The Lost Art of Flock Talk

My formative instruction on turkey calling was pretty scant.  Most of what I learned at the get-go, was fanciful instructions from cassette tapes that came with various calls, and lessons from the woods didn’t necessarily mimic what I was hearing out of the marketing materials.  Fast forward to today, and the same problem exists. There is a plethora of social content, video, and TV with hard charging birds that respond well to sharp cutting, excited yelps, and some sounds that I’ve never heard live hens ever make.

As my boys grow older, I find myself hunting earlier youth seasons at the front end of the turkey’s breeding phase.  Hens and toms are often in larger groups, and calling like they do in the videos can really be detrimental to your success.  That kind of talk can work early with isolated toms or bachelor groups, but get too competitive with a tight bunch of hens and their locked-down gobblers, and you’ve got birds that are far more willing to walk away than come closer. 

Flock-talk, in contrast, is a 180-degree approach to the aggressive-all-the-time approach we so often see in todays filmed hunts.  It’s less sexy for sure, and can often be ignored, but it’ll rarely lose you the game outright.  Instead, it allows you to converse with birds, staying close until time, mood, weather, or any other number of factors swing in your favor.  I find it to be the best approach, or at least the right start with most of the birds I work these days.  You can always ramp up the aggression, but it’s hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

Don’t get me wrong, I call and hunt more aggressively than most, sometimes to a fault.  Plain and simple, when it works its flat-out more fun.  That said, I’ve had to un-learn some bad habits to be more successful over time, and many of those old ways involve calling more quietly, while clucking and purring more than mixing in the fancy stuff. 

In your average early season field set-up, good scouting and prime ground means you will likely see birds sometime throughout the day.  Being able to see the bird visually that you are calling to is a real premium situation, and over the years, I have tried my best to be a real student in those scenarios.  I’ve learned that soft clucks, purrs, and occasional yelps will pique what little curiosity a hen has, and make no mistake about it, when a big flock is moving across the field, you’re calling to the hens.

This time of year, hens run the show 24/7.  Toms roost where they’re at, fly down and wait for them, then walk in their tracks until lead-hens are ready to breed.  Subordinate males that hang around the edges can be prime targets for some hard calling, but many of those birds are leery of coming in too loud and proud while the big boys are nearby.  If your play is on a large group of mixed birds, your best bet is to slow-play the entire flock. 

Imitate the sounds of a foraging flock, and pretend you’re feeding more than interested in breeding.  That could include some scratching, especially if in a blind sitting over decoys.  Often, the last thing you want to do at the outset is to appear threatening.  The good and bad of open-field setups is that you can readily see one another, meaning that live birds will often expect you to close at least some of the distance.

Your goal is to get the chatter going, and the animal world is similar to our very own human conversations.  Pleasantries, introductions, and simple greetings are exchanged before conducting any kind of discussion, and you have to be a better listener at times than talker.  Many groups are quiet and soft-spoken in nature, especially if pecking order is already settled and birds are in the heart of the breeding phase.  These birds are the hardest to convince, and your only play can be simply to keep from offending any members of the group in the hopes that a flock-tom or satellite gobbler will eventually sashay close enough for a shot.  Call too hard and too much, you may end the day before it even begins.  I’ve gotten too harsh on literally hundreds of occasions, and have watched far too many hens take their toms in the opposite direction. 

Other groups can be quite vocal, in which case, you are in luck.  More than anything, you’re trying to keep them talking.  Talkative hens will wander, especially the lead-hen.  She’ll typically sound raspier or louder than the rest of the group as she scolds the young jennies and heads up the pack.  She’s not always the lead bird, but she’ll stick out in most flocks that talk.  Be only as aggressive as she is, and do your best to keep her headed your direction.  If she veers, you may consider ramping up the discussion a bit and targeting her specifically.  If you’re towards the end of your hunt, let it all hang out, but if it’s early yet you may wish to hang back.  I’ve killed many birds over the years by letting them walk off, only to have another tom come from another direction, or have a bird on the edge of the flock re-consider and turn the whole group. 

