Fishing Tip Of The Week

[Lee Borgersen]

Here's a few quick tips that may help to keep your brain charged.

When trolling larger crankbaits behind boards or with a long line, I often replace the manufacturer's hooks with thinner gauge hooks that will penetrate more easily. I almost never keep those stainless steel hooks on any lure, replacing them with quality bronze hooks that I generally sharpen. If a strike occurs while the rod is in a holder, don't stop the boat and grab the rod. Just keep on moving and the fish will usually hook itself. Then grab the rod.
 
When probing new waters from the bank, there are several ways to determine what depths your casts are landing in. The first, the "countdown method", involves using a sinking lure such as a jig, spinnerbait, or countdown-type crankbait. After the lure hits the water, start counting and watch your line. When the lure hits bottom, the line will go slack. Heavier lures sink about a foot per second, but that really doesn't matter too much. Deeper waters and drop-offs will be noted as an increase in your drop count. Slip floats can also tell the shoreline angler the depth. Weight a stand-up style float, set a depth level and cast out. It's best to start a little shallower (5-6 feet), make a long cast and slowly reel in. The float won't stand up any more once the weight brushes the bottom.
 
After a spot stops producing fish on a certain lure, change colors. Often a similar lure in a different color pattern will trigger a few extra fish.
 
 
When a big, heavy lure splashes down on calm, shallower bass water, old bucket-mouth usually darts into the thick cover or moves out over open water. Under these conditions it's best to use a lighter lure that doesn't spook the fish. Bulky plastics such as lizards or jerkworms are excellent choices because they can be cast sufficient distances while using little or no weight. Other favorite presentations include lightweight top-waters such as thin profile prop baits and the hollow-bodied Snag Proof Skirted Frog. If the water has a little color, I'll also use smaller spinnerbaits. When any floating or slow-sinking lure hits the water, pause at least 10 seconds before starting the retrieve. This gives the bass time to come back and investigate the disturbance.
 
 
Healthy fish almost never quit biting for an extended period of time. If fishing is slow the fish are probably in patterns that put them out of reach of fishing methods that are commonly being used on those waters. The fish may be holding deeper or shallower than where most are fishing, or extra fast retrieves may be needed to trigger strikes in hot weather. A common summer problem, especially on lakes receiving heavy recreational use, is that fish are feeding at night. This is often indicated by a small window of flash activity very early in the morning or right at dusk. Another "no fish" excuse can often be solved by trying the open water for suspended fish. They've got to be feeding somewhere. Don't give up, just fish smarter!

*Thought for the day:
  I spend most of my life fishing, the rest I just waste. :fishing2:

[Lee Borgersen]

                         Did you know this tip

There are a lot of neat tips and tricks when it comes to keeping your tools in prime condition, but not all are exactly convenient. Take for example the fact that you can sharpen a knife using a coffee mug—if you bring a mug with you to the field, you might as well bring a dedicated sharpening tool. In the following video, Deer Meat for Dinner explains how you can use a car window to put an edge back on your knife.

Don’t knock it until you've tried it. Depending on the roughness of your window’s edge, it can easily substitute for a ceramic sharpener. While this tip will not work with a dull blade, it will make those chores around camp a little bit easier. Of course, the best option is to always bring along a lightweight field sharpener on longer hunting trips. You won’t always be glued to your vehicle.

Video:

[Lee Borgersen]

                   Barotrauma in Fish: Can we Catch and Release?

I found this article very interesting. It's somewhat long but answers some questions you need to know about.

good read:
http://www.rebeccaeberts.ca/barotrauma-in-fish-can-we-catch-and-release/

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[Lee Borgersen]

     Putting away the ice gear for the season

Extra care now in March will keep your ice fishing gear in good working order until early ice next December.

It’s been a long winter ice fishing season as we now approach the middle of March and we all look forward to the open water season. Many ice anglers have a tendency to just throw their stuff into a pile in the garage and this pile basically stays this way for nine months.

  ............
Taking care of your ice fishing gear and preparing the equipment for storage can eliminate a lot of hassles and problems come next winter.


Here are some tips that have helped me be prepared and ready for more ice fishing down the road.

Auger care

Don’t just throw the auger into a corner in the garage and leave it. You will pay the price next December when you hit the ice for the first time and find your auger won’t start.

Because of the lousy quality of today’s gasoline, always make sure you drain the auger entirely of the remaining gas and even run the auger until the auger dies. Never leave gas in the auger as the fuel will gum up your carburetor and create havoc down the road.

I throw in some gas treatment liquid into the auger just before I run it empty.

Removing the existing spark plug  is a good idea and replacing it with a fresh one makes sense for crisp starts next winter. 

Portable houses

Never store your portable shacks with the travel covers on. Your shack needs to breathe in the off-season and should always be left open when storing it for the summer.

Always make it a point to clean the bottom of the plastic tub and get rid of the old minnows, pop cans and old sandwiches left behind. Leaving this stuff inside the tub only attracts critters through the warm weather months.

