WP as white perch added to acronyms list.
Very good self introduction to the forum - WELCOME. I went to grad school at CMU Mt.Pleasant. Good times in Mid-Michigan.
Thanks so much Bill. We are now about 30 minutes north west of Mt Pleasant. The nearest town is Barryton. Beautiful country. The problem with moving from our life long home and friends in the Lansing area is the lack of fishing buds. I fish,.... a lot. I even have a t-shirt somewhere that says , "Fishing is not just a matter of life or death, It's much more important than that".
And now that I'm retired, I can hit any boat ramp I want to any day of the week and avoid the weekend warriors. I can chase my faves which are BG, YP and WE . I'm also pretty efficient at catching salmon and trout on Lake Michigan, as I've been chasing them with a boat since they were re-introduced in the late 60's.
Lately I've been in full ice fishing mode. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. While ice fishing in a small portable pull over shanty, I sometimes ran out of room for a good hookset when starting a jigging cadence that started with my spring bobber down close to the hole. As I swim the jig slowly upward, sometimes for a few feet with a slab following *(I can see them on the Vexilar). Finally after much coaxing and swimming upward, I finally get a bite, but have run out of hook setting room. I made the worlds smallest ice fishing rod. Note the "spring bobber" on the end of the rod. These can be bought commercially for a few dollars, but they keep getting more and more expensive. I started making them from broken strings on my guitar. High E or B (.009 or .011) work great along with some craft store beads and tubing, I can make them, with the shrink wrap to secure them to the rod for about 20 cents, half of which is for the shrink wrap. Much cheaper. Works great, and I don't feel so bad when one gets messed up and needs replacing.
Lately the rule of the day has been limits of gills with some bonus YP thrown in. Spikes and Mousies (mousies were not easy to get this year as I like to get 1000 of each at the beginning of the ice fishing season.) I had to order them from a guy in NY.
I am haunted by waters.
J
Worlds smallest rod I cobbled together for fishing in pull over shanties. Works great. Note the guitar string spring bobber on the end. Also the short length allows me to precisely control the jigging cadence. Small movements. Sometimes with a normal length rod and trying to impart a very small jigging action, a longer rod will sometimes move too much at the end where the spring bobber is at, and this I've noticed will sometimes send a following fish back to the bottom. I can control the cadence with the short rod. I like to pulse the jig about 1/4" pulsing and slowly swimming upward. Sometimes in a hard fished spot on a lake where everyone is using an up swimming cadence, I'll do the opposite and slowly swim down to them.
There is of course a very small window or two of opportunity to get the easy bite any given day, but there is also a much larger portion of the day when they are not actively biting, but neutral, and with some effort, can be coaxed into biting. This is the part of the day when the jigging cadence pays big dividends.
Wolfram tungsten jigs and lake map book.
More jigs
Do I need 10 rigged rods when I go, even though I'm usually just fishing with one, sometimes two ? Nope, but it sure looks like I know what I'm doing.
I bought this FL 8 in '92, and the motor finally started giving out last year. Vexilar had a new motor in it and back to me in less than a week, good as new.
Never leave home without them
Chippewa lake Eagles eating left over pan fish on the lake.
Slabs in this lake which is very secluded and small. Occasional 12" BG, with 9 and 10s fairly common. I let the big ones go and keep the eaters. Most of us die hard bluegill anglers keep our gems secret. It's too easy for a lake like this to get over fished.
9 to 10 inch average gills with a few crappie. The large gill was 10 1/2 and the large crappie was 13 1/2. We let two larger ones go. The largest one we released was a 15 1/2". Too big for table fare. These came from a public fished lake in our area.