Point-being, calling too much like the all-stars of the TV programs can ruin your eventual run-ins with birds, especially early season.  Don’t forget to make some small talk this year before you get into the heart of the conversation, you might be surprised at how well you can call in the whole flock. 

Getting Ready for Turkey Season the Right Way

Getting Ready for Turkey Season the Right Way

Years ago, my turkey preparation regiment was well-defined and carefully executed, with one glaring error – I started way too soon.  That may seem a conflicting lead-in given that this is an article aimed at properly prepping you for the upcoming season, but my issue was that it drove me crazy.  I’d get to the point where I was more than ready to hunt birds, but there were piles of snow on the ground and it would be months before any seasons opened.  Still, those years of overzealous rituals and long nights waiting did a good job of laying the groundwork for successful seasons.  So much so, that I’ve been able to condense that prep-work into a few short steps.  Here’s what I’ve learned. 

Landowner Permission – Asking permission early is far easier than doing it later when warm-weather activities make you more of a pest than a partner.  90% or more of the upper Midwest turkey hunting is done on private land, so getting good at this aspect of your game is a very important part of your hunt.  Birds continually migrate throughout different parts of ridges and valleys, and also move through stages of the breeding cycle with regional irregularity.  Having 2 or more parcels with good bird activity ensures that if property “A” birds are in a funk and henned-up, the Property “B” birds may be willing to play.

Gear – Now is the time to figure out you need new gloves, not when you have to head-out bare-handed opening morning.  Gear junkies love heading into the woods with weighted down turkey vests, but focus first on fixing, replacing parts, or simply testing the critical gear, and then focus on getting a goodie or two that may increase your chances of success.  This part is the fun part, but beware the tendency to over-do it.  All the knick-knacks in the world won’t help if you can’t quietly slip down a logging road, cross a barbed-wire fence, or belly crawl under some pines.  Focus on a lightweight addition or two that stows nicely and try on your gear.

Calls – A good deal is written on calls and calling, but the most important part of it is first and foremost actually practicing, but a close second is claimed by practicing like you play.  It matters not if you can yelp like a live hen after you get warmed up for 15 minutes.  Progress your practice by starting small and just working on a few vocalizations, but eventually get to the point where you can pick up a call, and make concise noises, at the cadence of your choice, with few to no screw-ups.  After all, that’s what you need to do in the woods.

Remote Scouting – Drive backroads now and find the segregated gobbler groups, knowing that they will use natural cover and other landscape corridors to disperse.  Birds will become increasingly more active as days warm and the sun-angle increases melting on certain slopes.  Look for birds here that are picking at soybean stubble, corn stalks, and other grain waste. 

Sometimes, some Google Earth scouting, combined with simple gravel-travel in the area you hunt can give you clues and cues to some new and overlooked possibilities either for more ground, or different ways to hunt the ground you already have.  Recently, for Minnesota I’ve been using LiDAR elevation data, which offers a hyper-accurate accounting of the land’s surface here - http://arcgis.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/mntopo/

Gun – This continues to be one of the most overlooked parts of our turkey hunting experience.  Good, consistent patterns lead to more confident shots, and effective kills.  The only way to know how your gun performs is to shoot it at 40 yards, and count pellets in a 10” circle.  Somewhere in that 100 pellet range, provided there are no gaps and holes in your coverage, is where you want to be to cleanly kill at that same distance.  If you don’t have anything close to that, limit the ranges you shoot at birds to under that mark.  This year I’ll be trying the new TSS loads in my constant quest to put as many pellets in that kill zone as possible.  I’m a big fan of smaller shot sizes in general, provided they’ve got the down-range energy to perform.  Lastly, don’t ignore your sights either, as most shooters tend to shoot over the top of a turkey in an actual hunting situation when using just a plain bead. 

