretty hard. the average size was better too.
When they slowed down, we went and tried another spot that was hot last week, but the fish had moved out. Returned to the other spot only to find no fish. tried drilling holes in another smaller hole nearby with no sucess. Returned to Saturdays spot to find fish still there but tight lipped, got a few there then called it a day. Good way to end the ice season!

More late ice action 3-13

2010-03-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

I headed out on Saturday with Jack and Casey or some panfish chasin' We found lots of fish on our UPL spot shallow, but they were tight lipped for sure, suprising for this late in the season. 2 and three weeks ago they were hammering spoons with gulp minnow heads, now the only way I could get them was with a tiny 1/80 th oz jig and the smalled plastic tails I had. I managed to ice some nice crappies before the bass and smaller gills moved in and took over, 10 ft deep with fish one to 2 ft off the bottom.
We moved out to deeper water and found lots of specs still stacked up in deep water, from 28 to 40 ft down in 50 ft! Same bite here, they were reluctant to take bigger baits but wanted to hit a tiny jig, needed a splitshot to get it down, and they were biting very light too, couldn't even detect a bite on my noodlerod, went to my st croix with the lite strike indicator, and that did the job just fine. Jack used a TB spring and did well too.
Ice was suprisingly thick and the accesses were still good, we could still drive all over, but I am sure that is over now.

Nice pounder

plenty of bass were in the mood for small jigs too, every time I hooked one it felt like a 2 pound crappie, til i got it near the hole!

"pumkin-gill" hybrid sunfish

More largemouths

Some of the crappies got bugeyed after pulling from the depths, once we got all we wanted to keep we had to call it a day.

clearwater UPL action

2010-03-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

The ultimate panfish league had its last event saturday, and it was a good one. we found some good fish in one small area near the landing that were willing to bite. we had a couple of other areas to hit too, we thought our first spot was too small to produce enough fish, our plan was to get as many as we could and then move. we never had to though, we got our limit of good fish there. Jack iced a big slab that went 1.4# ! After the contest we spent the rest of the day out there and I got a few pics of some of the action sunday evening as well. The fish were all shallow around 9 to 10 ft mostly. small jigs with plastic or gulp! got most of them.

Ultimate Panfish league results

Nice slab

Lots of pesky bass were chasing our pannies around, we must have caught ten at least!

Lots of bluegills, but most were on the small side

Some of our slabs, including Jacks big Mule!

the late ice bite is starting

2010-03-01T18:27:00.000-08:00

I found active panfish sunday on some north metro lakes in 9 to twelve foot of water, the sunfish were coming up off the bottom and the crappie were around 3 to 4 ft up. I got the crappies on a northland forage minnow spoon tipped with a gulp! alive minnow head. The sunfish were on a red gill getter and gulp! alive fishfry. I also landed some pretty good bass, but didn't have my camera at the time.

Pumpkinseed!

Powernoodle

slabs

gills

crappie action 2-20

2010-02-22T17:20:00.000-08:00

I found crappies as deep as over 30 ft during the day, up to as shallow as 7 ft down at dusk. The best bait for me was the gold forage minnow spoon 1/16th oz tipped with a gulp! alive minnow head.
I also got some on a gill getter with a black one inch gulp fish fry.

Rush Lake UPL

2010-02-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

me and jack fished the ultimate panfish league on Rush saturday. We started out fishing in a deep hole for crappies with mostly small fish that were really fussy. we got our 8 and got out of there, trying a couple of spots we hit last week in shallow water and found only small fish. Finally got into some fish on a weed flat in 9 to ten feet of water. we drilled lots of holes and started looking for schools ofr fish in the weeds. we got a mix of bluegills and crappies, a few decent ones with lots of small ones to sort through. I also lost a crappie that felt really heavey, didn'yt get a good look at it though.I got most of my fish on a red glow gill getter with a red 1 inch gulp! alive fishfry. I was not confident going into the weigh in, our fish were not too big and I heard rumors that some teams were into the bigger crappies, but they were just rumors after all, and we stayed in first place until the last team weighed in. they had some nicer crappies and beat us by over a pound! nice job Chris and ryan, winning your second rush lake UPL! We will be back next year!

A couple of keepers at the weigh in...

A few gills I got

Saturday panfishin' 1-16

2010-01-18T19:51:00.000-08:00

I got out for some panfish chasing and found some in 7 ft in the weeds. I could see them come up through the weeds on my flasher on the low power setting. One inch Gulp! alive fishfry got my fish for me. it was a tough bite, you really had to tease em up a bit to get them to bite.
in the afternoon me and Jack looked for some deep water to get some crappies. We found a few out in 30 ft close to the bottom. they would be slow to come up, but was able to nab a few, nothing of any size though.

First fish for me, a nice 9 inch gill. it was the biggest of the day though.

pretty perch

future slab?

shootin' the bull with jack and some guys from CKOudoors

more sunfish

Weekend panfish action 1/9-11

2010-01-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

I got to spend a long weekend with Jack,Casey, Andy and friends for some panfish chasin' We were fishing a shallow lake with a max depth of 21 feet. we found schools of fish roaming the basin, they were active and willing to bite, but after a fish or two they would be gone and I would have to change holes til I got on them again.
I started off with a 1?100th oz t.h.e. Jig black and white. Got some fish upsizing to a Lindy's rattling flyer spoon with a genz bug instead of the treble for a hook.
My best bait for the day was a red northland gill getter sized 12 with a red berkly Gulp! alive fishfry bait.

MT's 2010 monster bluegill on ice derby.

2010-01-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

Leaderboard

Some nice fish guys!

First place goes to Jim Kusuda with this monster sow gill at 10.5 inches!

