YOUTH & THE OUTDOORS Two Stories from One Young Angler! BY MIKKEL GRABINSKI The Smaller the Better! Mikkel with a nice Pike. Big fish aren’t my thing, especially when it comes to ice fishing. For me, landing a monster Pike, or Muskie, isn’t that great of a feeling, but when I pull out a monster Perch or Crappie, what an adrenaline rush. For most people, hearing the drag making out of control buzzes and seeing the rod tip bent like a circle is crazy, but for me, seeing the rod going down 1-2 inches and not hearing the drag is fun. I love catching Panfish, and the odd big fish, but catching a monster Pike on a 1/16 ounce Jig tipped with 2 Maggots, that’s cool. This happened last December, I was jigging for Perch when all of the sudden something hit my jig and was swimming all over, I knew it wasn’t a Perch, 16 | HOOKED | Summer 2011 and I knew it was something big. The drag on my Shimano Sienna reel was going out of control, and my light action rod was bent so far I was sure it would snap. After a 47 minute fight, I managed to pull the monstrous Pike out of the hole, fishing in 28 feet of water, what a blast it was. After this, when I knew that there were some big fish around, I changed my lure to a 3/8 Chartreuse Jig, tipped with a salty, and set up a dead stick with that same 1/16 ounce Chartreuse Jig tipped with 2 Maggots, and what a surprise, every single fish that hit my lure in the next 30 minutes was a Pike on that tiny lure! I landed 8 Pike, all in the 30’s, on that little jig, and not one of them got off, nor bent the hook. As the day went on, I landed about 6 more Pike, and 11 Perch, all on the smaller jig, not even one bite on the 3/8 ounce. I decided to try something different; maybe it was because of the bait, I was using a Minnow on the 3/8 ounce, and Maggots on the other. So I used Maggots on the bigger Jig, and a Minnow on the other, sure enough, this did not make a difference what so ever. I also thought that maybe it was the spot it was over, so I switched holes, but that too didn’t make a difference. The fish clearly like the smaller Northland Jig, which was weird. It just goes to show that a lot of the time, smaller is better. I’ll make sure that next time I’m fishing that lake; I’ll be using a 1/16 ounce Northland Chartreuse Jig tipped with 2 Maggots. At the end of the day, I had 11 Pike, 17 Perch, 3 Walleye, and 1 Maria, all on the smaller Jig. Between me and my partner, we landed 48 fish, 41 of which were on the small Jig. Something that people reading this might want to try out is that Northland 1/16 ounce Chartreuse Jig, and see if it really works that well, or if I was having pure luck. ■ Lesson Learned Ilearned something new on the May Long Weekend, and that was that casting your line into the deeps isn’t necessarily better than trying to catch something in the shallow water. Me and my brother decided that we were going to go fishing Monday Morning. It was a cold and windy day so we decided not to go out in the boat, but to just cast a line off the dock we had just put out and see what would happen. I never really fished off docks, because I always thought fishing out of a boat was the way to go. We casted our Pickerel Rigs with some Salted Minnows, and within a minute of dropping our lines into 2 feet of water, we had nibbles. They were bitting super lightly, so it was hard to know when to set the hook. We didn’t get out until about noon, so we figured the bite wouldn’t be all that great. We were wrong, we were catching alot of Striped and Silver Bass, Some Walleye, Goldeye, Perch and Bullhead. The best thing about that day was catching my first Master Angler Silver Bass, but not only one, four! That was fun, reeling in a 28 inch fat one with the drag buzzing madly. That was one of the best fighting fish I’ve ever had to deal with. We experimented with Crank Baits, Jigs, Spinners, Grubs, Rigs and all sorts of things, everything was catching. We also tried casting into deeper water as opposed to shallow, and the deeper water caught tons more. In the four hours we fished, we caught 59 fish between the two of us. Thats a pretty good day for off the dock. It took me way too long to learn that, because I think ill be doing much more off-shore fishing this summer, its easier, cheaper and to me funner than being in a boat! For those who swear by fishing in the middle of the lake on a boat, make sure you cast a line off shore this summer to know how great it really is. Maybe I was having an awesome day, but it was one of the funnest fishing days ever. Thanks for reading and happy fishing. ■
Kids! The Manitoba Moose have generously donated prizes for our <strong>Hooked</strong> Kids section! So send in your pictures for a chance to win! Winners will be notified via email. Create moments that last a lifetime. Take a kid fishing today! Email your pictures to: hookedmediainc@shaw.ca This Issue’s Winner! Summer 2011 | HOOKED | 17
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