Journaling – Writing, studying, and ultimately re-living your turkey hunting experiences is not only fun, it’s incredibly effective at helping you to hit the ground running.  I start each season relatively green, forgetting the swing of things until I’m a few days in.  My journals offer keys to forgotten bits of my brain that inform current plans based on the experiences I’ve amassed.  Every turkey is different, but just like poker, you want to play the odds and make the move that gives you the best percentage of success each time you do it.  Few hunts are as decision-dependent as a turkey hunt, and using a journal as a playbook to storyboard each decision in the turkey woods, ensures that more often than not you’ll be in the right mindset to exploit behaviors of the past that play out in the future. 

10 Tips From 10 Turkey Hunting Experts

Turkey-chasers nationwide are getting ready to break out the old calls, go through their camo, and make plans for the spring hunt.  No matter what gear, states, or schedules they prepare however, experience and advice can make or break the hunt of a lifetime, or even just a pre-work hunt off the roost.  This article challenged some of the best turkey hunters in America, as boiling down their many years of hard-won expertise is a task in-and-of itself.  Their tips are gathered here, and can’t help but make you a better turkey hunter.       

Will Primos – Primos Hunting - Perhaps the most influential turkey hunter of our time, Will Primos has been doing it longer and arguably better than anyone before him.  He shares turkey hunting advice through TV, video, and countless articles over the years, and is annually one of the most sought-after names in all turkey circles.  His number one tip revolves around setting up on hill-country gobblers, and specifically why it’s best to set up higher above them in elevation.  Will offers, “it is basic instinctive survival for a turkey, as any gobbler coming to another turkey knows that predators close-by could be listening too.  A turkey headed downhill towards a predator would have to run uphill, gain ground, then turn left or right to jump and put air under its wings to fly away.”  Will continues, “If you are above a turkey he will more readily come to you because he knows that if he sees danger he has to simply turn downhill, catapult into the air and sail to safety.”  For anyone who has seen how quickly a tom can scoot and coast downhill, you know how sound this last tip really is. 

Dick Alford – With many 100’s of gobblers, 43 turkey seasons, and 6 books under his belt, along with more seminar gigs than you can shake a tail-feather at, the 78-year old Alford has more years of experience than anyone on our star-studded panel.  To stay consistent over the years, Alford credits the 4-P’s.  “PASSION for the hunt including knowledge and wisdom, PLANNING long before the adventure begins, PATIENCE while on the trail, and PERSISTENCE allowing preparation to meet with opportunity.”

Aaron Warbritton – The Hunting Public – Aaron has emerged as one of the nation’s premier turkey authorities, publishing thousands of hours of great YouTube instructional and informational turkey hunting content.  Each week during the turkey season, people live vicariously through Aaron’s video work and many travels throughout turkey country.  He emphasizes listening and the finer details that most people overlook when scouting for birds. When filming hunts, he starts at high points during the first 30 minutes of daylight when birds are most vocal.  Aaron notes, “no wind is ideal, but if it's gusting try to listen downwind of where you anticipate the turkeys to be so the wind is actually carrying the sound towards your location.”  Gobbling isn’t the only thing he’s listening for either, and says that “Turkeys can give their position away with a variety of sounds.  We killed a tom with 1 1/2 inch spurs last year on public land because he gave his position away in the tree with a quiet gobbler yelp.  We setup and called him straight in without hearing a single gobble.”       

Jeff Fredrick – Champion’s Choice Calls -  12-time Wisconsin State Turkey Calling Champion Jeff Frederick sounds more like a turkey than your average hen, and has long made high-end custom calls for those that both compete and hunt.  I like Jeff’s calls and use them often, but what he can get out of them compared to what I can just isn’t fair.    Jeff’s number one tip is to be wary of falling into the rut of letting past experiences dictate your current hunting plans.  Frederick says, “turkeys will rarely do the exact same thing from day to day, as any prey species won’t survive well if predators pattern them.”  Similarly, avoid becoming complacent and letting your shotgunning suffer.  “I’ve been witness to plenty of ‘1st-time’ misses,” says Frederick with a grin.