Second place lance Bainville with this nice 9 7/8 slab

Third place with a 9 1/4 inch gill is Steve Fleckenstein

Nice fish guys! the open water event that includes gills and crappie division will soon commence!
Who thinks they can catch a huge Gill through the ice? Enter it in the MTs monster bluegill on ice derby!
It starts this weekend, and goes til the ice is gone! Why didn't I start this at the beginning of the ice season? because I just thought of it now!
Just catch a monster bluegill, and if you think it could be the big one, take a pic, post it on this thread, or email it to me and I will post it on the leaderboard on here! I am going by length, not weight, since most don't have the best scale for getting an accurate number.
Take it on a board so it is touching the "0" side, and whatever the tail toutches, that is your length! Here is an example:

Also, to verify that you caught it this year, put your name and "2010" on a piece of paper clearly readable and inclue it in your picture.
Entry is free and open to anyone that is fishing through a hole in the ice.
No dead beat up or frozen fish will count, take a pic right when you catch it, that is when they look best!

Here is the prize, not a new truck or anything like that, but not bad for a free contest, a framed "2D lifesize replica" of your winning catch. Here is a one I made last fall:

happy fishin'

MT

Newyears pannie action!

2010-01-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

I got out this weekend fishing up on Big Sandy lake for newyears day and the day after.
I started out with the plan to hole hop with my fishtrap picking off the more agressive fish and moving to the next hole. I put on a bro's gill getter with a Gulp! alive fishfry on my Thorne Brothers power noodle, and nailed a few crappies. Conditions were tough and put the crunch on my plan, there was lots of slush under the powder making my fishtrap feel like dragging a pile of bricks, and it was nasty cold and windy, with winchills near minus 30 degrees, and blowing snow filling the holes. Finally I gave up the moving and camped on a hole. after I picked off a couple of hungry crappies, the fish went negative. I downsized to a ckoutdoors T.H.E. Jig, 1/100 oz black and white, and used my St. croix legend lite ice rod with their spring tip to detect the light biters.
When fish came through, I was able to get them pretty good with that approach and put together a pretty good day. nothing really big , but it was fun. CK was fishing in his Otter right next to me showing Troy how to finesse those light biters, when he hooked into a monster gill well over a pound!
Saturday we woke to minus 32 degrees, (not the windchill) We went out on Billhorn bay, and they had a road plowed out so we could go right out to the hole with no work. CK invited me to fish in his big portable shelter, an otter lodge, that was really nice, very comfortable and relaxing. I stuck with the black and white hair jig all day, as it was working pretty good. they were really negative and had to be teased into biting, sometimes lifting them up a few feet, other times slowly dropping it on them while carefully watching the spring for anything suspicious looking! it was a fun way to fish, kind of like a chess match only fishy. We did'nt hammer em left and right, but the size made it worth the wait for each bite.
What a great way to ring in the new year!
Best fishes in 2010!
MT

Out in the sun with a sunfish!

In the otter with a crappie

Nice Mule

Some nice gill shots

CK cookin' up some good grub

Slab

the big one

Another nice slab

the Big gill, 10 5/8 inches and well over a pound!

Our harvest for the day

Icey sunset!

metro panfish action. 12-26

2009-12-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

Casey called me to see if I wanted to do some fishing, he didn't have to twist my arm. he picked me up early and we hit a NE metro lake for the day. we had to drill quite a few holes and search, but when we found them, they were willing to bite on light jigs with plastic. casey had some glow Gulp! alive fish fry baits, that really brought in the fish. we caught around 60 or 70 bluegills and crappies and a few perch.

casey with a nice sunfish

more good sunfish

took a pic of a crappie getting a pic taken

Ultimate Panfish League tourney on Peltier lake

2009-12-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

We had another successful UPL tourney with 20 teams showing up to chase slabs and bulls. The bite was pretty tough, with more subtle action on smaller lures paying off. The best bait for us was a ratso plastic. I tried a lindy fatboy with a micro nuggie, also tried red spikes. Jack outfished me pretty bad in the morning, til I finally switched to the ratso, then I got some decent fish too. Jack got the biggest fish early, with a .9# bluegill!

Contest Results here

ready to fish

weigh in time

Nice new leaderboard!

weigh that big gill

another good catch

Bob weighs in

Our catch, over 8 pounds of tasty panfish

The ice fishing season started for me

2009-12-14T19:16:00.000-08:00

With the cold air comes ice, lots of it. what is a fish geek to do? well go fishing, thats what! Saturday brought me to the CKoutdoors get together. We got there in the morning and got into a few nice crappies. I used t.h.e. jig in 100 oz size to get a few. I also used a JRs tungsten jig with red larvae. I tried a dropshot with a plain hook, but the line kept freezing to the ice, so I couldnt get that slow drop I was looking for. But mainly it was good getting to know some other anglers, and cookin up some good food. Sunday had a few of us from the get together hit a small lake looking for big gills. they were pretty tight liped this day, the few we did get were real nice though, a couple over 10 inches were caught. I went out to the deepest hole and found lots of crappies on the edges that were much more willing to bite. I caught around 30, but no huge mules, but some were caught up to almost 14 inches! I used a lindy fatboy with red larvae for my fish, I don't know what the big fish bit on.

A nice pair of slabs to start the season!

speck!

pickling sized pike, fun on micro tackle for sure!

jigging up some slabs

another crappie

we got a few gills too

lunch time!

it was this big!

hammer handle

fat crappie on the power noodle

golden crappie

gill action

Tiger on a fly!

2009-11-20T04:47:00.000-08:00

Jim Bonin (fishface) caught this the other day while fly fishing for bass on the river. He was pulling in a bass, when Mr. musky decided to have a bass supper! He fought with the beast for a while until it devoured the unfortunate bass, then it munched on his black woolybugger fly for dessert!