[Aux Pleins]

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Aux Pleins posts another pike, yawn.....

When I fish the Des Plaines I usually tie on one lure and only carry pliers and spreaders. When the bite is off, I'll get crazy and carry a second lure in my pocket. :lol:

Wish I could say the same for when I ice fish.

Anybody else tired of Cletidus and Joetrain posting pictures of sunny days on open bays?

Well I'm not, I enjoy them. I just wanted to point out we have the same opportunities as they do in Florida.
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Northern Illinois Peacock.

Northern Illinois Gator

Caught a dozen small blue gills that came mostly on a tiny jigging rapala tipped with waxies. Had to be on weeds or wouldn't get any nibbles. I couldn't make enough noise with a small presentation to catch many. For the first two hours I tried with little results, things changed when I went with the rapala. In the deeper basins (17fow) perch would come right off the bottom on a tungsten, but no gills. Drilled a total 28 holes and got some stink eye from the guys who were glued to their buckets and not catching anything.

 

[Aux Pleins]

Nice Manitoba sized local water meanie pike. That's about 14oz of slime covering a fish that size. God awful smell that pike slime. Hammers maybe 1oz of slime. Sow pike 14oz.

Sounds like a good idea for a post, "Stinkiest & most slimey fish". Everybody will agree Common Carp takes that crown. I know guys who will throw you out of their boat if you try and bring one in or use their net to bag one.

I will definitely nominate the long nose gar as runner up. I can't unhook one without just being covered in that slime.

 

[Aux Pleins]

Pulling it out of the hole is always harder than putting in it. As for the pike, I actually pulled it out of an 8inch hole and released it in a 6inch hole.

On a panfish hunt I drill 6inch holes everywhere.

 

[Aux Pleins]

Dang man, did you have to widen the hole to squeeze that sow through? :thumbup:

Its something a lot of guys dont think about or plan for, getting it out of the hole once you're hooked up. If you watch YouTube you see a lot guys try all different things. But for the most part it seems like they havent even thought about before hand and they just wing it. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing a salmon guy gaff one so he can get his photo and then release it like it was no big deal. :roll: That happens almost every time I ice fish L.M.

Best way to get em is literally hand through hole and grip under that jaw/gill plate area. Then comes the tricky part of pointing that nose into the hole. Not so easy to get a big fish like that vertical when its floating horizontally against the ice. But definitely a higher landing percentage than trying to use lip grabbers.