Steve Huettl – Gamehide Hunting Clothing - As general manager at Gamehide Hunting Clothing, Steve totes his bow across the Midwest, continually testing gear and challenging gobblers with a stick and string.  Annually, he’s taking down several gobblers in multiple states, and knows more about bow-hunting for turkeys than most will even learn about turkeys in general.  His number one tip centers around shot placement.  Steve says, “Many people have the tendency to rush the shot and not take the extra time needed to settle the pin on the small vital area a turkey provides.  Once that long-beard commits and is in bow range he usually sticks around to check out your decoys.  Take that extra time to relax, settle the pin and let the arrow fly.”

Billy Yargus – NWTF Grand National Calling Champion - As a guide and upper-echelon competitor on turkey calling’s biggest-stages, the name “Billy Yargus” makes both turkeys and fellow callers get a touch nervous.  I’ve had the opportunity to hunt with Billy, and the guy doesn’t just sound like a turkey, he sounds like a flock of turkeys.  That morning, Billy called in two toms with a flock of hens, a coyote, than another group of 3 bruiser toms, all in the span of an hour.  He did it with absolute non-stop chatter from a mouth call and box call.  So I asked him with all the advice on not over-calling, why he would call louder and longer than anyone I’d heard before?  Billy’s answer was simple, yet stuck as a great tip I’ve taken with me.  Yargus explained, “if you’re not confident on a turkey call, then sparingly calling and keeping the bird guessing just may-be your best bet.  If you sound good on a call however, let the local birds on that morning tell you what to do.”  I have to admit, the hens around us were incredibly vocal, and the toms were eating it up.  Billy was blending in, and standing out all at the same time.

Guy Cunningham - Guide - I’ve written about Guy before, a local friend and former turkey hunting guide that’s been chasing toms beginning in the early 1970’s in Southern Illinois, and all over the country after them ever since.  Few have seen as much in-the-field experience as he has, and fewer yet will be able to translate that into hunting success.  As someone who I’ve learned more from than any amount of books, videos, or articles combined, I felt obliged to include one of his best tips that I’ve used on many occasions.  “Leaf scratching is the best call you’ve got,” says Cunningham, “cagey old birds that’ve been messed with by all the neighbor kids won’t gobble, but they’ll come in quiet to some soft yelps and lots of scratching.”  In Oklahoma a few years ago, we tag-teamed a particularly bad bird as I listened to Guy move around behind me, quietly yelping, scratching, and occasionally flapping a hat like a turkey rising up and stretching its wings.  I was convinced not one, but several hens had slipped in amongst our setup and pinned us down.  We’ve shared many hunts like that over the years, including ones where turkeys gobble from the roost immediately after not yelping or cutting, but simple leaf scratching. 

Travis Frank – Ron Schara Productions - Chances are you’ve seen Travis Frank’s work on TV and video, even when he’s not being featured on camera.  Travis grew up hunting turkeys, calling them nothing less than “addictive,” but now is often faced with the challenge of getting birds to cooperate on camera for several TV shows he produces such as Outdoor Bound and Due North Outdoors.  With tight time schedules and expensive camera time, Frank is a master at getting after birds and making it happen.  He cites overall scouting as his number one tip, mentioning “I prefer to scout birds from as far away as possible with optics, while still being able to see small details like exactly which fencepost they’re coming past to enter an ag field, or what birds (hens, jakes, or toms) come to openings and when.”  When out on foot, Frank says that “tracks in a field tell the story, especially large amounts of them.”  To get birds to close and put on a show, Frank relies on a hen and jake combo to provide maximum appeal without the risk of spooking less dominant toms.  “Adult gobbler decoys have really come on strong in recent years, but I don’t want to limit the amount of birds I’m hunting to only one or two dominant birds in the area.”  Travis stakes down the hen, and positions the jake in a manner to the hen that looks like he’s “pushing” her around.  This method works great, especially early in the season where competition for hens is heavy.        

