December 2007

Episode 49
Monster Fall Saugers
Show Date: December 1st & 2nd, 2007
Location; Lake Wisconsin, Lodi, WI
Guide: Pro Guide Big Dave Ehardt [414-803-7160]

This week we headed up to Lake Wisconsin near Lodi to fish for giant saugers with Big Dave Ehardt. The lake is known to have the biggest saugers in the midwest and they bite the best in Late November.

We concentrated our efforts near the railroad bridge at Merrimac. We used zip lures and jigs tipped with fatheads. We fished in about 20-30 feet of water keeping the boat vertical. Our boat only caught 4 saugers in the morning, the biggest went 21 inches. But if you watch the show catching just one of these beauties is worth the day. We also landed a 25 pound muskie under the bridge.

Lake Wisconsin is known for it's trophy saugers but it also has an excellent population of walleyes, smallmouth, and crappies. It maybe too late to get out and try this fishing because we had to break skim ice to get out on the lake.

In the afternoon we headed up river and the fishing there was fast and furious. Using the same techniques we caught over 30 saugers and walleyes however they were much smaller on average than the lake fish. One good thing about the Wisconsin river is it stays open almost all winter and Big Dave is out there guiding almost every day. The river in the winter always produces plenty of fish and all you have to do is find the deep holes and vertical jig.

Hey folks, next week we'll be on ice somewhere.



Episode 50
Hayward Ice
Show Date: December 8th & 9th, 2007
Location: Hayward WI
Guide: Pete Maina [thenextbite.com | petemaina.com]

This week was our first ice fishing outing of the year. I joined Pete Maina and a group of friends in the Hayward area to do some walleye and northern fishing. We found pretty good ice conditions on the smaller lakes. 4 to 5 inches were common and we were able to run our atvs without any issues. I should mention that ice conditions in Northern Wisconsin in general are the good. However there is 8-10 inches of snow on the ice which does make travel a little difficult. Be careful on the bigger lakes.

As far as the fishing is concerned we did pretty well. We concentrated our efforts in and around the weed beds. Tip ups were the way to go. I jigged for awhile and never saw a fish on the locator. Early ice will usually find the walleyes and the northerns cruising the weed lines. We ended up catching a few nice eyes, those came later in the day, just before dark. The northerns bit on and off all day. The biggest tip I can give you for this time of year is weeds, weeds, weeds. On most of our lakes in Wisconsin and Minnesota this is where most game fish feed. 4 to 5 inch suckers produced most of the fish, although we did bring a variety of bait. I was surprised the bigger suckers caught the walleyes.
By the way snowmobile conditions should be great for the rest of month.


Episode 51
Small Lakes, Big Fish
Show Date: December 22nd and 23rd, 2007
Location: Ely, MN
Guide: Matt Bichanich – Uncle Josh Bait Company [unclejosh.com]

Popping hole in the little lakes produced some big fish on this ice angling adventure.

Heading north to Ely, MN, we set out to a small lake in the area. Our guide Matt Bichanich tells us that a lot of the smaller lakes in the area don’t get any fishing pressure in the open water season because there is no boat access. Which explains why we take a 2 mile trip through the wilderness on our Yamaha’s just to get to the lake. Oh and the temperature by the way: 17 below zero, but no wind so it actually wasn’t that bad.

Once we get out there we find there is a good 6 inches of ice. The ice is covered with over a foot of snow, which makes for some slushy conditions. This is typical of what happens when you get lots of snow right after the freeze. The snow insulates the ice, so its much harder to get a good formation of ice. Some times when this happens the ice isn’t safe to venture out on to. Always make sure you are positive of the ice conditions before you head out.

The fishing came in flurries. The first day fishing for northerns, we hung live sucker minnows right off the bottom in 10-12 feet of water. We caught most of our fish around 11:00 am. We were also catching some panfish to fill our the day.

The second day was all about the ZIP lure catching monster crappies. Trying to follow the fish we drilled lots of hole and kept moving all day. Which allowed us to consistently catch 8-10inch crappies.

Episode 52
Petenwell Ice
Show Date: December 29th & 30th, 2007
Location: Petenwell Flowage, Adams County, WI
Guide: Pro Ice Guide Larry Smith [920-361-4996 | walleyeguide.com]

It’s back to the ‘ol stopping ground with pro guide Larry Smith.

This week we were on the Petenwell flowage with Larry and his two sons. Using his GPS spots that he marked earlier in the year when he was fishing open water, Larry is able to take us all right to the spots where the fish are at. Setting up tip-ups that surround our Frabill camp, we catch the eater eyes that we are targeting. We also catch a nice catfish.

Jigging get the us even more excited when we land some nice white bass, and ever nicer walleyes.

We also get a look at Frabill’s all new shack, a completely different technology than was used in previous versions.

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