They Seem Like They Are Everywhere!!
Thank The Lord For That!
What does one do when you have a day off from guiding? You grab The General and go fishing of course!! Sometimes you just have to go out, not care how you do, and just fish. It helps when ‘The General’ has the day off to ride along and help play with the livescope (more on that in a minute) and just do some searching.
We went and did some tree hopping today and the results were terrible, for the Walleyes anyway. They just seem like they are everywhere, from the onset we had fish on just about every stop, some biting, some just looking. We found a couple honey spots, but we found a few dead stops too. We had 1 Pike in the bucket, and we played with another 36+ incher for about 10 minutes and never did get her to bite.
Buckshots were the key today and I think that had a little to do with the fog. We were able to put 3 Perch topside and marked a few more that wouldn’t bite, so we know they were there too. Less than 20 feet of water today and exclusively Minnow heads for bait.
Livescope -VS- Vexilar
I’ve written an article or two about this subject and had always been PRO Vexilar and argued that the Livescope, while a luxury, wasn’t necessary. To say I have been slow to come over to the dark side would be an understatement. However, I gotta tell you, after having the Scope in the bear for 4 days now, there is no doubt in my mind, it is an absolute game changer. Very soon, the Vexilar will be yesterday’s technology due to the advent of the Livescope. After about the 3rd or 4th stop, I didn’t even drop the Vexilar puck down, didn’t need to, once you get accustomed to the slight delay, taking the time to drop the ducer is just a nuisance.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there will probably always be a place for the Vexilar, whether it be due to cost or mobility, but if you are in a Snobear or fish house, or can afford the room in your UTV or Pick-Up, you really need to have a Livescope handy. The amount of information you gain from having the Livescope is exponential over just a Vexilar. With clients in the bear, I will have both the Vexi and the Livescope down, but when just fishing with buddies or on a search mission, it’ll just be the Livescope.
It is kind of amazing how far we have come in Ice Fishing innovation:
FL8 < FL18 < FL20 < FL28 < FL30 < Livescope
Homemade Ice House < Flip Shack < Snobear
What’s next????
How can things get any better??
I am sure, someone will come out with the next best thing, until then, we are pretty happy with our Snowbears and our Livescope; now just if the Perch would start to bite.
Good Luck out there!