Ernie Calandrelli – Quaker Boy Game Calls - Ern’ has been hunting gobblers across the globe for decades on TV, videos, and in game call product development roles.  An incredible gobbler-getter, and great guy, Ernie’s tip is a really good one.  “My number one tip would be to persevere.” says Calandrelli.  Keeping a good attitude is key, as he says, “the one thing that is in your favor spring gobbler hunting is that every morning is opening morning. I have seen the same gobbler seem impossible to kill for days then run to the call like it was the first time he ever heard one.”  Take it from someone who’s killed some crafty birds in his time, as that’s advice you can take to the taxidermist.

Lake Pickle – Primos’ “The Truth” Videographer - Lake gets a ring-side seat to some of the best turkey hunts on the planet, and works for true legends in the industry at Primos Hunting.  In chasing some great gobblers over the past few years, he offers “the best tip I can give anyone who wants to become a better turkey hunter is to become the best woodsman that you can be.”  He cites observational skills, reading terrain, and moving about without spooking as key traits to successful hunts.  He states it best by saying, “decent calling and excellent woodsmanship will kill more turkeys than excellent calling and subpar woodsmanship every time.”

The Weedbed Connection for Late-Ice Gills

Photo Credit - Ben Larson - In-depth Media Productions

I write this with excitement for the oncoming late-ice period, where cold nights and warm days make fishing outside a true treat.  We’ve gotten some warmer weather of late, which fuels the drive to be on a remote lake catching gills with no one else in sight.  Of course, these bites can happen in plain sight on any local lake you call home, provided there’s some good gills to be had and great weeds to target them in.

Mid-winter sees some challenging fishing for all species, and with the way a bluegill can study a bait better than just about anything else, you’ve probably seen some tough bites with many fish marked and few caught.  Moreover, you’ve also likely been finding your gills suspended or off of structural elements in water relatively deeper than you found them early ice.  Loosely scattered mid-winter bluegills can be a really tough-go as they relate more to substrate that yields bugs than structure or cover we can more easily locate. 

Everything changes however, as the sun angle grows steeper in mid-March.  Melting snow and more light penetration into the shallows gets life going again.  So does the meltwater from shore areas, cracks in the ice, and old holes.  The lake goes from a previously sealed environment to something that becomes increasingly porous, letting in snacks along the way. 

Throughout this process, you also have increased bug activity at depth.  Perch and Tullibee anglers on the bigger waters will tell you that March is really good to them too, but in the waters you’re likely targeting quality gills, eventually the fish move away from those midwinter locations and focus their efforts shallow.

While I don’t know the exact reason, I suspect it has as much to do with the fact that weeds provide both cover AND food during this time of year.  Anecdotal evidence for that has come in the form of some incredibly large predator catches over the years while targeting large gills.  Some of the biggest and most bass I catch through the ice, and some of the most frustrating days donating mouth-jewelry to pike, come while targeting these shallow weedbeds. 

Pike prowl and so do bass, and by doing so they can actually wreck a good thing in certain scenarios.  Most often, you’ll catch gills on the edges, pockets, or inside turns of weedbeds until the commotion of your fish-catching attracts larger onlookers.  They prowl, move through, disrupt the game for 10-15 minutes, and eventually you settle in to catching gills again.  This process repeats indefinitely until you’ve sore-mouthed the predators enough or you move. 

Typically I’m looking for the best weedbeds adjacent to deep-water chutes, inside turns, or steep breaks.  A strong individual weedbed is far better than acres of the stuff, as the smaller the bed (within reason), the easier your job of targeting gills will be.  In the shallows, if you’re facing a large bed, you’ll need lots of holes and will invariably spook panfish in the process.  You’ll need time to let them settle down, hunt them by foot, and let the situation play out.  This can be a time consuming process, so isolating humps or other rises with weeds near the deeper areas they previously suspended in front of can be a real key.     