A good tip is to leave your portable set up in the driveway for 24 hours before putting it away. This helps to air out the fabric and get rid of the moisture.

A final recommendation is to prop up your portable on some cardboard boxes or old milk crates and make sure you have at least 20 inches of height from the garage floor. By elevating the portable shack you will keep the mice and chipmunks from making your portable their summer home. This also keeps the insects at bay and deters a lot of other pests.

Tackle boxes

These ice fishing tackle boxes are easy to forget about when the warm weather comes around. Never store your ice fishing tackle boxes with the lids closed. A closed lid for a great length of time promotes rust and you’ll end up with a tackle box full of rusted hooks come December.

I always prop open the tackle boxes and let the air get at the contents during the entire off-season.

Rods and reels

Disconnect the reels from the ice fishing rods and store them in a cool and dry place. I always remove the spools from the reels to allow the moisture to escape from the reel innards. No need to lubricate the reels as long as you allow the moisture to escape.

By using some common sense and using these helpful tips, your gear will be primed and ready for action next December when the ice thickens. No surprises at crunch time but instead your gear will be ship-shape and in good order.

[Lee Borgersen]

                   Tip Of The Week

Tips for changing seasons. Remove the batteries from your electronics units and give them a full charge before they hit the shelf for the summer. Store those batteries in your basement and top off their charge in July. They will be ready to go once first ice arrives.


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[Lee Borgersen]

:fishing2:5 Ways To Catch Bass In Hot water

 
       
               

                         
                                 
                                         
                                         


                                         

                                      Look Deeper Boys

                                                 
                                                 





                                                still deeper


 
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Sometimes the beautiful, sunny days of summer can actually be too much of a good thing for fishing. Once water temperatures get into the upper 80s, fishing gets downright tough and bass and other gamefish start getting heat stressed.

Fortunately, there are ways around that, and here are some tips to help you succeed when the mercury’s pegged.

1. Go deep

When it gets too hot in your house, what do you do? You probably turn on your A/C. When it gets too hot for a fish to be comfortable, they move to deeper (and cooler) waters. Temperatures just 10 feet below the surface can easily change by 5 to 10 degrees, which is generally enough to make a fish comfortable.







Look for deeper fish by combing structures like points, ledges, ditches, humps, and brush piles with deep-diving crankbaits, Carolina rigs, and football jigs. Bass will often gang up on likely spots to cool off when the water temperature spikes.

2. Fish at night

It’s a no brainer that the coolest temperatures each day occur during the night, and the fish know it too. Surface temps can drop up to 3 to degrees at night, making it an ideal time for bass to come up and feed.

Night fishing is especially effective for anglers that enjoy shallow, power fishing techniques. The worm, spinnerbait, and jig bite slows down for most anglers once the heat of summer settles in, but that’s not the case for fishermen willing to brave the darkness. You can power fish till your heart’s content at night and cooler water will have the bass choking your baits in no time.

3. Speed up

When the water’s hot, bass seldom feed during the hottest part of the day. For that reason, if you’re going to get bit – it’s usually going to come from a reaction strike. By fishing fast and not giving the fish a good look at your bait, they will strike at it out of instinct instead.

In shallow water, try burning a spinnerbait, buzzbait, or fast twitching a fluke-style plastic jerkbait as fast as possible. Flip and pitch a heavy jig or plastic to maximize the rate of fall. Out deep, try “stroking” a football jig by hopping it hard 3 or 4 feet off the bottom and letting it fall – burning a deep-diving crankbait can also be effective.

4. Find current

Another thing people do to find comfort when it’s hot is to turn on a fan. For fish, that equates to finding some current. Current not only contains more oxygenated water, but it also allows bass and other predatory fish a steady stream of food in baitfish that move downstream with the current.

It’s no secret that fish in most power-generating reservoirs bite better when they are generating current. Check with the utility in charge of your local lake and see when the peak power generation times are and plan your fishing trips to overlap. On natural lakes fish the windy side of the lake, as wind generates a natural current that anglers can take advantage of.

5. Fish shade

You guessed it, when it’s hot; people like to get in the shade. Bass are no different. Whether it’s the shade from a dock, a laydown, a shoreline willow – whatever. Bass use shade to obscure themselves from both predators and prey, something that savvy anglers should take advantage of.

When the sun’s really beating down, if you’re not fishing shade you’re not going to get bit. Try running spinnerbaits or buzzbaits along the shade line of a dock, bridge piling, or laydown. Skipping a stick bait or jig way back into the darkest parts of shoreline cover can also be effective.

                Best tip of the day#6
6." Get off your and get out on the water!"

[Lee Borgersen]

            How to Repair Damaged Boat Props

A little prop damage can equal big performance reductions. This short video shows you how to quickly restore your prop to like new condition.

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Nearly all boaters experience prop damage, which usually results from impacting a hard bottom with the prop. Even minor boat motor prop damage such as nicks and dings can greatly reduce a boat’s performance – usually slower and rougher acceleration and top end speed, not to mention reduced fuel economy. High performance, high horsepower engines usually see the greatest performance reduction, making it important to restore the prop to near perfect condition. Wired2Fish’s Scott Glorvigen shows how to repair minor prop damage with just a couple simple tools and a little know-how.

