What your search should look like on the Big Devil
We have talked a lot about our Perch Searches, we have discussed our hole set system and how we go about turning the ice into a whiffle ball. Hopefully, at some point, a guy wants to happen upon a school of Perch, the Golden Spindle.
What we are looking for initially is a depth pattern, these lines of holes (hole sets) are drilled across the contours and we are hoping to establish depth at which we are marking the majority of the fish.
Sometimes it takes 10 holes, sometimes 50; eventually though, we usually are able to pinpoint a water depth that is holding the majority of the fish.
The more fishermen you have in your group working the sets the better. At the onset it is all about gathering as much information as possible in as short a time as possible.
Once a Depth is Identified!
After we have established a water depth we change tactics a little. Instead of ‘drill across the contours’, we start drilling ‘parallel to the contours’, hoping to find a concentration, or spindle of Perch.
Once your most active fish are located, a person can just drill in and sit on them and wait, you will catch fish, but we are not that patient. We are willing to work to get the most out of our time on the ice. One of the tactics we use is the ‘Slip Bobber Diamond.
Sometimes the Perch are crazy active and a person doesn’t have time to even think about rigging bobbers, those are the days we are aways searching for.
However, a lot of times the school is there but is lazy and one needs to ‘Insight the bite’. We attempt to do this by having one hole where we are vigorously and actively jigging a larger Varmint or Jigging rap, trying to be as obnoxious as possible to call the fish in and have Slip Bobbers set up in a diamond formation to pick off hungry perch as they come.
Pre-Game
We do a lot of homework before we ever touch the ice. I would say we put as many hours in analyzing GPS and Google Earth and Lakemaster Pro Map Series as we do actually on the ice fishing.
We are looking for very specific things in the form of contour lines and structures. To give you an example:
For the experienced Devils Lake angler, a lot of this is elementary and may seem obvious, but for the fisherman who wants to try out the Big Devil for the 1st time or has come here and struggled, these tips will help you both eliminate water quickly and hopefully help you…