Of course not all weeds are created equal.  You’re looking for cabbage, coontail, or a mix of the two in that order.  At least from my experience, the good broadleaf stuff (cabbage) tends to be the main attraction, can form the smaller singular beds you’re hunting for, and will be easy to spot on electronics and underwater cameras.

Speaking of, this is where a good quality, portable underwater camera becomes more of a tool than a toy.  Often with predators cruising and fish burying, the camera will determine your level of success for the day.  Small differences in location, holes even 2 feet apart can be the difference in consistently getting bit and consistently not marking a target.  I’ve seen gills hold tight to the weeds on camera too many times to consider it a coincidence.  Learn what distance it takes to break that forcefield, and you’ll know the rest of the day how close you’ll really need to be to get them to commit. 

Often, your flasher is rendered somewhat less useful here in terms of specific siting of your holes, as all of them will return weeds in water deeper than 8-10 feet or so.  Still, once you’re dialed in, it’s the preferred method as camera cables, weeds, and predator fish means all kinds of untangling once a toothy critter or hungry bass eats your bait. 

Keep in mind too that this progression from suspended or near-bottom deeper fish to the shallows happens differently in each lake.  Some may have a great shallows bite for weeks, while others only give up those gems when the main-lake ice sheet has separated from shore and later.  Knowing another place to hunt for them, and that it’s the place they’ll eventually end up has helped me do well on enough occasions to make it something I look forward to year after year.      

How To Jig

Photo Credit: Matt Addington Photography

Products Featured:

Costa Del Mar Brine Sunglasses

Striker Ice Predator Bib

Shimano Sedona 500

Croix Custom Ice Micro Spoon Rod

Marcum M5 Flasher

Sufix Ice Magic Line

How To Jig

"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." - John Buchan

My favorite quote about fishing sums up nicely how we approach a day on the ice or open water.  Anglers are usually an agreeable crowd, and I find them to be a “glass half-full” group mostly out of necessity.  Not all fish bite, and especially mid-winter, you need to focus on the next one more than the last one.  Still, the question remains, how to attract the next one and actually seal the deal? 

Your jigging stroke has the power to attract fish from distance and entrap them in a trance-like state, as they hang on your every movement until they have no choice but to commit.  Your cadence, unfortunately, also has the tendency to draw them in close, only to get a strong snub upon a very close and tense inspection. 

You want to know the secret to unlocking the bite, the absolute undisclosed truth about what it takes to convert those “lookers” to “biters?”  The secret is that I don’t know.  Really, I can’t predict what it is that an individual fish will like, on a specific weather pattern, on lakes with differing structure, predator/prey relationships, and oxygenation.  Not knowing, IS the secret, which means that each and every trip is a different occasion for hope and ultimately, testing. 

While I can’t offer a simple strategy for always knocking them dead, I can tell you my approach and process of elimination that has served me well throughout the years.  I can also share some common issues with the way most people jig, hopefully helping you to eventually crack the code of the day, each and every time you hit the ice.  For the sake of ease, I’ll generalize into two groups, perch/walleye, and panfish. I’ll also focus on what you should be seeing on your flasher to get the job done.

Walleyes

The first thing to remember with ‘eyes especially is that they’re predators, so I start aggressive.  “Take their temperature” by starting with larger, and quicker jigging motions.  Most importantly, jig 2-5 feet off of bottom to give them room to appear under your bait.  Jig too close to the floor, and bottom hugging fish can only approach from the sides, giving you precious little real-estate on your flasher to observe them.  After the first few fish, you should have a good idea of how aggressive they are.  Are they spooking when you drop the bait in their face, or do they chase it to bottom, hovering over it while it lays in the mud?  Similarly, will they follow the bait upwards, several feet off the bottom where they originated?  Aggressive approaches for fish that are willing will yield the most efficient results, but we know that mid-winter fish are famously stingy.  This is where you really break down the bite.