Video:

[Lee Borgersen]

              Fishing Tip Of The Week

 

 

     Al and Ron: Shorten your leader...


                              with a Lindy Rig:


> Did you know the original Lindy rig came with a 24" leader? Only later was it stretched to 36".  Both Al and Ron Lindner believe that one of the most overlooked and potent of all Lindy-Rig modifications is to shorten the leader even more than the originals.



> "10-inch snells, even smaller," said Al. "The most amazing thing is how well short snells work."



> How short? When Ron first experimented with the tactic, he used rigs with a leader length of 6" to 1 foot. "I like the bait near the sinker itself. I think fish are attracted to the thumping. In effect, you are fishing it like a jig."



> Another advantage of a short leader -- you can set the hook right away instead of waiting long, heat-thumping moments for the fish to eat the bait.



> Shorter is best, Al said, in water 18 to 12 feet deep and even less. Drag it as slow you can. Let the live bait do its job. You can use a lighter sinker and let more line out to increase the angle of the line with the water's surface to avoid spooking fish.

 
  ......more
 

Lee's side  notes:

 

I've been using the for-mentioned method for years. Also When fishing in rocky bottoms (especially reefs). I've also glued a glass Rattle  bead (the kind you insert into plastic worms) to my lindy sinkers to add sound as I bounce off those rock edges. Also keep a can of garlic spray handy for those days of reluctant biters.

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[Lee Borgersen]

          How to Prevent Barotrauma in Fish

      Say What?   Barotrauma in Fish! some folks

         

 


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Hi folks – I have a favor to ask and that is to please click on and watch the following video clip. It is about a unique new way to combat barotrauma (uncontrolled decompression of internal gas) in fish like walleye, bass, perch, crappies, pike and muskies that have a closed swim bladder, using a product I discovered at the ICAST Show.

I think is the best conservation fishing tool I’ve ever come across. And full disclosure: I am not sponsored by the company (called EcoLeeser) nor have they paid me a penny to endorse their product. Matter of fact, they don’t even know to endorse their product. Matter of fact, they don’t even know I’ve reviewed it here. I have been testing the RokLees for more than a year now in open water as well as through the ice, and it is brilliant.

As many anglers know, every 28 feet you go down in the water column represents one atmosphere of pressure. So, when you hook a fish in deep water and bring it up, its eyes bulge and its swim bladder expands because of the reduction in pressure. In the extreme, its blood vessels can even burst and the fish can haemorrhage.

In divers, the problem is known as “the bends” or “rapture of the deep”. And, the way it is counteracted is by a long, slow and steady ascent to the surface often taking half-an-hour or more, so that your body can adjust to the changes in pressure and expel the life threatening gases.

But, that is not feasible with fish. Imagine, taking 45-minutes to land a walleye, bass or muskie that you hooked in deep water. Anglers have looked for other solutions including fizzing, or sticking a hypodermic needle into the swim bladder to expel the build up of air.  Even worse, some have resorted to deflating the stomach sticking out of the fish’s mouth mistakenly thinking it is the air bladder.

I won’t go into all of the cons of fizzing, but know there are very few, if any, natural resource agencies that support the procedure.

Anglers, too, often mistakenly believe that if they reel a fish up slowly to the surface, they can reduce the risks of barotrauma; whereas in fact, a slow retrieve exacerbates the situation and gives the air bladder more time to expand even further.

Indeed, for over 30 years, prior to retirement I worked for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and when I was the District Manager in Kenora, our conservation officers would routinely scoop up dead and floating walleyes following major tournaments with clear evidence (intestines and organs hanging out of the punctures) that the fish did not survive.

Ditto in the winter, when our fisheries’ technicians would put underwater cameras under the ice in popular crappie ice fishing locations and spot dead crappies floating just under the surface of the ice for as far as they could see. The crappies had “drowned” because they had expended so much energy fighting the effects of a distended swim bladder after they were released that they subsequently popped up to the surface like a cork and died.

The RokLees, on the other hand, was developed to safely return these fish to the bottom, or the depths where they were caught. In fact, it was specifically designed for rockfish along the Pacific west coast, where anglers routinely hook the fish in several hundred feet of water. If it works at these depths for rockfish, imagine how well it will perform on walleye, bass and other fresh water fish caught in much shallower water.

Indeed, I recently loaned my RokLees to the fisheries’ consultant working with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources on the Winnipeg and English River systems in Northwestern Ontario. They are live netting and tagging lake sturgeon as part of a population study, but inadvertently, they are also catching extremely large walleyes. Fish in the 10-, 12- and 13-pound category.

They were so impressed with the success of the RokLees for successfully releasing the large walleyes that they immediately ordered several of the inexpensive tools for the technicians.

If you watch the following video clip you’ll see how it works.

 Video:

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