Sharp jigging motions now should only be used to draw fish underneath your bait and into the cone of your sonar.  Once detected, every fish needs far more subtle motions.  Focus on naturally wiggling the bait, first with small continuous spring-like jigging motions, as if you were drawing a small oval with your rod tip the size of a marble.  Most fish are over-jigged at this stage, so that marble-sized stroke should be a good indicator if you’re waving the wand a bit too heavily.  From there, experiment with changing a few variables.  First, the size of your jigging stroke; go from drawing a marble, to maybe something the size of a golf-ball or bigger, then maybe back to something even smaller yet, that you can only achieve not by jigging, but by simply squeezing the cork on your rod handle.  Next, experiment with working that entire motion upwards in the water column.  Will the fish chase?  Do they only react when the bait is moving, or do they like it when you occasionally “kill” the bait? 

Tough customers sometimes require the above and more, as you tease them off of bottom, watch them retreat, then approach all over again several times.  This is where it’s best to keep doing what you’re doing on a per-fish basis.  In other words, don’t experiment with too many different jigging strokes for a single fish.  Instead, let the fish leave, re-set your approach, then feed a new fish a new look.  Study an underwater camera and learn what small taps on a rod-blank with your fore-finger can mean for the bait and how it jumps.  Recreate what is successful, reject what is not, treating each fish like the individual it is, while looking for clues and general patterns for all of the fish you work.  Of course, a target-rich environment is best for learning, and experience is usually the best teacher, especially when fish are not abundant.

Perch

Perch are aggressive school feeders that eat in a flurry.  Commotion is what they thrive upon, often even when they’re in an incredibly neutral mood.  Active schools move about constantly, requiring as much drilling as they do dropping of jigs, but keeping their attention is of paramount importance.  This is often best-done with some friends, with one person continually jigging aggressively while marking fish, and another experimenting with different baits and jigging styles around the edges.  Once the sonar marks dry up, it’s on the drill again to hunt them down. 

I break down the bite according to what they’re eating, free-ranging invertebrates about the water column, or bottom-focused meals that emerge from the substrate.  Bloodworm or bottom hugging invertebrate bites are all about being near the lake-bottom, putting the bait in the mud as much as above it, and potentially even using underwater cameras for bite detection.  I remember several extremely tough Devil’s Lake bites where fresh minnows and jigs layed on bottom were the only way to get bit.  The struggling minnow was slurped up from bottom, but never while hanging anywhere in the water column.  Jig-down into the mud, with a tight-line, stirring up mud and debris until you’ve created a visible cloud on your underwater camera.  Study how fish react, learning how much to stir it up, and how much to wait it out.

Other bites above bottom, like that of an underwater insect hatch from mayflies or caddis, will often see caught perch spitting up these invertebrates around the hole as you pull them out.  These bites call for aggressive jigging upward in the water column, as you work fish higher and higher to get them revved up.  Playing keep away here can be vitally important, as I believe the school gets more active with more fish feeding about different depth ranges.  Fire them up, and only then focus on catching them. 

There’s no one-way to skin a walleye or a perch, but these starting points are a good way to launch the every-trip experiment, while honing observational skills on your way to cracking the day’s bite. 

The previous segment focused heavily on the thought that each fish has its own mood, persona, and likes/dis-likes.  Bluegills especially take this idea to a new level, often being among the most challenging species to tackle during an off-bite.  I’ve sat on schools of giant gills for upwards of 3-days, re-visiting them from time to time until weather stabilized and their outlook on eating improved.  In high-front situations, with bluebird skies and spiked barometers, sometimes there’s very little you can do.  While it happens, those lock-jaw moments are rare, and more often you’re left with a challenging, yet possible bite scenario tied to a specific color, jigging stroke, or low-light feeding window. 

Bluegill

Trophy mid-winter panfish are legendarily difficult to coax.  Over the years of photo and film-shoots, we would focus efforts early and late specifically to avoid a closed-mouth session of bad-water bluegills.  If you’re learning how to jig them into submission then, your best bet is to focus on the 3rd or 4th day of consistent weather, and a stable or falling barometer.  Pair this with at least a half day on the ice to aid in your cumulative learning, either preceding or into and then out of a low-light period. 

Big gills hang in the water column nicely, as relatively stationary and solid targets on your flasher.  Your first opportunity to impress is on the drop, so resist a hasty drop into a brand new school until you have your wits about you.  Some baits simply drop better than others, so watch your bait for the first few feet to see what it looks like.  Hopefully there’s no spin and the fall looks natural.  Spinning reels and finicky gills have single-handedly brought upon the heavy selection of in-line or straight-line reels these days that allow line to evenly be placed on a spool without twist.  Focus on slowly dropping your bait into a school of fish on a slack line.  Are they rising to meet, or spooking in a refusal to eat? 

The next drop, try an artificial introduction to the fish on a tight line as you steadily control the bait’s fall until just above them.  Sneak it in.  Then start jigging.  Again, focus on initial reactions from your flasher.  Does an aggressive lift draw them closer, or does a more subtle jigging stroke tickle their fancy?  

Technical gill bites are cause for a 2-step process that I like to call “lock-down” and “lift.”  I palm the reel, placing the rig on my thigh or hip while kneeling on the ice.  This settles and steadies my hand, allowing for some more fine motor-skill movements.  From here, I tap the rod blank with a fore-finger to attract, then squeeze the rod-handle in quick-but-subtle bursts to get the fish to commit.  As reluctant fish close, or as they retreat, I start a slow-but-steady lift to hit the re-set button.  I will drop on a slack line or slow and tight line depending on what my early research has shown to be most effective, only to start the process all over again.  Of course, each jig fishes differently based on design.  These are general starting points from which to form your own opinions and best-practices, but keep them in mind next time you tackle a tough gill bite for which there seems no remedy.      

Crappies

Crappies during much of the ice season are easy pickings by comparison, mostly because they suspend over deeper water, giving our sonar cones a chance to grow in diameter and scan a larger underwater area.  Bigger crappies however are often found in weeds or roaming edges instead of basins, such that they’ll often jig up like a less-eager walleye.  For finicky ‘pies, your challenge to jigging is often two-fold.  Control of the jig is of great importance, but it’s made difficult by deep water and small sizes.  On light bites, I’ll err towards the side of bite-detection with a stiffer-than-normal noodle style rod, and when fish are a bit more willing to chew I’ll use a stronger power and faster action rod than normal for better control.

Crappies will often stratify according to size on your graph, with the better fish in the school either feeding high, or more often, sitting lower in the water column and protected by more enthusiastic biters above them.  In such situations, fish fast with heavier tungsten or spoons to blow past the little-guys, but still stay above the better fish.  Crappies seem more unwilling to follow a bait down, with bluegills, and then especially perch being more willing to chase down. 

For that reason, your crappie jigging cadence should be upward-centric.  The up-down keep away game seems to work only with the very most aggressive crappies, and you’ll need to keep the bait quiet more often for really tough customers.  The “lock-down” method works great as a fish really studies your bait, with crappies being notoriously light biters.  What you may mis-interpret as a simple shake from your hand, may actually be a crappie sucking the bait in, before quickly pushing it back out. 

I like to focus on being still or at least very subtly controlled when jigging as a crappie approaches, knowing that my ability to detect his strike is as difficult often as simply getting him to commit.  Whether crappies or gills, the right sequence and strategy can change throughout the day as fish’s activity levels grow and fade.  Interpretation:  What worked yesterday or even an hour ago may not be the order of the minute, so keep experimenting, and keep pushing as you learn while you lift your rod in observationally-patterned motions.